Rating (out of 10)

★★★★★★★ (7)

Overview

Risen 3 is a fun, wonky open-world RPG. It's kinda like a medium-budget third-person pirate-themed version of Skyrim, except not remotely as good.

Positive (good features)

✔ It's fun. Walk around, find stuff, fight stuff. Fun.

✔ Nice variety of enemies.

✔ There aren't many decent role-playing games in this setting.

✔ Learning skills from people is such a nice, organic way to approach it.

✔ The gnomes are very entertaining.

Neutral (average/expected features)

♦ Fully voiced.

♦ Nice music.

♦ Lots of terrain to explore.

♦ Over a 100 quests. Some of them are actually kinda interesting.

♦ Looks decent enough. Some of the environments are well done.

Negative (bad features)

✖ Terrible boss battles. The first sea monster battle nearly made me quit. They lie and say "keep your distance" but you have to get up close!

✖ Tons of awful dialogue written by a 12-year-old who just discovered swearing.

✖ Some of the women seem to have been designed by 12-year-olds as well. Patty is the worst example.

✖ You get a quest early on that requires you to get past an invisible wall (above the lava) that isn't explained. You need to progress in the main story first.

✖ Your sister and crew have nothing to say about the fact that you got your spirit back. Or about anything that happens on Skull Island really.

✖ You often need the Wiki to find items. Some legendary items are locked behind mini-games.

✖ There are two rotating puzzles and i rage-quit during both. Horrendous.

✖ Fast-travelling is a pain. There are too many islands and not enough teleporters.

✖ Lots of backtracking to steal from more difficult chests/people.

✖ You have to rely on waypoints far too much and they don't indicate heighth (e.g. someone might be in a mine below).

✖ There are too many crafting stations (like 8 or so) which makes crafting needlessly annoying

✖ Once you have 100 Toughness you are indestructible. Even a crystal titan couldn't harm me.

✖ Many enemies have knockback attacks and that gets grating after a while. No skill or item helps with it either.

✖ The interface is too cramped, clumsy and buggy.

✖ Without a guide you have no idea what items to keep and what to sell.

Conclusion

Risen 3 is very wonky and could have been substantially better with only a few changes. But it's also simply fun. The world is interesting and there's always something new to explore. Combat can be annoying at times but never gets old. The quality is in the details. The gnome whose auri culci (personal relic) you keep finding. The little ways you can mess with people. The little bags of gold and throwing knives that seem to be all over the place. It never gets boring and aside from the terrible boss battles and puzzles nothing really got on my nerves.

Details

⯍ Experience with genre: Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Two Worlds, Two Worlds 2, Risen, Risen 2, Gothic, etc.

⯍ Experience with game: Completed every single quest, including all faction quests.

⯍ Recommended to: People who like open-world games like the ones mentioned above.