Sacred

"Sacred - New Diablo (or not)?"

First I want to say that this review is spoiler-free and sorry about poor language; my skill of English isn't the best one. So beware of grammar mistakes.

In the summer of year 2000 Diablo II changed the world of hack 'n' slash -RPG:s. That was so cool; many acts, unexpected monsters and bosses, incredible many weapons and so on. After the release of Diablo II, many and many game company's started to create them "own" ones, just like Diablo. Maybe some of you can think this is just like Diablo II, but you're wrong. Yes, here is many pieces like D2, but there's combos, new characters and much other kind of world.

First I've to say that the game is full of bug bigs.. Oh, sorry, big bugs, I meant. That's the number one thing what is getting the game bored faster and faster. Like when attacking with a horse, and you don't kill monster all the way, so you run farther, the horse will spin all around like a amusement park machine. And when you try to pick up a item on a ground (where is many else items too), sometimes it will pick up ALL THE ITEMS, but NOT that what you want. I wonder why Ascaron have released so unfinished game. Ok, there is many good things in the game, but still.. Ascaron should release Sacred much later when they've took all the bugs (possible? :) away.

In Sacred you can choose sic character classes. Gladiator is like barbarian in D2, Seraphim is a descended of a mystical angels, Battlemage is a magic guy with a staff, Wood Elf shoots with a bow and arrows, Dark Elf is a shadow fighter and Vampiress is a person who can't fight in the sunlight.

This game is quite versatile but it doesn't give anything really new, except combos and combo arts (you can make your owns with Combo Master in some villages, you need also combo runes for them). I could say this game is a biol of as-I-speaked-about Diablo II and Ashen Empires (because you can choose angle of view (near, farther and far)) and the world (Ancaria) really looks like it. One else problem in Sacred is the scale of Ancaria. It's just too big for running/riding and you will see teleports - like waypoints on Diablo - too rarely (by the way, there is two kind of tp's).

But there's one big difference too between Diablo and Sacred. Graphics are 3D and better animated, regrettably only for good computers. You can't choose resolution, it's the same always, so Sacred has been maked more for fast and big-resolution PCs, opposite of Diablo, where you can choose two little resolution. But if you got powers in your PC and Windows, this will work well.

I don't know what to say about sounds, they're just good, I don't see anything poor. Voice actors of characters and monsters just should speak little bit more, they've only some replics and that's all. But here's one thing what I want to focus: controls are great. When you got more levels, you got more places for weapons and combos, which you can use just pressing number keys.

Sacred is quite successful output, but maybe I wouldn't took 40 euros/dollars for this game, YET. We have to remember this is just a 1.5 -version of Sacred, and version 1.7 is coming soon. Now, take a deep breath and dive to the world of Sacred, Ancaria is waiting for you.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/18/04