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This game is a steal at this low price!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 64 / 65
Date: December 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Sacred Gold is a really great deal for the price. The Gold edition includes the original Sacred, the Plus patch/enhancement, and the Underworld expansion. Sacred is a game that is very similar to Diablo 2, so if you are a fan of the genre then this definitely a good buy.

I will spend most of the review comparing the game to Diablo 2 since most people have played that game and have an opinion of it.

Items:
There are just as many items in this game as there are in the Diablo games. There are regular, magic, rare, unique, set, and character specific items. Sacred also does a good job of balancing the drops in single player such that the majority of the character class drops will follow the current class you are playing. You don't have to worry too much about ending up with a lot of items that you cannot use.

Characters:
There are 8 different character classes. For those that are accustomed to the Diablo characters these new classes might seem strange at first. There is the dwarf, daemon, vampiress, seraphim, gladiator, dark elf, wood elf, and the battle mage.

Skills:
There is just as much a variety in skills as there are in Diablo 2 but the skill system is very different. You do not receive a skill point with each level up. You must find skill charms (as drops and quest rewards). Once you find a skill you can add it to your abilities.

At first I was skeptical as this pretty much means that you have to get lucky on a drop if you are looking for a particular skill to increase. Thankfully the game provides a merchant that will trade unwanted skill charms for the ones you are looking for at a trivial charge. Skill charms are easily found so you will never be in a situation where you are held back by not being able to increase a specific skill.

You may ask the question... Then why can't I beef up one particular skill and be a powerhouse from the onset of the game? Using a skill does not drain mana as in Diablo 2. When you use a skill in Sacred the use of skills is deactivated during a "cool down" period (in much the same way skills in Warcraft 3 operate except the cool down period applies across all skills). Increasing the level of a skill increases the length of the cool down period. Before increasing the skill level you must decide if the added effect/damage will offset the increased time it will take between casts.

Quests:
There are many, many quests in this game. There are the main quests that will progress you through the acts in the game and there are hundreds of secondary quests. The secondary quests usually consist of go fetch, deliver, kill x enemies, kill a certain enemy, escort, etc.

The secondary quests are mainly found in the small towns that are scattered all over the map. It is usually a good idea to travel around the whole town and accept all the secondary quests before starting out on the first one. This will cut down on a lot of back and forth as many of the secondary quests are often grouped together.

Other:
The area to travel is massive. You are provided a horse to help make travel go a little faster. You can fight on horseback and the horse has a skill that allows you to trample the enemies. This was a great touch. You will need the horse.

Graphics. The graphics are a bit better than Diablo 2 but they really didn't have to be. It looks as if the characters are 3 dimensional. It really adds to the graphics requirement and I get a bit of stutter from time to time.

One thing that gets a bit annoying is the enemy respawn rate. If you clear an area you will find it overridden with enemies again upon return. This can also make traveling a bit of a nuisance. You will hit a group of enemies that anchor you to a location, thus forcing you to fight them. It can be a pain to traverse long distances when you hit a group like this every few screens or so.

As with Diablo 2 there are simply too many variables, skills, and items to be able to answer all questions in a game manual. Too many options to know what build is the best for any given character. Luckily there is a very active forum for Sacred that has all the information you need and people that are ready to answer your questions.

There are some concerns with bugs with this game. I have not run into any serious bugs in the single player campaigns but I have experienced some crashes to the desktop when playing multiplayer.

This game is a steal at this low price!

Great For Fast RPG & Diablo II Fans!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 22
Date: December 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was impressed enough with Sacred to write this review, something that is not characteristic for me, a 37 year old electrician by day, here is why...

After reading about this game, and then trying the downloadable demo, I decided to go ahead and purchase two copies. Two? Yes, because I play with my wife on our network. What do I know about games? I started at 10 with an Apple ][ playing RPGs like Ultima (the first version in monochrome!), and was hooked. Many years and games later we moved on to Diablo, then D2.

Sacred is quite "Diablo-ish", with some interesting perks. We loved Diablo II with the LOD expansion, and played it until we defeated it on the highest difficulty. What now? Well nothing, we were done, and the areas were quite linear - you start at one end and go to the other mostly, and to your objective. But D2 is a great game for a fast paced RPG and has a very high fun factor (5 stars I would say).

Next we played Neverwinter Nights, and the two expansions for this great game. I ran a standalone server with a world I created for 3 years, and it was fabulous! Also a very fun game, 5 stars for sure, because you can build your own areas, create custom content and scripting as well.

I needed something else after those two, and that was how I found Sacred. It has been out for sometime now, but looked intriguing anyway, and it is a fun game. Since there are many reviews out there for you to read, I would like to comment on the things some reviewers considered to be the low points of the game, after playing through it myself.

