Comparing the Three Risen Games

While playing through the three Risen games, back to back, I took about 700 screenshots for each of the first two games and more than 1200 for the third. I thought it would be interesting to gather this together and compare similar things across all three of the games, to see how things evolved or changed.

I’ve wrapped the screenshots inside spoiler tags that you have to open up (unless you’re using an RSS reader). I’ve indicated in the spoiler title how severe the spoiler is. Open a section and click a thumbnail to open the media carousel. Game titles are shown in the bottom of it.

You can also just hover the mouse pointer on a thumbnail to see the game title.

Spoiler: Admiral Alvarez (Mild)

Admiral Alvarez

Admiral Alvarez lives in the harbour town of Antigua and was introduced in Risen 2. He didn’t change much in Risen 3. My guess is that the developers merely copied and pasted his model.

Spoiler: Admiring a View (Mild)

Admiring a View

These are mostly panorama screenshots where our hero is looking into the distance, typically from higher ground. You can see how the details, lighting and view distance changed across all three games.

Spoiler: Beach (Mild)

Beach

Just walking along the beach in each game.

Spoiler: Boat (Mild)

Boat

In Risen 2 and 3 you can use a small boat on the beach to either reach your ship or fast travel to a different beach on the same island or peninsula.

Spoiler: Bones (Mild)

Bones

Bones was introduced in Risen 2 as a crazy voodoo doctor in a camp of natives. In Risen 3 he appears after the tutorial and even has his own sloop. He joins the crew as a potential companion in both games.

They changed his model between both games (or maybe he just grew more hair).

Spoiler: Camp of Natives (Mild)

Camp of Natives

In one island or peninsula in both games (it differs) there’s a camp of natives with huts. This too was first introduced along with the pirate theme in Risen 2.

As you can see, the circular staircase arena was reused.

Spoiler: Captain Crow (Severe)

Captain Crow

Captain Crow was introduced in Risen 2 as an antagonist the hero has to face in a boss fight where a Titan Lord is also summoned. The hero kills Crow in this fight. In Risen 3, Crow appears as a ghost captain in control of a fleet of enemy ships. Apparently his model wasn’t changed.

In Risen 3, the ghost Crow appears both in the very beginning of the game (before the tutorial) as well as in a short battle that is repeated almost verbatim much later in the game. But for some odd reason, he has a blue tint in the beginning and a green tint in the actual battle.

You can see these before and after colors in the gallery too.

Spoiler: Captain Slayne (Severe)

Captain Slayne

Another captain introduced in Risen 2. The hero meets him for the first time together with Admiral Alvarez on the island of Antigua. Slayne betrays the hero who later kills him in a duel to the death. In Risen 3, he appears as a ghost in one of many dream sequences.

It doesn’t look like his model was changed in Risen 3.

Spoiler: Captain Steelbeard (Severe)

Captain Steelbeard

The mighty Captain Steelbeard, father of both Patty and of the new nameless hero in Risen 3, is actually only referred to in the first Risen. His first appearance is in Risen 2, where he accompanies Patty and the first nameless hero (with the eye patch) on the island of Tacarigua.

After defeating Captain Crow and obtaining his legendary weapon, Steelbeard is killed by the Titan Lord Mara at the beach. Much later in Risen 2 our hero meets the ghost of Steelbeard in the Underworld. In Risen 3, he only appears as a ghost in various dream sequences.

Apparently his model wasn’t changed in Risen 3, apart from now sporting a blue ghost tint.

Spoiler: Caves and Dungeons (Mild)

Caves and Dungeons

A collection of screenshots in various caves and dungeons, across all three games.

Spoiler: Chani (Mild)

Chani

Chani was introduced in Risen 2. She is a native voodoo priestess and can become your companion if you choose her faction in this game. In Risen 3, she is a quest giver and part of an event in the story line.

Spoiler: Character Screen and Inventory (Mild)

Character Screen and Inventory

In the first Risen, the character screen and inventory was mixed together in one encompassing window, although the inventory itself could also be opened in a small window when e.g. looting.

Risen 2 introduced segregated screens with tabs for attributes, inventory, skills, and more. Risen 3 was based on the same style and set of screens, merely tweaking the graphics and attributes available.

The first Risen was also the only game in the series that used levels. The pirate theme of Risen 2 and 3 replaced this with a stream of undivided glory (XP) which could be spent on increasing attributes.

Spoiler: Close Combat (Mild)

Close Combat

All three games start with almost solely close combat using blades or similar melee weapons. The first Risen had a more traditional fantasy system with blades, shield, and magic based on mana.

Firearms were introduced in Risen 2, either as a pistol in one hand activated with a special hotkey or as shotguns or muskets that has to be aimed with an orange ring that fills up to indicate precision.

This section only shows screenshots from close combat.

