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> Results: Sacred Underworld
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Sacred could be called a rags to riches story. When this Diablo-clone was released early in the spring of 2004, it was a buggy mess that was virtually unplayable in either single-player or multiplayer modes. But Ascaron stood behind the game, and by the 1.8 patch release six months later the game was well-balanced and the majority of bugs had been fixed. In addition, Sacred Plus, originally intended as a paid expansion, was released for free to the community last fall, earning the company much goodwill with gamers. The game continues to be popular for online gamers, and Ascaron has recently released a full expansion pack.
Sacred Underworld is very similar to Sacred and in that regard is very much like a tweaked and graphically improved Diablo II. You select a single character that tramps around the world killing everything in sight using a wild array of weapons, skills and magic. Along the way you meet up with a wide assortment of helpless individuals standing in the midst of demons and monsters, waiting to ask your help in some generally menial task. Interestingly, if they need to come with you somewhere, they join your party and are suddenly attacked by the same monsters that have been walking around them seemingly forever. So what does the Underworld expansion bring to the game? Surprisingly little. To be honest, my expectations were that Sacred Underworld would be to Sacred as Hordes of the Underdark was to Neverwinter Nights. I expected that you would start with a higher level character battling higher level enemies, but that you would also meet more interesting challenges and story elements. The first part is true at least. You do start as a high level character and battle high level enemies, but little else rises to challenge. The story starts right where the original left off, and the main and side quests have a very similar flow to them. This is not to say they aren't enjoyable. They are quite adequate for the traditional action-RPG game. I was just hoping that the high-level scale would bring more than FedEx side-quests and a ﾑkill everything and find the next guy' main quest.  The only truly new things are two added characters: Dwarf and Daemon. The Dwarf is a male character, and the Daemon is female, and they each start at level 29 with a ﾑkit' that you can't alter. The Dwarf is the prototypical burly fighter type, but the Daemon is a very interesting character. She is a creature who was driven from Hell and stripped of most of her powers. She is primarily a weapon-based fighter, but can transform herself to unleash greater destruction, and also use some magical powers. My previous character from the original Sacred was a Battle Mage, which was focused mainly on the fire and water disciplines, but always needed some melee capability. I had tried the Gladiator and found the direct combat to be tiresome after several hours. I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable the combat was with the Daemon because her blend of melee and elemental powers are a very nice mix that made some of the more grinding dungeon crawls interesting. The single player game is fairly long and involved, especially for those who seek to explore every corner and take on every side quest. The monster population is very dense, making it difficult to go 30 seconds without a major battle, which can be tiresome when the enemies are relatively easy to dispatch. The respawn rate, however, is actually pretty reasonable. There is an excellent balance between keeping the amount of enemies under control while also making sure there is never a slowdown in the action. The focus is, as ever in these games, purely on killing and leveling and collecting loot. The ability to ride a horse makes traveling the vast world a bit quicker, but given how many enemies populate the world, combined with the (albeit realistic) need to dismount to collect loot, it is a skill that I chose to ignore. One other notable thing about Sacredﾗboth the original and the expansionﾗis that the areas are pre-rendered, and not random like so many recent action-RPG's. While this may detract from replayability as the areas become very familiar, the benefit is that the areas feel more realistic than the strange arrangements or areas often found in PC games that use random dungeon generation systems.  Multiplayer continues to be polished and well done, and adds a friends list. It also adds some very high level monsters that require teamwork to kill, enhancing the cooperative elements of multiplayer. It doesn't break the quality multiplayer that was there. Sacred Underworld is everything an expansion should be ﾖ it takes all of the best elements of the original and improves them at least a little without removing what was good. It is also something the original Sacred was not, stable on release. 
Sacred Underworld is rated T, and there is no gory blood, language or sexual elements to suggest otherwise. There is considerable violenceﾗyou will be battling monsters and demons for the entirety of the gameﾗbut it is all fantasy violence. My greatest concern is the intensity level. Given the size and scale of battles and enemies, the action feels much more like a high intensity First Person Shooter than a Role-Playing Game at times. As such, I would pay close attention to kids under the recommended T (13+) age recommendation. While they can likely handle the game, the intensity level warrants a closer look.
This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Sacred Underworld |
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