Sacred Review

Diablo and Diablo II have inspired a number of action-RPG clones and most of them have been, well, uninspired. These games have tried to capture the basics of Diablo without bothering to add anything new or to even give any thought as to what made Diablo so much fun in the first place. At first glance you may be tempted to lump Sacred in with all those also-rans, but you’d be making a mistake. While it won’t challenge Diablo for the action-RPG crown, it is a decent game in its own right and worth a look from you hack-n-slash fantasy game fans out there.

Sacred starts off by presenting you with a half dozen characters from which to choose to play. Most fall into the standard categories of fighter, mage, etc, but you also have the choice of playing as a vampiress or seraphim. The vampiress has the ability to turn creatures into undead allies while the seraphim is skilled with the sword and can make acrobatic attacks. Your starting location will vary slightly based on which character that you select to play, but the storylines quickly merge after that. Speaking of story, Sacred departs from most other games of its type by giving you a lot of freedom in pursuing quests. You’re not herded from one story-driving quest to another in a preordained sequence. Instead you are free to explore Sacred’s huge world and take on numerous side quests as you see fit. In reality, though, you can’t wander too far a field since you’ll have to gain valuable experience by completing the easier quests before you’re ready to face the nastier beasts that inhabit Sacred’s world.

If you’re familiar with Diablo II, you’ll find a lot of familiar touches in Sacred. Control is all mouse-driven, with left-clicks used to indicate where your character should go to and which creature should be attacked and right-clicks used to unleashed your readied special attack or spell. This is a simple control scheme but it is not without its quirks in Sacred. Your character will sometimes have trouble finding his or her way to the designated location if there are walls or other obstacles in the way. You’ll find that you can actually move around more quickly by taking a baby steps approach. There is also an issue with attack clicking in that your attack orders are sometimes ignored. Sometimes a click on an enemy won’t register, or your character will stop attacking in the middle of a fight. Holding the mouse button down doesn’t ensure that your character will attack until the enemy is vanquished either. Be prepared to do a lot more clicking than you do in most games in this click happy genre.

Sacred uses a skill system similar to Diablo II’s that give you access to new attacks and spells. However, skills are not earned through experience but rather by finding tokens dropped by monsters or hidden in treasure troves. Some are class-specific but others can be used by all and there are also some tokens which improve an existing skill. Once used, a token disappears and you’re awarded with the corresponding new skill. With the help of a combo master, you’ll even be able to combine skills to make new combo attacks.

The skill system is a good touch but there are a couple of minor problems with it. The first is that there’s no skill tree in Sacred, so enabling one skill will not preclude you from acquiring any other skill. While this leaves your character with the capability to acquire a greater skill set, it also means that you won’t be able to customize your character as much as you could in Diablo II. The second issue is that while new attacks and combos can come with their own animations, it’s all pretty much for show. After acquiring a new skill you still attack by clicking on a monster except you do more damage than before. There’s not much strategy to attacks here other than deciding which monster to click on first.

Other touches from Diablo II abound. Weapons may be upgraded by adding gems to their sockets, towns feature a stash where you can store excess inventory, and you’ll gain an occasional computer-controlled ally to fight by your side. Some of these features have been improved upon, such as the automap. Sacred features two levels of automapping; a local map overlayed on the screen and a detailed world map. The world map is a big help in the game as it shows you where each quest originated and where you must go to complete its next step. Towns and other features are clearly marked, which is a good thing since the map drives home the size of Sacred’s world and it is easy to imagine getting lost without it. To save you the time of switching back and forth to the map, Sacred also provides a compass that points the way to your next quest related location. It’s possible to have multiple open quests at a time in the game, and in this case the compass seems biased towards the next quest related to the main storyline of the game.

Another innovation in Sacred is the ability to ride horses. This is a godsend when you need to cover some of the large distances in the game as travel is a lot faster on horseback. You can fight while mounted as well, but this doesn’t seem to work very well. Attacks are slow and too many clicks don’t even register, so you’ll often find yourself surrounded by enemies pounding you and your horse from all sides while you occasionally swing back. The horse is better suited towards getting you past monsters that you’d rather not take the time to fight at the moment. Fights are such a frequent occurrence in the game that sometimes you just want to get where you want to go without being bothered.

Sacred supports multiplayer online play. The game provides an online game service that will allow four players to play the campaign cooperatively or 16 to battle each other in a big melee. The cooperative game is a lot more fun than the melee, since it is more fun to click and kill monsters than to hang around clicking on other players.

Graphically the game is on par with others in the genre. Resolution is locked at 1024x768, but you do have the ability to zoom the camera in for a closer look. My biggest complaint with the graphics is that the dungeons are just too dark. There’s no brightness or gamma control in the game, so it is very hard to locate doors and passages in the poorly lit dungeons with their dark, translucent walls.

Sacred has its annoyances and quirks, but also has its strong points as well.  If you enjoy action-RPGs and have been discouraged by the general lack of quality in all of the Diablo inspired games out there then you should give Sacred a try.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 77%.  If you're an action-RPG fan, Sacred is definitely worth a look.

System Requirements:  Pentium III 800; 128 MB RAM;  32 MB Video RAM; 1GB Hard disk space; 4x CD-ROM;  Mouse.