Solid Adventure Foiled by Atrocious Camera and Art
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel is an adventuresome roam-and-explore, multiplayer, thoroughly Western RPG. I have to make that distinction because Japanese RPG's couldn't be a whole lot more different from games like Sacred 2. The art style, as befits a Western game, is atrocious to the point of being laughable in many places. However, exploring the world of(insert random fantasy-sounding place name) is quite fun--especially if you're joined by several friends while doing it. The item collecting and character-building are truly enjoyable. And while the aesthetics are nowhere near similar, the game reminds me a lot of Herc's Adventures on the Saturn/Playstation. It was the exploration that won me over in that game, and it's the same aspect of Sacred 2 that I enjoy.
That said, this review would come complete with a 4-star rating if it wasn't for one thing: the camera. I have never been more frustrated with a camera system in any other game. And I've played through Sonic Adventure 2. Yeah, it's that bad, though not for the same reasons. You can either choose to zoom WAY out to where you can't see your character (unless you're playing multiplayer on the same screen, in which case you are forced to have the camera zoomed all the way out) or you can zoom in and feel the frustration mount as you realize that unlike almost all other 3rd person action games, Sacred 2 puts the character at the TOP of the screen and aims the camera at an isometric angle. This renders being zoomed in even worse than being zoomed out. At a distance, at least you can see where you're going or whether there are any enemies in front of you.
The camera makes no sense to me whatsoever. Why not allow the player to see ahead of himself? This truly decreases the fun factor. And if you're like me, you have to get right up next to the screen to see. I have bad vision. It could be worse, I suppose. I could be playing this game on a screen smaller than 110 inches.