"Path-finding does not work very well." I have to admit; at times it really does not manage to go where you clicked very well, but why is that? I feel it is because the builders worked very hard to make areas loaded with richly detailed terrain, and any game platform might have trouble finding a way to walk your character through the tiles. If I have to trade a little path-finding for the detail you will find in the games adventure areas, so be it! (Path-finding: the process of clicking and having the game program take your character to the clicked point by auto navigating through the terrain)

"The quests are often the same and you know exactly where to go instead of finding them for yourself." It is a good thing it helps you find them, because the game world is absolutely immense! Also, once you have accepted 4 or 5 quests, it would be frustrating to figure out what the heck you should do next or where to go. I did not find this to be a downer at all, and thought it helped things move along. Worth noting: You can go wherever you want, whenever you want, and the world is huge! It is good to follow the games main plotline though or you find yourself treading in VERY difficult areas running for your life!

"You cannot HotKey all your weapons or abilities in the beginning" No, you cannot, this is true. Once again, I did not find this to be a problem, as you did not HAVE very many abilities in the beginning. You end up with 5 weapon hot slots and 5 special ability hot slots a reasonable amount of levels later. The game lets you build a variety of custom moves into a Combo at a vendor called a Combo Master. This is absolutely unique and makes up for it I feel. Example: A Gladiator character (like a D2 Barbarian) of mine has a Combo that uses 3 special skills in a row. Back breaker, then Multi attack, finally Hard hit. This would be really hard or impossible to do in keystrokes but the effect is you throw your enemy on the ground stunning them, use your feet, hands and head to pummel them, and finish with a critical hit type move with your equipped weapon. I created this move myself and it works great - surely someone else has done so, but the freedom to make these up yourself is quite novel.

"There are 5 un-stackable potion types." Also true, but with a huge backpack and huge bank chest, I did not find this to be a problem. Also, there are vendors everywhere, and you end up with a lot of gold, so you can buy anything you need easily enough.

"Sacred's combat system frequently feels finicky - it's too easy for your character to either fail to line up an attack (particularly on horseback) or to stop attacking altogether." This was my biggest concern, until I played the demo. I have owned and ridden horses, and I can tell you that if you were fighting from horseback, you are not always going to be able to get a clear shot! Instead of finding this annoying, I simply moved a step and attacked again, this time successfully. Once again, I did not find this to break the flow of the game. As for the combat system being finicky, I thought that not having a "sure thing" all the time made it interesting, not just another in a long line of fights.

"Multiplayer Sacred is lacking some polish in general, as lag occurs too frequently and there isn't a decent trading interface." Thankfully, the builders heard our concerns and released a patch that added a nice trade interface, and even the ability to teleport to another player - which is VERY helpful in such a massive world. The world is so big it could take you an hour to find someone otherwise! I have seen a couple bugs and an odd event or two. But once again, it did not ruin the game for our family in any way. The builders were also interested enough in our enjoyment to do more than address the needed patch fixes. They added a couple of new regions and several added quests, items and the like, making Sacred even bigger! Now there is an expansion out - Sacred Underworld!

In closing I would like to share what I really like about the game, just drawing some things off the top of my head. The zoom-able play window is great! Zoom out to travel, zoom in to see what is going on when you are fighting. The world is really vast - after a couple days play, your logbook typically reports you have seen about 2% of the worldmap! You can export your character anytime you like to any of 6 slots, and then select this character when you start a game, regardless of whether it is multi-player or single.

Being able to ride horses helps you cover the distances in the world A LOT. Since you cannot do some fighting moves while riding a horse (which makes perfect sense to me), I dismount, and walk fighting my way. When you are ready to ride back to town with your loot, just whistle for your horse (that's right whistle by clicking a horseshoe icon), which causes your horse to run up to you, and ride back to town! I could go on, but for the economical price you can get this game for, just get it! I do not think you will be disappointed. That is just my 2 copper pieces though.

Fair winds and good fortune,

X E Ryder of the KoJ Estate
http://www.case-enterprises.com/kooj/

Excellent!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: September 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I tend more towards RTS games, so when I randomly started playing Sacred Gold because it happened to be in my boyfriend's computer at the time, I was surprised to find myself hooked. (He still hasn't gotten his CD's back...)

Sacred has a wonderful plotline, something lacking in many RPG's, but its real strength lies in the actual gameplay. There is a main quest running throughout the game, but you can also complete numerous side quests for rewards--these side quests can even affect your reputation in the game, it seems. The quests make the game very wide-open and allows you to play at your leisure.

The Gold edition gives you eight different character types to choose from, and they happily stray a bit from the usual standards--yes, you have your dwarf, your battle mage, and your fighter, but you can also play a seraphim with angelic blood, a vampiress who is a knight by day, your choice of a wood elf or a dark elf, and my personal favorite, a demon. Each class has its own set of abilities, set as either spells or combat arts.

