Sacred is a fantasy game for the PC that mimics Diablo II in many ways, and seeks to improve upon the original master hack and slash game, but fails to take into account of why DII was (is) so popular to begin with. This review will compare Sacred to the original mainly because they modeled the game after it so closely it can’t be helped, and because if you’re like me, you may have seen the advertisements for the game stating basically “like Diablo II only better”. Well, with a statement similar to that, I couldn’t help write this review. I was really hoping it was going to live up to its claims, but it doesn’t. The game was created in Germany, and has a European slant, but most of the jokes and storylines will be readily gotten by most of America’s gamers (but in a few places you’ll likely scratch your head and say “huh?”)

Class

Sacred has a number of classes to play, which mimic DII’s classes highly. They are the gladiator (read barbarian), seraphim (amazon - javelin), wood elf (amazon - bow), dark elf (assassin), battle mage (sorceress), and vampiress (necromancer/druid). Most of the classes are so close to DII’s, its not even funny, while a few, like the vampiress, are new and exciting (mostly), and enjoy some fun and unique abilities. The problem is that DII’s classes are SO much better. So, for the most part, Sacred gets low points for creativity here.

Abilities

Each of these classes has access to a number of abilities, anywhere from 11 to 20. Unfortunately, since the game centers around these abilities, I would have liked to have seen much more of them. Also, many of the abilities are shared by everyone, lessening their individual impact and fun factor even more by stripping away the uniqueness of them. Now, when I say that they mimic DII’s classes, I mean not only do they have the appearance of their counterparts, but their abilities match DII’s. Example: the sorceress in DII has access to fire, lightning and ice spells. In Sacred, the battlemage has access to the same type of spells, plus earth. Again, Sacred had the opportunity to be unique and creative, and blew it. The classes have too few abilities, and many are shared by everyone, meaning even less creativity went into them.

Improving abilities has got to be my biggest complaint with this game (right after all the bugs!!!). Remember the original Diablo, where the sorcerer had to find books to learn/improve his spells? Well, Sacred creators thought this was a dandy idea, so whenever your character levels up, he doesn’t get any points toward his abilities. As you adventure around, you may find the abilities (I’m not sure how to describe this - they’re not scrolls…maybe tiles). Most of the time, they are for the other classes. If you find a mage in the larger towns, you can trade in four of these abilities for one of your choosing that you can actually use. As you can tell, this is an annoying and useless endeavor by the creator’s part. And it just doesn’t make any sense either (which you will find is a common feature in this game).

Unlike most other games where abilities use mana or some form of energy to with every use, Sacred uses a recover time. In other words, every time you use an ability it takes a certain amount of time to recover and use it again. The more powerful the ability, the longer it takes. This is an annoying way to handle this, especially for the battle mage who can’t fight worth beans and relies on his spells to survive. Imagine only being able to use your fireball every 4 to 6 seconds. Make sense? Not really, and what it amounts to is characters firing and then running back until the ability recovers. It’s just stupid and needless. Using mana or some other form of energy would have worked much better.

Skills

Now here is one element I really wish DII had. Every time your character goes up a level, your character gains points to put into skills. Every few levels, the character may learn a new one (I’m not sure why this restriction was implemented, but that’s a minor complaint). The skills are a cool feature to the game that allows your character to do more damage, recover abilities quicker, etc. One element about this game this is as annoying as it is in DII and many other games is attempting to figure out what effect raising a skill or ability does. In DII, at least the improvements per level are given to you. In Sacred you are given information such as “This skill improves mana regeneration and recover times”. But how well? It doesn’t say. Furthermore, after raising a skill/ability I can’t notice the difference which means that either a) it wasn’t improved by a significant amount or b) the code isn’t working properly and it didn’t change anything. In either case, it would have been nice to have the effects of each ability and skill clearly laid out for us and have the code work, so when you improve something, you can see the difference.

