'Sacred 2' divinely uninspired

• By JOSHUA WASCOM
• Special to 2theadvocate.com
• Published: Jun 4, 2009

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“Sacred 2” is actually a prequel, taking place thousands of years earlier than the first game in the series. Choosing one of six distinct characters, you set forth across the land of Ancaria in a quest to determine the precise nature of a slimy blue substance called “T-energy” that has become a source of both power and woe for the land’s inhabitants.

The game is a fairly simple hack-and-slash action RPG that doesn’t add much to the formula laid down by the 1996 game, “Diablo.” The degree of character customization is greater and the graphics are prettier. However, everything you do still breaks down into one of three categories: wandering around killing things, comparing stats on various skills and items, or talking to people who ask you to wander around and kill things.

Not that there’s anything wrong with this formulaic simplicity. With earlier games like “Diablo II” and “Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance,” the gameplay can clearly be extremely fun. The problem with “Sacred 2” is that it inserts an overwhelming number of boring and frustrating bits in between the fun parts.

In the character customization, for instance, you’ve got three different combat aspects, each of which has five different combat arts, and each of those has two distinct modification paths. This isn’t even getting into “skills.” This level of complexity could be a lot of fun with which to experiment, but very few of your potential upgrades have large and obvious benefits.

Further complications are added by tips on loading screens that effectively say, “For God’s sake, don’t upgrade all of your combat aspects, it will be disastrous!”

Unfortunately, the game never gives an explanation as to why this is a bad thing.

Exploration is fun for a bit, but sometimes a cave you can easily see is completely inaccessible to your all-powerful Shadow Warrior because of a 4-foot wide stream or a particularly dense bush.

The five minutes it takes to find another route is not spent happily.

Item collection, another common source of fun, is strangely broken, as you can never see what you’re picking up. Every single item, from gold to laser guns, is represented by a small sparkle. Because of this, you must constantly go through your inefficient inventory to get rid of all the small useless things you picked up.

In short, while there are fun things to do in “Sacred 2” you’re going to be slogging through a lot of unnecessary tedium in order to do them. If you really need an action RPG fix, it may be worth a rent, but at least try to find someone to play through it with you. The cooperative aspect is probably the brightest point in the whole game.