14 DAY TRIAL // About the time I got half-way through Risen, I started thinking less and less about what I was doing and seemed very captivated by the things I might be able to do. I chose to join sides with Don Esteban's Faction and developed as a pilfering, two-handed sword warrior. OK, maybe “pilfering” isn't the best chosen word, since I robbed every house, man, woman and child on the island of Faranga. Even the holy Monastery was in a shambles of poverty after I left. The main reason I chose a two-handed weapon approach over the one-handed and shield version was that, with the shield, the combat was a bit too tedious. First, the one-handed weapons, obviously, do less damage, and, with the master-sword-wielder that every hostile human NPC turned out to be, battles dragged out for ever. I would sit safely behind my raised shield and tried to match my attacks to catch the opening they left with theirs, but would rarely manage to beat their incredibly sharp reflexes and almost instant parries.
But the promises of the hefty axes smashing through enemy defenses really made me wonder about just how fun it would be to finally wipe the smirk off their face and do away with their kind. I didn't even try to make a mix-build of sword and axes, since all the interesting abilities came later on in the mastery and to divide my learning point would have caused me to get neither of them. So, instead, I contemplated the future with great excitement. The idea of a third playthrough came to light when I began to learn more and more about the spell in the game.
First, the fact that my strictly melee-oriented fighter found enough pick-up in stone tablets to reach a wisdom that rivaled, and, at times, bested my strength, was a serious incentive to start prospecting further the possibilities of a Risen mage. It may sound tedious, but the game is really fun to play, more even so for me since I'm a huge fan of the Gothic series. After all, I finished the first Gothic five times, four of them in a row. I started off as a Templar in the Swamps (again, the giant, two-handed swords really appealed to me), then as a Guard in Old Camp, a rogue in the New Camp, and then replayed the game as a mage. The fifth time I played the game, I didn't even have a goal or faction in mind, I just wanted to roam around the forest at night, yet again, as a level-1 walking target with a torch strapped to my arm running like crazy away from a bloody fly. Gothic 1 really managed to translate the sensation of being utterly powerless, a small pebble on the road.
Risen could have ended the same. I could be playing it right now for God knows how many times, if it would have only had a decent ending. The first Gothic ended with the battle against the Sleeper and his deranged mob of blind novices and offered a serious feeling of accomplishment, of progress compared to the nobody you were when you started the game. Risen's ending made me hate the game so much, that the thought of playing it again makes my stomach turn. To know that I've gained all that experience, fought all those nearly impossible battles with the most common of enemies only to reach a climax that is as satisfying as a friend's broken promise makes me think that I'd have to be pretty stupid to do it all over again. Fooled me once, shame on Piranha Bytes, fooled me twice, shame on me.