The Story

The story of Sacred is, well… fairly lame. A necromancer has summoned a demon and lost control of him, unleashing him on the world (a note to all you necros out there - don’t use goblins to make your wards of power). Anyway, that’s it. That’s the story. Exciting, huh? Well, here’s the funny part. My highest character is level 28. Not extremely high, but not a new character by any means. I have yet to find any element to this story yet. None. Zippo. I’m curious what level you get to before a real story starts to develop. For your first 28 levels at least, all your character will find is a random slew of unrelated quests such as find the baker, free my daughter, or deliver this message. But that’s it. No storyline. This was a very stupid thing to do, as at this level, I’m rather bored with the game. Nothing is keeping me going. Nothing in the “story” anyway.

Features

The game is quick to mention that “you can fight from horseback”. While true, I have found so many bugs with the horses as to make them unusable (we’ll discuss bugs later). Also the whole point of having the horse is rather to improve the movement rate of your character, as all monsters can outrun you. This isn’t an issue in DII because you move as fast as a horse does in Sacred. Therefore, if the characters moved at a decent rate, this added “feature” wouldn’t be necessary in the first place. My opinion is that they added that after they decided that characters just move too slow.

Upgradeable “socketed” weapons are a nice feature in this game, although the socketed ones in DII are simply better because you have more variety in the items you can place in them, it’s easier to do (it’s free), and with the proper combination, you can create a named item. In Sacred, you can only place one of three items in the sockets, all of which do very similar things (+5% to combat or +3% to combat and armor, etc.), you have to pay for it, and you can only do it at a blacksmith. This part makes sense, but if they had more variety in the items you could place into the sockets, it might be interesting. As it is, it’s a lame feature of the game that, much like the rest of the game, had potential and was wasted on meaningless or unexciting elements.

Landscape

I’ll give the creators some credit here. The land you adventure in is fairly vast, which must have taken days and days of programming to complete. I enjoyed entering new towns. Even though each town had the same type of people and merchants, it was still kind of cool. The only issue I’ve found is that monsters apparently roam about towns as though they were citizens. The townsfolk don’t seem to be bothered by them, and for the most part, the monsters only attack you, any armed guards, or “story” driven characters. I thought it was rather funny to be in town shopping for goods and suddenly notice my health dropping with the sounds of fighting. I quickly left the merchant to find some orcs had wandered into the building and started hacking away at me! Well, this became less funny as it happened continually in every town I entered.

The other aspect of the game that seems rather short sighted was the design of caves and other structures. No structure is more than one level, and they are typically only 1 to 4 rooms. So there is no dungeon exploration here. I rather enjoyed exploring the ruins, caves, and tombs in DII, as they could be up to 5 levels deep with multiple rooms and paths on each level. Sacred seems like they did this on purpose to be boring, because I can’t think of another explanation!

Respawning monsters

Along with monsters roaming into town willy-nilly like, the next item of fun you’ll have is traveling from one town to the next. At first, you’ll encounter hordes of creatures you have to fight off. But when you have to return to the town you just left, you find that all the monsters have returned. This eventually paved the way to me riding my horse at full speed from town A to town B without stopping to kill anything, because I knew it was pointless. I suppose they did this to give your character experience, but it became old quickly, and then just annoying.

Multiplayer

The single player game had many issues and bugs, but nearly as many as multiplayer did. My favorite was one I named “Beam Me Up Scotty”. When you die, you respawn at some previous town (I haven’t figured out how it determines which town to stick you in yet) without your horse. You then have to run (or buy another horse) to catch up to your friend who can be many many miles away. Remember that all monster respawn? Well, now you have to make it through there again, and without a horse it’s very hard. So basically, whenever you die, be prepared to buy another horse so you can make it through the hordes of monsters in your path without dying (remember that monster move faster that you do…). If you’re lucky, there’s a teleporting gate nearby.

