Risen 2: Dark Waters Critic Reviews

Risen 2 transcends its shortcomings by boasting a wonderful living and breathing world and a refreshing new setting, masterfully crafted and executed. Although the combat is way too easy and the ending comes much too suddenly, Risen 2 is a great role-playing experience for any fan of open world games.

Risen 2 is simply an another good game from Piranha Bytes. The developers prove that parting ways with their former partner - JoWooD Entertainment - has been a great decision. Risen 2 probably won't get any "RPG of the year" awards, but Gothic enthusiasts shouldn't care - Dark Waters will satisfy them fully, I'm sure.

Quotation forthcoming.

If you can look past some of the more useless skills and sluggish combat, you'll still have a great time while playing Risen 2.

The game is a wonderful pirate experience with good graphics but with some limitations in the roleplaying aspects of the gameplay in comparison to the first Risen.

Fixes some of the first Risen game's issues, the graphics look great and the pirate theme is refreshing, but combat is still pretty awkward and the quests include a lot of running back and forth. Still, it's not a bad game by any measure and for fans of Gothic and Risen it's a treat.

This second chapter of the Risen brand is an imperfect but charming RPG, with stunning environments and an engrossing story. An epic sea adventure we haven't seen in years!

Risen 2 offers all those features that have become synonymous with Piranha Bytes throughout the years: a wonderful setting, interesting quests, a robust battle system, variety and replayability. But along with those, Risen 2 drags with it some known issues, which have always been around with Gothic and Risen.

Risen 2 Dark Waters is a deep and enjoyable RPG, with strong gameplay mechanics and a funny environment full of pirates, grog and voodoo. It's not as polished as others competitors, but it will be a good choice for all the fans of the genre.

A really good RPG that takes your inner pirate spirit for a ride. Despite a few graphical bugs this game is for sure a day one buy, and a vast improvement on the original.

Despite a poor combat system, Risen 2 has a good atmosphere and great characters, enhanced by fun dialogue and a nice storyline.

RIsen 2: Dark Waters looks amazing and lets you explore a massive world that feels very alive. The combat could have been better and some small errors can be annoying, but overall Risen 2 is better then its predecessor in basically every aspect.

Sure, the combat is a bit more static than it should be in this day and age and the paper-thin story is as simple as the characters are free from the burdens of personality. But still, the atmosphere of this idealized Caribbean with all of the Bruckheimer-Disney-innuendos always manages to drag you back in. Hardly a contender against Witcher 2 or Skyrim, Risen 2 still manages to cater to its own niche with ease.

First impression is not very good, especially if you're not familiar with previous Piranha Bytes' work. But Risen 2 is so gripping and surprisingly fresh that you turn the blind eye to technical issues and rough edges. I really wish Germans had Skyrim's budget at their disposal and could polish the game properly, but if you're an RPG fan, you still have to play it.

A superior, super tough sequel that offers a persuasive alternative to the RPG big boys.

RIsen 2: Dark Waters is much better that its predecessor. It lets you explore a massive world with an excellent atmosphere and great characters... despite its poor combat system.

It takes a little bit too long before Risen 2 becomes a game you'll actually love. The first five hours of the game didn't bode well for the rest of it, but those who persevere are treated to a very entertaining story and a deep leveling system with which you can give shape to your own class. De varied missions stay interesting throughout the game, but better artificial intelligence, a more striking balance and less bugs would have gone a long way for Risen 2: Dark Waters.

Risen 2 should have been bigger, bolder and a more interesting than the first one. But its clunky combat makes it no favours, and, overall, the lack of a single, cohesive and huge landmass like the first one undermines the exploration component and makes the world less interesting. It´s still a fairly unique RPG with plenty of freedom, great characters and good sense of humour, so it´s a good alternative if you are a fan of Piranha or looking for something different.

What Piranha Bytes has developed could have been a thoroughly supreme game, one that could have gone toe to toe with the heavyweights of action role-playing. Due to a number of highly questionable design decisions, however, a lot of that potential has withered away. With so much lost, it's perhaps a testament to how talented the team secretly is that Risen 2 is still packed with fun in the face of truly inhibiting setbacks.

Risen 2 is another ambitious effort from one of Germany's most well-known game developers, but once again it is dragged down by combat that doesn't really ever feel right, and it's kind of sad to see so much effort and talent go into their games when some of the fundamentals have been ignored for so many years.