Review: Risen 3 – Titan Lords Enhanced Edition (PS4)

The world has been abandoned by its gods and is scarred from the rampage of the Titans. Humanity is struggling to regain strength and rally its forces. You, however, have more pressing concerns: your own life has been shattered and you must set off to reclaim what is lost amidst the darkness that is spreading throughout the world.

Pros:

• Graphics are pretty. They got a huge revamp over the PC version with better ambient lighting, The depth of view is incredible. Overall the game has you just standing there saying man this looks awesome.
• Controls are very easy to learn. The touch pad is used as a select button for inventory.
• Opening tutorial area explaining the controls,combat mechanics and general menu layout.
• Game play is very close to Skyrim, huge open game world action RPG. Kill enemies,do missions,side quests to earn exp and level up.
• Full Platinum trophy.
• Comes with every bit of released DLC and the DLC can be accessed at any time but be warned you may not be ready!
• Easy to read/use UI menu layout. Swapping between menus is done on the bumper buttons and triggers. Bring up the menu with the select/back button. In the menu you can do your usual RPG tasks like look at the map, equip new gear/weapons,read and activate side quests. You can re read old dialogue and use any consumables. One handy option is you can assign items to your d pad for easy use, Its using all 8 directions and is really handy in battle.
• Free roam, The whole world is open to you from the start and you are free to do anything you want in any order. All maps are open and can be sailed to at any time.
• Fast travel can now be unlocked. Find a teleporting stone and use it in the many portals to permanently pen the fast travel between them. You can also fast travel back to your ship at any time by going to the map and pressing X.
• Main story is a better one than in Risen 2,You play a guy who loses his soul and must try and get his soul back and become human once again. You will play out in the real world but also delve into the underworld, Its not a blockbuster story but it is compelling.
• You can recruit and use AI followers to aid you in exploration and fighting. Each follower will be an expert in a certain field, Some may heal you whilst others are good fighters.
• Frequent auto saves plus you can save whenever you like, it is a state save so feel safe that where you save is where you restart.
• Find caves, temples which are self contained dungeons with loads of loots and enemies.
• You can go treasure hunting, Find maps or find clues and go out with your spade and find some booty!
• So many side quests! I mean within an hour of regular trekking you can easily have over 24 missions on the go. Luckily the management of these is easy and you can do them without setting them as primary.
• Helpful markers can appear that either help guide your way or make you aware of close by loot. The markers come in the form of bright butterflies flying in a huddle.
• You can learn new skills and spells. Make yourself a proper swordsman or go down the dark arts route, Use voodoo dolls,magic and crazy elemental spells. The choice is yours and there is many to choose from.
• Craft new items and visit campfires to cook meat for a consumable health boost.
• Learn new techniques like the ability to carve parts off fallen enemies or have better sword fighting moves.
• Buy and sell items with merchants who are all over the place.
• Each island has a unique atmosphere. From bright sunny jungles containing killer gorillas with no sound but the local flies buzzing around, To the dark shadow infested islands where visibility is minimal and threat levels are high.
• Align yourself with the different factions within the game to change your story, Abilities and generally change up the way the game plays out. A cool mechanic that adds so much.
• Huge array of enemies from the undead skeletons to a huge collection of animals to hunt from Jaguars, gorillas, monkeys to Dinosaurs! Of course the big danger are the shadow creatures, Straight from hell these hounds,minions are much faster and stronger and attack in packs.
• You can have pop up help icons for fighting.
• You can fast forward conversations and skip cut scenes.
• So much content!
• Interactions with NPC or how you deal with story choices will affect your soul ratings.Not a huge deal but is a cool addition.

Cons:

• Combat is still a mess. Learning to time moves,block and generally just attack is a pain in the ass. It just feels really broken. It improves as you get better gear and stats but the first few hours is frustrating. Leave fights to your AI follower.
• Your characters voice is really cheesy, Sounds like a really bad Panto villain trying to act like a hard man.
• Fighting animations are out of sync and causes a lot of scenery clipping or crazy rag doll effects.
• A lot of the areas will feel familiar from Risen 2 as the first half of the game is the same area with a few cosmetic changes.
• No decent lock on system which could help combat.
• You sometimes get no real info or markers for how to do a mission.
• AI path finding is really bad especially with your AI follower. They hate going off course and will always take the longer route.
• A few times you will actually lose your follower, If you go off cliff jumping or fancy a bit of swimming or rock climbing, You run the huge risk that your follower will bugger off back to the ship with no warning.
• Easy to miss notifications that you can level up.
• Loading times are really long. Especially frustrating when you are restarting after death.
• Quite a bit of screen tearing and slowdown in busy areas.

So Risen 3 enhanced edition is one of the game I most wanted to play this year. I loved Risen 2 on PS3 and played a lot of Risen 3 on PC. Here I am getting to relive that game but have all DLC and improved graphics and performance. I would say it does indeed look a lot better than the PC version and the depth of field is next level but it feels like it came at a cost of loading. Loading times are frustratingly long even when jumping between areas. The combat is exactly the same which I always hated the first time round. I dont mind blocking and moving with a few attacks here and there but the game doesnt let that flow. Instead you have a host of enemies all on different attack patterns jumping in at once, Its crazy. Luckily it gets better as you aquire new gear but still. Overall I would say they did a good job with this PS4 version and it will be the version I play moving forward just purely because it looks gorgeous! So in short, Its the same game as PC but really pretty and all DLC.