Bugs

I saved this part for last because if you have still decided to buy this game, you won’t want to after this section. The amount of bugs in this game is by far the highest I’ve ever seen. There were so many that I named them to keep track of them. Here are just a FEW examples of the bugs you will enjoy:

- Horses. Horses have plenty of bugs. My favorite is the one I call “Forgetful Sam”. I named my horse Sam, but every time I entered a cave, or a house, or whatever, my horse would forget me upon exiting, and not allow me to ride him (horses can’t enter caves or buildings). I’d have to walk back to town and buy a new one (remember all those respawning creatures?). What a drag! Sometimes, Sam would let me hop on him, but then wouldn’t move. The other good horse bug is what I call “Buffalo Bill Rides Again”. Sometimes, when I mounted my horse, the game would get some “bug” up its ass and decide that I was a rodeo clown instead of an adventurer. My character would stand on the horse’s back, and the horse would take off at double its normal speed in random directions, with no control or assistance from me. Naturally, when I encountered monsters, they felt obliged to take swings at me as I passed. It only stopped when I got killed, or I reloaded the game. Funny as hell the FIRST time. VERY annoying afterwards (actually it was annoying the first time, too). During multiplayer, sometimes our horses would decide to switch partners. I’d have to mount my friend’s and he’d have to mount mine. Not a serious bug, but still annoying! “Catch Me If You Can” was another good one where you have to chase your horse. As you try to mount him, he runs a few feet away. Try again, and he runs a few feet away. Eventually, either he’d let you ride him, or you’d have to walk back to town and buy a new one. No, this wasn’t done on purpose either! The one that eventually caused me to avoid horses altogether was the one I call “One Night Stand”. If I save my game and then exit and reload it, my horse disappears. Supposedly, according to Sacred’s site, the horse should appear in town, but I’ve searched and can’t find him. Like a cheap $5 whore, he’s left me by my lonesome the next day. I bet the Lone Ranger didn’t have this much trouble. Anyway, there are more bugs involving horses, but these are the common ones and the “best” in my opinion.

- Quests. The second most common bug involves the quests you receive as you travel. There are many quests that will not register as completed even if you’ve done what the person wants you to do. For example, one person asks you to retrieve his treasure from a cave. You go there, but find no treasure to be found. Another example would be when you get the task to clear a house of all the evil spirits that inhabit the place. If you do so, half the time the guy will not give you a reward and your task remains incomplete for no reason. Another quest that always eludes me is the one to kill the ghoul. The ghoul is supposed to be across the bridge, but he’s never there. Maybe he’s hiding in the bushes, I dunno. All in all, I would say only every 4th quest can be completed. The other three can’t for one reason or another. The best game I’ve had I managed to complete half the quests. But on average, it’s only 1/4. This is especially annoying because the game has no story going for it, so you are only meandering around for quests to complete.

- Weapons and Equipment. There are a few bugs is this department, too. Weapons and armor that says it’s only for my character’s class won’t allow me to wear it because it thinks I’m the wrong class. There are times when my Vampiress’s favorite sword decided it liked it better in her backpack and would unwield itself in the middle of combat.

Anyway, there are others such as during multiplay when neither my friend nor I could see one another. We were in the same game, and could see the same enemies and NPCs, but couldn’t see each other nor interact with each other. Or the fact that the game never tells me which character is which when I was choosing a character for a game. It’s supposed to give you their name, class, and level. If you had four battle mages dressed similarly, how would you tell them apart otherwise? Basically, these bugs would appear more frequently during multiplayer games, but they were still happening in single player games as well, and eventually, I stopped playing because they became too annoying. I should have realized how bad it was, because within 3 weeks of its release in March, they had the first patch out. There are two more out, and more are coming, and they’re needed! The question is, will it be enough and shouldn’t they have tested the game more thoroughly first?

So I would say that if you’re not put off by these points I brought up, then Sacred has some cool aspects about it, but Diablo II is still much better overall, and has no bugs in comparison. There’s nothing really in Sacred that brings anything new to the table, either, and with all its problems it certainly isn’t worth coughing up $40 for it.