Risen 3: Titan Lords Review
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Finally, I should mention that the companion mechanics work in the exact same way they did in Risen 2. Curiously, their AI seems worse this time around and often has no idea how to react to the enemy's actions. Maybe it's deliberately stunted to be less of a crutch for players?
Minigames and Assorted Stuff
Many of the same minigames and odd design and interface decisions from Risen 2 return for this game. For starters, there are still QTE traps (though they are used more sparingly), the lockpicking mechanic works exactly the same, cooking and forging still use a completely separate interface screen, and the drinking minigame makes a comeback. There are, however, a few additions, including a new knife throwing minigame (which is actually fun), and a QTE-based arm wrestling one (which is not really fun). Luckily, aside from a couple of minor side quests, you are never required to engage in any of these side activities, which makes them more palatable than they'd otherwise be. You are however required to participate in naval combat against sea creatures and enemy crews. Naval combat against enemy crews works in a straightforward way: you fight against waves of enemies, occasionally interrupted by a scripted sequence like having to defuse bombs or complete a couple of Quick Time Events, and then finally fight the enemy captain in a duel.
Sea combat against monsters is more of a departure from normal gameplay: You are required to control the ship and shoot at a sea monster while making sure to avoid its attacks and accidental collisions. It controls reasonably well and is fun the first time, when you fight a sea monster that's still weak, but by my third encounter I had grown really tired of it. I wouldn't mind if these sections were optional, but they are mandatory and devoid of strategic gameplay that would make them feel more substantial. If different faction ships had different properties, it would be different. Same if there was a way to upgrade your ship, or an optional way to avoid these fights. Unfortunately, that's not the case, and as they are, these sections feel annoying.
Graphics, Art, Soundtrack and Tech Risen 3 looks more or less like Risen 2 did, save for slightly more advanced lighting. In fact, it reuses many of the previous game's assets, causing it to share the previous game's strengths and weaknesses in terms of visuals. While the environments might not be very technically advanced, Piranha Bytes' strong eye for composition means you are never very far from a breathtaking vista or a well-made interior. Character models, on the other hand, tend to look pretty bad, with odd proportions that were probably meant to come off as stylized but miss the mark, especially since there is far too little variety in heads and models. A few of the original Risen 2 characters return, and many of them got a makeover. Without a doubt, Patty fared the worst, as her redesign is absolutely atrocious. Piranha Bytes' artists did a better job with other characters. Chani is a good example: She wears different clothes and facial make-up now, but is still identifiable as the same person. Bones has underwent a more thorough redesign, but one that preserved the personality of the original. The only returning companion that doesn't seem to have changed at all is Jaffar, the pirate gnome, whose character design hit all the right notes the first time around. The animations don't redeem the generally poor character models, and plenty of them are unequivocally awful. I also encountered a couple of noticeable visual bugs during my playthrough, but those and a weird bug that prevented me from viewing my skill list from the character sheet were the only bugs I encountered.
That said, while it might not have much in the way of actual bugs, Risen 3 certainly isn't as polished as it should be. The LOD transitions are very noticeable (though at least leaves don't change size as you approach), character pathfinding is poor, causing them to bump into each other and try to approach you during conversations, your companions banter far too often and use a far too limited pool of sentences (at some points they were close to reaching Dragon's Dogma grade critical mass), and the awful voice acting often doesn't match the subtitles.
Speaking of sound design, while I don't really have much to say about the sound effects, as they do their job and nothing more, I feel like Risen 3's soundtrack should be mentioned in more detail. In my opinion, it sits more or less in the same place as Risen 2's: it's not very memorable (certainly not as memorable as Kai Rosenkranz's work), but it does its job setting up the right atmosphere for the various areas, and never feels overbearing.
