Small blemishes mar enjoyable RPG

By Martin Kingsley

"Now, where did I put my Lucky Magic Deadly Chainmail Underdaks of the Red Dragon +4?"

If you put all the bigger RPGs of the last five or six years in a line-up, chances are, it'd go something like this:

At one end, you'd have Arcanum, Diablo II, and Morrowind, whilst, at the other, there'd be hideous little creations like, oh, I don't know, Sentient (I really hope nobody remembers that one).

They'd be in order of playability and creativity, and somewhere in the top third of the abovementioned line, there would be Sacred, leaning against the wall trying desperately to be covert.

Influenced by the likes of Blizzard's Diablo and Gas Powered Games' Dungeon Siege, the debut effort of little-known developer Ascaron, Sacred is a strange beast.

It's got the looks and the depth to be better than both of the above, but fails on levels one would have thought were integral to an RPG's success in this cruel commercialised world of ours, which brings the game down several notches.

Set in a nicely mystical world populated by standard-issue fantasy fare (orcs, kobolds, undead, goblins, well-endowed peasant girls and the like), you, as one of six predetermined heroes, must save innocent lives, vanquish demons, quaff vast amounts of ale, slay the dragon and get the gold, but not necessarily in that order.

The graphics are very impressive for Ascaron's first published game

It's very much a 'mouse-goes-clicky-clicky' dungeon-trawling slasher.

However, to add some variety to the proceedings, the above-mentioned heroes are reasonably inventive as far as classes go, with a Seraphim (half human, half angel) and a Vampiress standing alongside the Gladiator, the Dark Elf, the Wood Elf and the Battle Mage, all of whom have varying abilities and special powers.

All cool so far, right? No.

If you take a good look at the skill charts of each character, you'll quickly notice that there are some serious skill overlaps going on, which seems a bit of a cop-out, really, as your characters develop only to become pseudo-mirrors of each other.

Sure, they start out differently, but that's not the point. It's how they end up that matters.

Attached to the above is the problematical combat system, which is damnably clumsy and kills the entire experience with no help needed from any other element of the game. Although, it's about the only thing it's actually capable of killing, let me tell you.

You can't line attacks up, there's little or no indication of whether a hit has landed, enemy distribution is totally screwed (too many high-level monsters too early on), and attempting to attack on horseback is doomed to failure most times due to the lining-up-of-attacks issue.

Our intrepid hero takes on Shrek's lovechild

For a hack-and-slash game, this doesn't bode too well...

Sacred's visuals manage to salvage the experience, being somewhat prettier than Dungeon Siege, but with pre-rendered backgrounds.

There's some nice animation on display, and the various environs are purty, but are not enough to actually save the game, just, as I said, salvage it.

The same goes for the audio: it's nothing special, but is good enough to give some credibility to the fantasy world within Sacred. Which is, I suppose, helpful if like many RPG fanatics, you own a less-than-beastly PC.

Now, before you all jump on me about being a spoilsport and a jaded cynic, there are many upsides to Sacred.

There's the sheer joy of sorting through the massive amounts of creatively-named/drawn loot that most monsters tend to drop, the horseback-riding/fighting, the fully-realised setting, it's all there.

Things like the multiplayer game modes (Co-operative and Hack 'n' Slay) are nice touches, as is the ability to create your own 'special moves' and who could go past the Smithy, who can combine rings, gems and other magical items to produce seriously slick weapons and threads.

But… Sacred could have been so much more, yet was brought down by a badly implemented combat system, strange line-of-sight issues and what seems like a general lack of planning.

Maybe this can be addressed in a patch down the line, but for now, Sacred is more for the rental crowd, or the hardcore fantasy role-player. When it comes to purchasing, though, I'd save my money for Dungeon Siege II. Sad but true.

Game: Sacred
Players: 1-multi
Online: Yes
Developer: Ascaron
Distributor: Red Ant

Rating: 70%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Sacred is on the shelves now.