Spoiler: Commandant Carlos (Mild)

Commandant Carlos

Commandant Carlos is one of the good guys of the Inquisition and can be found in all three games. In the first game he’s in the generic harbour town, in Risen 2 he’s in the Crystal Fortress in Caldera right at the start, and in Risen 3 he can be found on the small Fog Island.

It looks like the model is the same again across Risen 2 and 3.

Spoiler: Cooking Meat (Mild)

Cooking Meat

Risen uses loot and amount windows and shows the cooking in the actual game engine itself. Risen 2 and 3 both uses a segregated screen.

Spoiler: Creek or River (Mild)

Creek or River

Spoiler: Crouse (Mild)

Crouse

Crouse pops up in both Risen 2 and 3 as a parody of the shipwrecked Robinson Crusoe. They changed his head in Risen 3 (clearly an improvement) but he’s still wearing the same trousers.

Spoiler: Dialog Choices (Mild)

Dialog Choices

Here you can see what it looks like when you get a list of dialog choices across all three Risen games.

Spoiler: Drinking Minigame (Mild)

Drinking Minigame

The drinking minigame was introduced in Risen 2 and used again in Risen 3.

Spoiler: Dusk or Dawn (Mild)

Dusk or Dawn

One screenshot for each game in the series.

Spoiler: Eldric the Druid (Moderate)

Eldric the Druid

Eldric is an interesting NPC that has an important role to play in all three games. In the first and third Risen he’s only a quest giver but he actually joins your crew as a companion in Risen 2.

The model for Eldric has changed considerably across all three games. It actually looks like a completely different person in each of them. Personally I really liked the way he looked in Risen 2.

See page 2 for F to N.

Risen 3: Profanity Overload

Read more “Risen 3: Profanity Overload”

While I was playing through Risen 3: Titan Lords, and also later while writing the blog post about it, it repeatedly hit me how much the characters were cursing and swearing all over the place. I don’t consider myself a sissy regarding this – in fact, I often decry the lack of profanity in American TV shows.

Nevertheless, the writers certainly didn’t hold back regarding profanity, mocking and negging in this game, and there were places where I thought they really overdid it. I know this is a pirate game and it is supposed to fit the theme, but just a tiny bit more moderation might still have been for the better.

For example, have you ever had this dialog option before upon meeting the bad guy for the first time?

Screenshot

Screenshot

He deserved it, no doubt, yet it still seemed out of place. And Nekroloth didn’t really react to it anyway.

Risen 3: Titan Lords

Read more “Risen 3: Titan Lords”

Developer: Piranha Bytes | Released: 2014 | Genre: RPG, Third Person

I decided to round off with the third game in the series now that I was on a roll anyway. Again, it was from Steam and included all DLC. This played like the quite the best game of the three. Yes, it reused a lot of assets and ideas from the second game (which probably also explains the development gap of only two years) but it felt more refined and it also grabbed me a lot better in the beginning, especially because I visited Fog Island first where plain old exploration was in the lead.

The game was more colorful and overgrown than ever. Truly Caribbean “Bounty”-land and lots of weird plants. For some strange reason the guy in my control was now Patty’s brother, without any explanation about what happened to the previous nameless hero with the eye patch. Maybe they simply didn’t want gamers to see that eye patch anymore? Alas, the siblings really left a skewed first impression. Patty now looked like a porn star with tits right in your face. I love tits as much as any man, but her outfit was really ludicrous. Similarly, the new nameless hero had a deep and dry voice that was just contrived.

I was already missing “John” and his normal voice. Two games and he was out.

The human models were much better now and added a lot to the overall impression. Eyes now moved properly to the sides, lip sync was slightly better, and although gesticulations were still a bit exaggerated, they seemed more focused now. Dialog was the same old. It still had that feeling of superfluous information that I often had to skip to get to the point, or maybe the interlocutor passed that point long ago and just kept on blathering anyway.

Risen 3: Spell Immunity

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I’m in the middle of playing through Risen 3: Titan Lords and have just acquired some offensive magic spells by joining one of three factions in the game. I’ll try to keep spoilers at a low level here, so I won’t go too much into specifics. (A minutia blog post about the game will be uploaded when I’ve completed it.)

After joining up with the faction, I was given a trial of killing a golem with an offensive spell. The trainer recommended using a fire spell that i could buy from him now, but then my experience with a ton of RPG immediately begged to differ. In most of these games a common denominator often say that creatures are probably immune to elemental spell damage that matches their own affinity. Fire demons ignore fire damage, ice golems ignore frost damage, that kind of thing.

But the trick is that in most RPG, beings immune to lightning are actually quite rare – most of the time even nonexistent. Lightning often works well against all elemental creatures, including fire and ice. And for that reason, I’ve favored this type of magic for quite a while.

So I ignored his recommendations, went to another trainer, and bought a lightning spell!