Video game: Sacred
So, recently I picked up some games for $7 each. One of them is Sacred by Ascaron Entertainment, a Diablo-esque PC RPG. With a few differences.
The world is quite vast, and most of it takes place above-ground. There are many cities, and you can buy a horse to make traveling faster (as well as boosting stats). Sadly the horse doesn't give you more inventory room. :( Monsters so far are pretty generic - bandits etc, bears and wolves (wargs), goblins and orcs, an ogre or two. Loot sparkles when it falls so you can spot it easily, or use the alt-key to pick and choose from a pile.
Some barrels can be broken by clicking on them, a few chests and dressers are lootable. Similar to Diablo, there are book stands that can be clicked, but rather than dropping spell scrolls or books, they drop info scrolls that you right-click to add to your log book. Some on monsters, others on other things. Stuff to read, I guess.
The classes are where things are pretty terrible. I mean, the classes themselves are pretty cool, with a good bit of variety. You buy more skills as you get more powerful, while upgrading skills to make them more useful at higher levels. Skills boost combat, thieving, horseback riding to ride stronger horses with better boosts, and some other sorts of skills. I haven't got many yet so my knowledge of skills is pretty limited.
You pick up tokens that are used to learn and upgrade powers - pick up an attack token, right-click, learn that special attack. Use a second one, and that attack becomes level 2. So on. After you complete a certain quest you unlock the ability to create combos, which lets you line up some of these attacks into a combo of attacks. Also, some attacks can't be used on horseback. Oh and some are defensive powers, too. At another point you get the ability to upgrade gear at the blacksmith.
Now, back to classes.
You have your Gladiator class. Generic, non-magical melee tank. Pretty straightforward. Oh, gender is based on class, too. This one's male. He's big and bulky and kind of ugly.
Next is the Battle-mage. Combat caster. Fireballs and metoer showers, that sort of thing. Generic mage. Another male, and wears full-length robes and carries a staff.
Next up we have... the Wood Elf. That's the class. :| Sigh. As with other old games that had an 'elf' class, these are the rangers. They're female, and wear miniskirts with boots that go all the way up the legs to about a few inches beneat the skirt. My first thought was 'why not just wear pants?', but then I realize this caters to the 'easy access' interest many men have. So yes. We have our ranger, bow class.
That gives us our generic melee, mage, range classes.
Next up is the Dark Elf. Yes, that's right. Another elf class. And, like most dark elves, he's black-skinned with white hair (and yes, male in this game). He's the assassin class, many attacks, duel-wield, with a few defensive powers. I'm playing this class, and he makes a lot of snide comments about humans and wanting to kill things, and sometimes mutters about the sun. Haha.
The last two classes are what got me.
Seraphim. So. This class is an angel. And, she wears a battle bikini. Just a thong and top that only covers her tits. Apparently angels are impervious to damage everywhere except their crotch and tits, so they wear specially designed bikinis to protect those areas and leave the rest of their bodies bare to taunt and torment their enemies. Or something. From the description, these ladies are melee casters. They have protective, and I assume augmenting spells, but use their swords for the most part.
Finally we have another lady class. The Vampiress. :|! She's apparently this game's Knight class. By day, anyway. By night? Blood-thirsty beast of prey. She wears platemail, which makes me wonder where it goes when she goes beasty. Does she actually shapeshift? And if so, wouldn't that make her more a lycan than a vampire? I haven't tried the class to know more, yet. And the idea of the vampire being the knight is kind of silly. At least she's not a paladin, I guess.
Anyway!
The game's been pretty fun to mess around with. Failing quests is a bit too easy, though. And I hit the 'cancel' button when I accidentally spoke to an escort quest guy and it dropped the quest on me. Fail. It should have an 'are you sure you want to abandon this quest?' message, but ah well. Live and learn. And hey, for $7 I'm not gonna complain too much about the class thing. :V
Attacking is a bit tricky to get the hang of, though. You click an enemy to attack, but have to hold the button down to keep attacking it. Right-click to use the highlighted power. You can set weapon sets on the other side, and use number buttons to swap between weapons or powers. Holding left-click down while surrounded and hovering it over other enemies makes the char attack each enemy once the first is dead, or you can right-click another enemy to use your power on that one then go back to killing the previous one (great if your power can one-hit a guy). I've died a couple times because I hit space too late (uses a heal potion). :(
The main story, I don't know if it's different for each 'class', but it's kind of not obvious and you have to trek around and find each next step. Side quests are kind of required in order to level up and be tough enough to do the main quests, which is a bit annoying if you just want to follow the story. Also, children that run around in towns react to your 'class'. I get kids making fun of my being a drow. :P
The world is quite vast, and most of it takes place above-ground. There are many cities, and you can buy a horse to make traveling faster (as well as boosting stats). Sadly the horse doesn't give you more inventory room. :( Monsters so far are pretty generic - bandits etc, bears and wolves (wargs), goblins and orcs, an ogre or two. Loot sparkles when it falls so you can spot it easily, or use the alt-key to pick and choose from a pile.