Sacred Gold also contains the Underworld expansion, which is possibly even better than the original game. It carries on the storyline and has more challenging quests, both in the side quest and the main quest.

Finally, this is a lovely game--the graphics are well above average, and the music--well, I have many of the tracks, especially from Underworld, on my iTunes playlist.

Very good with one flaw

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 22
Date: April 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Most of the reviewers here have given accurate, detailed accounts of this pluses and minuses of this game. I like the game a lot and have had many hours of fun playing it, but I have one gripe: the enemies you kill don't go away! I don't know why this is, but with every other game I've played, once you kill the enemies on a given path, they are dead (this makes sense, because YOU KILLED THEM). But not here. You go somewhere to complete a mission, and you kill 6 zillion orcs/goblins/thieves/cutthroats/giants/etc. Whew. Then you're done, right? On your way back, if you follow the same path by which you came, the path should be pretty clear, right? So you can now concentrate on exploring the area, maybe look for some magical items to pick up because you're not so busy killing everything in sight, right? Wrong. You head back the way you came and EVERY DAMN THING YOU KILLED IS BACK. It's crazy, and a bit frustrating because I personally don't like to have to fight every doggone second. Sometimes it's nice to just explore the area a bit. But in this game your dead enemies miraculously re-appear so you have to kill them all over again. Why? Other than this flaw, however, it is a very fun game.

Sacred is GREAT for us "older" gamers!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: March 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I LOVE RPGs and I've been playing RPGs since forever when the original "Final Fantasy" and "Zelda" came out on Nintendo. The problem I have run across for myself is that I cannot seem to coordinate the keys on the keyboard no matter hard I try. My husband bought "Fable" for me and I got so frustrated I gave it away to a friend. "Sacred" uses the mouse for EVERYTHING and is so easy to coordinate! I especially love "Sacred Gold" because it adds more to the secret hiding places, the map, the side-quests, etc. The expansion pack adds new chapters and items and two new characters. The great thing is you can export an already built-up character from "Sacred" to "Sacred Underworld" with all armor and items intact. This is one of the best games I have EVER played and I am hoping that someone can recommend another game that is similarly easy to play with as much to it as this one!

Mediocre, but entertaining, NO roleplaying involved. NOTHING SPECIAL

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 11
Date: August 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

To all you harsh critics of video games out there... turn around, NOW. Same goes for you dedicated roleplayers... run as fast as you can.

If you're just looking for something to kill a little time, really liked games like Diablo, or want something to relax with after work/school, kick back and buy Sacred.

I must say... all of the comparisons to Diablo and the people urging me that "the game does too have a story!" led me to buy the game. I was misled....

Classes/Skills/Character Management: Terribly arbitrary classes. You can be a gladiator, a battle mage, a dark elf, a vampiress, a dwarf, a seraphim, a demoness, or a wood elf. Their skills seem drawn out of a hat and lackluster. The dwarf can shoot from the cannon on his back and get flamethrowers, while he and the gladiator both have a few abilities similar to the barbarian on diablo. Most of the abilities never get very involved and the skills are comparable to playing Diablo 2 without ever getting any abilities beyond the level 18 skills, if you can understand the reference. Everything felt just one step below Diablo in this case... and truly, I LIKED Diablo, I didn't love it. The game does have an interesting rune/combo system that is fun to play around with for a little while that will allow a little bit of end game toggling of abilities... but truly, you can have every skill/combo that you will EVER use in the game by level 10. That is approximately 45 minutes into playing a game that requires as much as thirty hours to complete both the original and expansion. The skills, however, are marginally fun and entertaining for a while and you may enjoy your time customizing and advancing your character, if power leveling is something you consider a hobby. It has entertained me for four days, playing a few hours a day after work, and I have begun to tire of it... maybe you'll have more luck.

Difficulty: If you're looking for a challenge, back out now. This is a point and click fest... nothing more. You'll have every ability you'll ever use, the skills/stats that you should choose to become invinvible will become apparent immediately, and both the bronze/silver starting difficulties are terribly simple to advance through no matter what. I never got to the gold/platinum/niobium difficulties... which I'm sure would have been hard, but I wasn't willing to put in thirty plus hours just to feel frustrated with my characters limited attacks and abilities against strangely superior monsters.

