My husband is a big fan of the second Sacred game. I dabbled in it a little because of his high praise and from what I played it seemed like a pretty solid game. So he was pretty excited for the Sacred 3 release. Before he could buy it though a friend of his, who bought it the day of release, warned him against it. He even offered to let him try it to see for himself. Oh. My. God. I have never wanted to turn a game off so fast in my life. I could barely make it through the first objective before I was done. My husband managed to make it up to the first boss of the tutorial and at that point even he couldn’t stand it anymore. It wasn’t the gameplay or the graphics that turned us off, it was the absolutely appalling writing/voice acting. The NPCs in the game, even ones who are not presently onscreen, are just constantly spewing the most horribly written drivel I’ve ever heard. The style of dialog for the NPCs is a sort of snarky, sarcastic attempt at humor, kind of like a very poorly done Borderlands knockoff. That style of acerbic, dark humor works for Borderlands’ characters and story but not at all for the setting of Sacred, especially after the tone of the first two games and especially not since it totally fails at being funny. The opening explains what’s been going on between the end of the second game and the beginning of this one and starts the ball rolling on what is basically an epic quest to save the world. It gives the origins of the NPC who will essentially be your guide throughout the game, billing her as a powerful psychic and a miracle, the only child ever born to an immortal Seraphim. Sounds cool right? I thought so. Then she opened her mouth and you realized she was written as a shallow, childish, whinny brat with the I.Q. of a potato chip. She literally sounds like a bad caricature of some 90s valley girl. What I think the writers meant to be witty banter between the first antagonist and the guide is just downright obnoxious. To top it off you pick up your first “soul” in the game (I’m not entirely sure what these do as I didn’t get that far) and the dead person the soul belonged to keeps talking to you. Constantly. Incessantly. Even worse, if you are on a female toon, he hits on you or makes sleazy innuendos every time you are in combat, once or twice every minute. I’ve read a few reviews of the game where they talk about problems with level design or other gameplay issues, but I honestly never got far enough into it to find them. I just couldn’t stomach the writing anymore and there was no way to turn the voice acting off without muting your speakers. I think that might be the only way to make the game even remotely playable. It’s a shame to see a decent franchise come to this, but I’m pretty sure my husband and I will be passing on 3 and just sticking with Sacred 2. Anyone else here who has tried it? Does it get any better farther in?
