Sacred 3 Reviews
Sacred 3 is a complete let down for fans of the franchise, departing from a formula that has somewhat worked in the past in the hope of attracting a wider audience. Instead of building on features, and borrowing some from games that pull off the action RPG genera to a tee, Sacred 3 is disjointed, boring and just downright bad.
Overall, Sacred 3 is a fun and rather addictive game to play, even with its slightly repetitive nature. Although it is nothing new and brings nothing particularly mind-blowing or innovative to the table, it still lives up to the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Nope. Just nope. Go elsewhere. Sacred 3 offers nothing worth seeing.
In the end, while fast paced and good for a fitting end to a bad day at work, Sacred 3's gameplay simply lacks everything that makes a great ARPG: Loot, leveling, questing, and a basic (and well-written) story.
If you're a fan of the genre and looking for a new game, I'd say it's worth a play. The player is spoonfed with the simplicity of the depth. If that speaks to your desires, this is the game for you.
Sacred 3 is certainly bug free, but it's also free of the core mechanics that made the previous games fun to play.
There’s fun to be had in the hectic brawls the game throws you into, but what else is there? Some pleasant changes of scenery? I genuinely had fun at the game’s outset, but Sacred 3 failed to entice me into coming back. There was potential, but it was fumbled at almost every turn.
If you enjoy hack 'n slash titles and are able to drown out dialogue with some loud upbeat music then Sacred 3 will fill your boots nicely - otherwise, you'll end up facepalming so hard you may inhale your open palm.
If you're bored out of your mind and you need an RPG fast, well, then stay bored. You don't want to be even more bored. It's probably best to return to games like Diablo 3 and Divinity: Original Sin, both of which offer ten times the content and ten times the fun.
Sadly on the whole Sacred 3 does a lot more wrong than it does right. The spirit of a good game is in here somewhere, amid all the lumpen, hackneyed nonsense. The resounding consensus from fans of the series seems to be that this latest installment is a pale shadow of the previous games at best and an outright betrayal at worst, more River City Ransom than RPG. From this newcomer's perspective, Sacred 3 is a cheesy, flawed B-movie of an arcade brawler that you might get a few evenings' entertainment out of before consigning it to the very depths of your games pile, never to infirm. I mean, return.
There is no point in comparing Sacred 3 to either of the two previous games in the series, as it unfortunately shares nothing with them. It just feels like a scam meant to chip some money from careless nostalgic gamers, much like shoving dirt into a jar and labeling it "grandma's peach jam."
Sacred 3 is a surprisingly fun hack-and-slash game. It offers little to no personal customization or investment, but you can't deny that conquering waves of demons is satisfying
Despite a few quibbles, Sacred 3's action flows freely (even if the treasure doesn't). If you're a fan of the previous, more Diablo-like entries in the Sacred series you might be disappointed with some of this sequel's retooling. But if you're hungry for a game to play alongside a few friends, one where you can relax, laugh, and bust some bad guys, and don't mind a bit of repetition without much loot to show for it, Sacred 3 makes for a passable, if flawed, meal.
Frankly, I'm not sure what the developers were thinking with Sacred 3. The gameplay, of course, screams Diablo III or Torchlight clone, but those games actually provided worlds you could really explore and discover. Also, people really enjoy them. I definitely had fonder memories playing each of them than Sacred 3, and they're not even in a genre I usually play. That should really say enough.
If you can endure the game's sense of humour, there is fun to be had here with a few friends, for a while at least, but it's hard to shake the feeling that Sacred 3 is ultimately a derivative and tedious experience.
Sacred edges away from the RPG, but sadly in doing so edges away from fun also.
Tedium is at the heart of Sacred 3, a successor to the earlier games in the series in name only.
In the end, I don't think Sacred 3 knew what its own genre was. If it was self-aware that this was nothing more than a hack and slash dungeon crawler, it could have gone the extra mile and given it a refreshing arcade feel, like Dragon's Crown did. However, Sacred 3 thinks it's a serious ARPG, and as a serious ARPG it simply falls up short.
While Sacred 3 isn't a broken mess, there are few redeeming qualities to be found. Linear levels, repetitive enemies, meaningless progression, and insulting voice acting add up to a dreary mechanical exercise. There are far better options for action RPGs than Sacred 3.
There is something as too much of a good thing and Sacred 3 beats that notion to death. Priorities are all over the place; it just doesn’t know what to do with itself.