After a 6-year hiatus (discounting last years’ questionable Citadel) the Sacred franchise has finally come home, promising an unrivalled feast of colourful visuals, meaty combos and competitive arcade-like action. With a fanbase the size of Ancaria itself, one important question remains: does Sacred 3 stand up to the likes of its spiritual rival Diablo 3, or does it pale in the enormity of those Ascaron Entertainment predecessors that helped pave its way…?
Story: Zane Ashen, the totalitarian ruler of the Ashen Empire, is hunting for an object capable of pulling Ancaria into the pits of the underworld. Along with his armies of demons, gremlins and other notable beasties – you alone (and when I say alone, I mean with three companions) must resist Zane’s hordes and prevent him from reaching the artifact before all Ancaria is doomed to hell. If you strip away some of the jazzy elements, the narrative of Sacred 3 is about as Hollywood blockbuster as they come. It doesn’t quite suffer from true sequel-itus (whereby it’s all of your favourite characters, but on holiday!) yet it’s about as basic as Forrest Gump using Microsoft Word. There are clear binary oppositions playing off here and for some reason the “search for the special artifact” plotline feels extremely reminiscent of Transformers: Rise of The Dark Spark. This isn’t to say the storyline is exactly a no-go, it simply serves its purpose well and offers gamers all the motivation they need to push them through the various battle waves and boss fights the game has to offer. Sacred was never about deep plot twists, audio logs and lengthy internal monologues – it was about earning that killer weapon, being boastful amongst friends and having a blast with the “insert coin, play” arcade-like action.
Audio/Visual: If you’ve taken a look at any game stills for Sacred 3 recently, you’ll know that the graphics are very beautiful. They’re colourful, stylized and crystal clear – which is always useful in a game where hundreds of enemies are onscreen at once. Lead game designer, Sebastian Reichert, is clearly a fan of the prequels and as such has crafted an Ancaria with iconic references in mind. This Ancaria is set a few thousand years after Sacred 1/2 and subsequently certain memorable areas have had a visible overhaul (the most shocking to me being Braverock; it’s less a capital city, more an undead slum).
There’s plenty of dynamic lighting, jaw-dropping destruction and striking character models – and these are all shown off at their best using the games trademark isometric camera viewpoint. It’s very Devil May Cry; quite often the camera will behave dynamically and will rotate and shift to give you a better angle on proceedings – all the while retaining its isometric novelty. To me, Sacred 3 has a visual style extremely reminiscent of old school arcade fighters and therefore looks incredibly user-friendly and intuitive. I’m a big fan of its art style and approach – the only areas where Sacred could use a bit of a bolster would be in its sound design. The soundtrack is somewhat dialed in, although the voice acting is nice and confident; comical yet distinctive. You may hear the same few phrases uttered again and again; although I still think having a completely voiced ensemble cast is quite an achievement for a game that will be receiving a fairly limited release. A good job all round – particularly in its art style and execution.
Gameplay: Here comes the marmite motherload. Fans of the previous two Sacred titles must know this… Sacred 3 is a huge departure from the norm. It’s common knowledge that the franchise was recently acquired by the ever-reliable development team at Deep Silver, although that to me isn’t the big news here. The big news is that during the best part of a decade, Sacred has had to adapt to arguably the largest shift in gaming culture. In my opinion, the RPG nuts and 20-hour-day grinders are slowly being ousted by the ‘casual gamer’. It’s a cuckold of mega proportions and no clearer is that exemplified than in Sacred 3. It’s a game oozing with lush visuals, addictive gameplay and a solid co-op multiplayer – yet what it lacks is the real bite which made the franchise so appealing to the masses of glory hungry teens with time on their hands. Fortunately I’m not a glory hungry teen with time on my hands and therefore I had a blast with Sacred 3 – it’s the sort of multiplayer game that I’d been waiting for (and one that the PS4/Xbone severely lack). Equally, the Day One DLC bundle is also a welcome treat and is well worth picking up with your copy.
The game is less a hack ‘n’ slash RPG and more an arcade fighter with a heavy lean on multiplayer combat. It has a very fluid, very basic control scheme that involves pressing simple combos to execute a variety of specific skill moves. The game is best played with friends (I’ve yet to sample online co-op but if it’s anything like offline then it’ll be a hoot) and, if taken seriously, you’ll have a lot of fun delegating who will play as which Ally – as all of them have their own distinct active and passive skills. If you’re notably lacking in friends then there is an option to play with AI pals, although my tip to you would then be to get on the Sacred forums and find some kind souls to play with you.
You’re limited to how many abilities you can equip at any given time (this is just to stop you from becoming too OP – although the newly implemented evasive roll is definitely too OP) and as a result you will rely on your teammates on many occasions to get the job done. When I originally saw that funny co-op advert with the tagline “Victory is Ours. Glory is Mine” I thought Sacred 3 would be a catastrophe. Knowing gamers like I do, glory often gets in the way of everything. In FIFA, it could be the difference between passing and scoring or being greedy and missing. In Call of Duty, it’s using your teammates as cannon fodder so that you can top the leader board. When teamwork suddenly becomes competitive, I always think it spells a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, Sacred 3 completely avoids that line of thinking by adding the competitive element as an afterthought. Once a battle has concluded, the scores will tot up and players will see who came first – although this happens so regularly that the novelty will soon fade and gamers will end up just playing for each another and also to level up their characters. Speaking of
Leveling up is definitely not as grinding as it used to be; long gone are the days of the skillpoint upgrade. The better you perform when fighting waves of enemies, the quicker you gain a level. Once you level up you’ll unlock some new abilities that upgrade your skill set. These skills can also be bolstered by gold, which is dropped (along with healing orbs) after defeating monsters and bosses. It definitely lacks some of the deeper RPG elements though, for example – looting is a no show, although occasionally you’ll get a weapon or a piece of armor for defeating a boss. It was also a shame that the classes from Sacred 2 are no longer present, although I think both of those decisions factor into the overhaul revamp of the series making it a much more fluid, faster paced action game. There are plenty of buffs and bonuses that work perfectly with the co-op framework and therefore I think a lot of gamers will be happy with the new angle of the series: it feels like a Sacred for the modern age.
Overall, Sacred 3 is a fairly relaxed arcade game that tampers with the much-loved grind-centric formula. It unquestionably does its best to retain the Sacred aesthetic and develop the characters and landscapes of Ancaria – but what does that leave you with? It leaves you with a game so pick-up-and-play-able that it will somehow now appeal to even more gamers than just Sacred’s original core audience. In my opinion, that’s a smart move. For a game so reliant on multiplayer action – the bigger the audience, the better the experience. Good job, Deep Silver!
Overall: 8/10
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