Some barrels can be broken by clicking on them, a few chests and dressers are lootable. Similar to Diablo, there are book stands that can be clicked, but rather than dropping spell scrolls or books, they drop info scrolls that you right-click to add to your log book. Some on monsters, others on other things. Stuff to read, I guess.
The classes are where things are pretty terrible. I mean, the classes themselves are pretty cool, with a good bit of variety. You buy more skills as you get more powerful, while upgrading skills to make them more useful at higher levels. Skills boost combat, thieving, horseback riding to ride stronger horses with better boosts, and some other sorts of skills. I haven't got many yet so my knowledge of skills is pretty limited.
You pick up tokens that are used to learn and upgrade powers - pick up an attack token, right-click, learn that special attack. Use a second one, and that attack becomes level 2. So on. After you complete a certain quest you unlock the ability to create combos, which lets you line up some of these attacks into a combo of attacks. Also, some attacks can't be used on horseback. Oh and some are defensive powers, too. At another point you get the ability to upgrade gear at the blacksmith.
Now, back to classes.
You have your Gladiator class. Generic, non-magical melee tank. Pretty straightforward. Oh, gender is based on class, too. This one's male. He's big and bulky and kind of ugly.
Next is the Battle-mage. Combat caster. Fireballs and metoer showers, that sort of thing. Generic mage. Another male, and wears full-length robes and carries a staff.
Next up we have... the Wood Elf. That's the class. :| Sigh. As with other old games that had an 'elf' class, these are the rangers. They're female, and wear miniskirts with boots that go all the way up the legs to about a few inches beneat the skirt. My first thought was 'why not just wear pants?', but then I realize this caters to the 'easy access' interest many men have. So yes. We have our ranger, bow class.
That gives us our generic melee, mage, range classes.
Next up is the Dark Elf. Yes, that's right. Another elf class. And, like most dark elves, he's black-skinned with white hair (and yes, male in this game). He's the assassin class, many attacks, duel-wield, with a few defensive powers. I'm playing this class, and he makes a lot of snide comments about humans and wanting to kill things, and sometimes mutters about the sun. Haha.
The last two classes are what got me.
Seraphim. So. This class is an angel. And, she wears a battle bikini. Just a thong and top that only covers her tits. Apparently angels are impervious to damage everywhere except their crotch and tits, so they wear specially designed bikinis to protect those areas and leave the rest of their bodies bare to taunt and torment their enemies. Or something. From the description, these ladies are melee casters. They have protective, and I assume augmenting spells, but use their swords for the most part.
Finally we have another lady class. The Vampiress. :|! She's apparently this game's Knight class. By day, anyway. By night? Blood-thirsty beast of prey. She wears platemail, which makes me wonder where it goes when she goes beasty. Does she actually shapeshift? And if so, wouldn't that make her more a lycan than a vampire? I haven't tried the class to know more, yet. And the idea of the vampire being the knight is kind of silly. At least she's not a paladin, I guess.
Anyway!
The game's been pretty fun to mess around with. Failing quests is a bit too easy, though. And I hit the 'cancel' button when I accidentally spoke to an escort quest guy and it dropped the quest on me. Fail. It should have an 'are you sure you want to abandon this quest?' message, but ah well. Live and learn. And hey, for $7 I'm not gonna complain too much about the class thing. :V
Attacking is a bit tricky to get the hang of, though. You click an enemy to attack, but have to hold the button down to keep attacking it. Right-click to use the highlighted power. You can set weapon sets on the other side, and use number buttons to swap between weapons or powers. Holding left-click down while surrounded and hovering it over other enemies makes the char attack each enemy once the first is dead, or you can right-click another enemy to use your power on that one then go back to killing the previous one (great if your power can one-hit a guy). I've died a couple times because I hit space too late (uses a heal potion). :(
The main story, I don't know if it's different for each 'class', but it's kind of not obvious and you have to trek around and find each next step. Side quests are kind of required in order to level up and be tough enough to do the main quests, which is a bit annoying if you just want to follow the story. Also, children that run around in towns react to your 'class'. I get kids making fun of my being a drow. :P