Sacred 2 – First Look
Hacking and slashing in a bikini never looked so good
Tags: Sacred 2: Fallen Angel Categories: PC Previews, Previews, Xbox 360 Previews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Mar 15th, 2007
Sacred 2 is the upcoming role-playing game currently in development at Ascaron, developer of the original Sacred, as well as a number of other titles, such as DarkStar One. The story revolves around the balance of good and evil, and players will choose at the onset of the game which side to play, as well as selecting from one of six different classes. The different classes affect how the game is played, but not the outcome – and for players to get the full story of what is being told, both campaigns will have to be played through.
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What I was shown looked very good on both the Xbox 360 and PC. The level of detail was rather high on both machines. Naturally, the PC version will be better, with three levels of display, low, medium, and high. The Xbox 36 version will be somewhere between the medium and high PC setting. Additionally, there will be a “super high” setting for the type of gamer that has a bleeding edge type machine.
What can players expect visually? Everything is one world, look through a window to see what is inside of a house. This is being done by streaming everything in the background. The fur is quite … furry and everything moves very well – I was shown the heroine in a bikini style armor in order to have displayed the musculature on the back moving in a natural manner while walking.
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Aside from bikini-clad buff heroines, each character, whether it is the player or a monster will have different animations depending on which weapon it is wielding. Large two-handed swords will be wielded as such, and hammers, axes, and other smaller items will have a completely separate animation script. As a matter of fact, every action is being animated – while getting on a mount, I was shown the detail of the foot being placed in the stirrup.
Sacred 2 will feature over 100 different types of creatures, each with a high level of detail – at least according to what I initially saw. One boss type enemy was a large golem type creature with two different elemental fists, one ice, the other magma. Both had their own different visual effects, and the whole thing was running smoothly. Plenty of dynamic lighting and shadow effects were on display as well.
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While there will be six different classes to play as, one will not need to play through each of them in order to get the full story. As a matter of fact, players will be able to go through the story or just wander around and work their way up to level 200. At approximately 30 hours of gameplay for the story, with plenty of open ended options (such as over 600 side quests), just in terms of value, Sacred 2 should have plenty to offer. The question is going to be if the game is any fun. It would seem that since the first one proved popular enough to warrant a sequel, this might be “high” on the “likely to be there” list.
Also enticing players will be the co-op play, for both Xbox 360 and PC. 2 players on one machine or up to 4 players online for the Xbox 360, as well as LAN and arena play. It is hoped, since the game is not coming out until 2008 that everything will work out to allow cross-platform play.
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Each of the different classes have a large skill tree to go through, which is normal for this type of game. What is going to make this game different however will be the combination system where players can combine different skills and attacks into one button press. The longer the combo, the longer the recharge time, as one might expect. The goal is for everybody to go through the game, build up a character, go through a second time to get the full story, and have a unique character at the end of the process.
Aside from the varying skill trees, each character type will have their own type of mount that can be used. Mounts are not going to be primarily used for transportation (though there will be some of that) instead the use will be mostly for combat. The idea will be that players can get on their mount and wade through a large wave of enemies. Don’t only look for just horses, I was shown a couple of creatures, including a rather large tiger-like creature.
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Right now, development on the Xbox 360 version is about three months behind, but the goal is to have both PC and Xbox 360 version launch within 2 weeks of each other. The biggest challenge is keeping the framerate stable, Another area that I was shown was an area with a large selection of treetop style houses, with plenty of wood grain detail. Rain and lightning effects helped to complete the very atmospheric setting. It is obvious that there is plenty of stuff going into the game, it’s just a matter of getting all to gel together now.
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Tags: Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Mar 15th, 2007 and is filed under PC Previews, Previews, Xbox 360 Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
