ic-games Review - Sacred Plus - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

ic-games Review - Sacred Plus - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii ic-games Review - Home - Review, Preview and Interview for PC, Xbox,Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

Sacred Plus

Information
Reviewer: James Collins
Developer: Ascaron
Publisher: Koch Media
Reviewed: N/A
Genre: RPG
UK Release: 22nd Oct 2004
Article Date: 24th Nov 2004
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price: £19.99
Price Comparison:
0

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 93%

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Pros

Brings new ideas to the table

It looks fantastic

Range of characters do alter the gameplay

Cons

Hack and Slash may not appeal to all

Some initial "server" problems

Screenshots

16 of 32

Eight months have passed since the original release of Sacred, now it’s back and called Sacred Plus. So what do you get for the ‘Plus’? Well, you get an updated version of Sacred, complete with additional two regions and quest to explore, more weapons and armour. The owners of the original Sacred can get the ‘Plus’ update for free from the Sacred website, but for those that haven’t delved into this title it gives them the chance to gain all the updates without a mega-sized download.

So Onto the story-line for Sacred Plus, well that hasn’t changed any, especially for anyone starting at the beginning, the additions for ‘Plus’ won’t become obvious until much later. Onto the story then…

Lets face it, we’ve all done it. Summoned a great daemon from the pits of hell with the sole purpose of taking over the world, but messed up the spell to a degree where the disgruntled beast runs wild, attacks you and disappears into the night.

And as the old saying goes, if you haven’t done it, someone else has. In this case it’s our old friend 'Shaddar' the local Necromancer. Well rightly so the villagers were not best pleased with having a hell spawn loose in their village so they banished Shaddar. An uneasy calm followed in the hundreds of years afterwards, as the dark magician wandered through the deserts of the south. Orcs, Goblins and Ogres still whisper his name in utter fear around their campfires at night as news spreads about a Dark Tower which is rising beyond the rocky lands… they call this tower "Shaddar-Nur". And the nightmare is about to return.

First off, let’s not beat around the skull cap here, Sacred will appeal to all Diablo point and click fans out there, and there are certainly more than a few of them. Eating, sleeping and drinking the classic game only to take breaks to sell their latest finds on Ebay. While the comparisons will be large and well noted in any review you may read there are still a few major differences between this wannabe, and the tried and tested behemoth. For one, with previous Diablo titles you were hand held though the initial levels, not so with Sacred. While you’re encouraged to stay within your own boundaries to start, the developers have decided to open up 70% of the world immediately to the player. While venturing out this far will almost certainly lead to death we salute Ascaron for actually allowing us to do so. Role playing games are often let down by the appearance of an artificial world which “grows” as you delve further into the game. That 70% openness of Sacred certainly goes a long way to address this issue.

As you would expect from developers with an eye for detail, Sacred is a sight to behold, and no game of this genre even comes close. Graphically everything Diablo owners dreamed about (albeit a few years ago –Ed) is here within Sacred. A very decent screen resolution helps to keep the action stunning, while the middle mouse scroll wheel will zoom in extremely close to the action, and it’s while zoomed in that you can see the absolute attention to detail that Ascaron have lavished on this production. What makes Sacred special however is that whatever you’re carrying (or wearing) is beautifully rendered on screen. Now when you earn or find that all important blade or piece of armour online, the whole world knows about it. Typically games of this ilk represent different quality armour with the same ‘skin’, not so with Sacred. Everything down to the armour plated shoulder pads is recreated on screen, and it looks fantastic zoomed in.

One of the most important aspects of your traditional RPG is of course “levelling up” and Sacred certainly doesn’t disappoint in this area either. Many side quests are offered throughout the world and of course that means opportunities to gain experience while you’re at it. It’s totally up to the player to decide if they want to engage in these quests (which range from things like finding a lost boy in caves/escorting people across the worlds) but of course each quest will boost your experience and in turn make that next level even closer. The main story is still accessible while you participate in these quests but you can always go at your own pace. The side quests are also invaluable when you find yourself “stuck” at a certain point, even a venture outside the city gates could bring in that weapon that can finally slaughter the boss that has been eluding you for so long. Diablo was of course the grand-daddy of uniques and other interesting items but Sacred takes these ideas again and improves upon them.

Inside each city you’ll find your own personal treasure chest that holds any items that you have found on your travels. Unlike the cube in Diablo (that was later increased even larger during the Diablo2 Expansion) the treasure chest is massive and will hold more than enough items, when you add that to the fact that you can carry more in Sacred than the cube and treasure chest in Diablo2 put together you’ll soon realise that developers Ascaron have put a heavy emphasis on these items and fully expect a demand from players to store what they find. Local traders will also offer the odd rare item and serve as a handy source of gold when you sell your items that fail to interest you.

Sacred does feature the obligatory character select screen when you first play a game from scratch, as do most other RPGs on the market, where Sacred tends to differ however is that these diverse characters really do (for once) force you to play the game using a completely different style. Even night and day cycles play into the equation with the vampire (as you would expect) becoming far more lethal at night. Mix that with the other races (Dark Elf/Gladiator/Seraphim/Battle Mage and Wood Elf) and you’ll be playing this one for months. Each race even has a unique start location and start storyline.

Traversing the towns that scatter across the Sacred world with whichever character you end up choosing is made easy by the teleport system (again very similar to Diablo). Once you have located the whereabouts of the teleport, it becomes yours to use from that point on. Alternatively you can purchase a horse in most of the city centres and travel that way. You can still attack and defend/cast magic while on horseback but obviously not to your maximum ability. Horseback riding allows you to get the full flow of what Sacred offers. The whole landscape is breathtaking, and because Sacred looks so beautiful you’ll eyes will probably come across thousands of hidden items/stashes strewn around the world which would have been missed if you used the teleport.

Your online shenanigans are well catered for. Both co-operative and a unique hack and slash mode have been included. Co-operative mode is the standard "do the story online" with a friend type affair and to keep the player killers in the right room, the hack and slash mode allows you to battle it out with your powerful character against anyone who happens to be playing. The servers were pretty quiet during our review period but as the game sells this will undoubtedly improve. Personally we believe games like this should be played online in Co-operative mode, it’s certainly where you'll harvest the most fun.

In conclusion Sacred sets out to be little more than you’re typical hack and slash feast but with gorgeous graphics and a storyline/sound effects to match, but why shouldn’t we all devour it anyway? So what if Sacred achieves most of this by borrowing every single idea from Classics like Diablo, and the not so classics like “Blade and Sword”. The main difference is that when these developers borrowed the ideas they took the time to improve upon them as well. There are still some problems, the slow down in places when you zoom out, even with higher end graphics cards is annoying, but, on the whole Sacred Plus is an enjoyable RPG, certainly one of the best, even eight plus months after its initial release.

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