Storyline/Roleplaying: I'll give the game this much... it is much larger than Diablo 2... with a lot more people and things to interact with, and you can freely roam around the countryside. You can go look at the map on Sacred's website and feel confident that it will be your playground. HOWEVER, do not let people convince you that the game is in ANY way immersive. The storyline works like this... an EVIL mage has unleashed something terrible! Go stop him, now. Each character is then given a motive to go do said task such as, "I am a gladiator and am good with a sword... I have been released from bondage and will now go use my abilities for good." And there is the storyline. You will not reveal anything amazing about your character, there will not be any side characters that say anything more than necessary or express emotion, nor will your character be capable of doing anything beyond saying 'yes' or 'no' to quests and then going out to complete said task. Diablo 2 ACTUALLY had more of a storyline that this game, because at the very least you were able to listen to the story of Marius. So if you roleplay or enjoy experiencing a story... give up.

Overview: Everything about this game seemed lackluster and thrown together. There was clearly plenty of time put into the interface, and that was the end of it. If you want extraordinary anything... gameplay, storyline, originality, character management, or difficulty then this is not for you. BUT, it is marginally entertaining, and might be worth twenty dollars to you... if you are bored/very young/retarded and entertained by flashes and sword clashes.

Truly, NOTHING SPECIAL.

hack and slash fest

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: January 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The big problem with sacred is that you can't go anywhere practically without running into a monster due to their respawning all the time in open areas. This makes exploring or even going to point A to B a chore more than fun. Even if you try and outrun them, some mage will cast web so that you are forced to fight them. And the quests are too simple and linear in nature. It's not like baldur's gate where there is some sort of plot in the quest and is somewhat complicated. It's always of the nature of find this item or kill this guy.
But, I do have to admit, I do like the way they handle magical weapons and how you can add things to them. I guess some poeple who like fighting and whole like accumulating a lot of magical items and treasure will like this game. It just doesn't have either enough style or enough depth, or enough uniqueness to be a favorite of mine.

Anyway, I've played a whole bunch of rpg like games and still have many more that I own that I haven't played yet (like gorusol and nightstone, I haven't even finished or barely started many of the games below) because I haven't had the time or inclination to play them.. But roughly in the order of the ones I most enjoyed to the ones I just either didn't get or didn't enjoy:

planescape (this one just oozed style)
fallout 1
fallout 2 (from the same makers of planescape)
baldur's gate (I like the intelligently designed plot)
diablo
fate (I like the graphics and theme, but yeah it is simple)
throne of darkness
diablo II
the bard's tale
divine divinity (seems to have a lot in common with blade and sword, oddly enough).
blade and sword (combo crazy)
gothic
dungeon siege (another buggy microsoft product)
beyond divinity (doesn't seem like a finished product, buggy)
neverwinter nights
icewind dale
kult: heretic kingdoms
prince of qin
revenant
darkstone (aging system doesn't makes sense)
sacred (too much fighting)
temple of elemental evil
skullhunter

I know a lot of people will disagree with me of course (neverwinter nights is a favorate of a light of people.. but I just found the interface a bit cumbersome, like temple of elemental evil).

Sacred Gold - The Best since Diablo 2

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: February 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought Sacred Gold hoping for a decent RPG. I've been continually blown away by the graphics, the smooth gameplay and the huge scope of the game. A huge number of items, lots of monsters and a gigantic map to explore ensure that both my son and I will be playing this for a long time.
It's rare that I am ever interested in a game enough to finish it - Diablo 2, KOTOR, Warlords Battlecry 3. Sacred Gold ranks up with the best of the best!

Better than Diablo II

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: May 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

At first this game seems like a Diablo II clone. But it's much more than that and MUCH superior IMHO to the Diablo series.
The controls are almost completely mouse-driven, and warning for Vista users: you need to add the program to your Data Execution Prevention exceptions list for it to run.
In this game, you pick from one of eight character classes/races, such as dwarf, gladiator (yawn)...but hey, there are much cooler ones than Diablo contains such as Seraphim (fallen angel), Vampiress (no gender choice), and Daemon. Yeah, I'm kickin' it as a Daemon now, the villagers scream and flee when I enter villages. This does not stop the main point of the game, which is the fulfillment of quests. In that sense, it reminds me more of a GBA (Game Boy Advance) game such as Golden Sun than Diablo II, which is a bit more free form.
And there IS online play, just like Diablo II. (Good luck trying to find an original Diablo online game you can join).
One of the things that makes it stand out from Diablo also is its extensive use of true-to-life landscape features...such as rivers, cliffs...it's basically National Geographic out there. (I.E. it can get annoying since it seems to be a bit over done by the game's map makers).
I recommend this game WAY over Diablo II, which is pretty much akin to me renouncing eating food to live entirely on granules of sand. (I'm a die-hard Diablo II fanatic...and my sense of humor is "dry and sarcastic").
The price is ridiculously low; I would buy two copies and donate one to a fellow PC gamer in my life, if not three* copies of it.

Sacred is gold

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Sacred Gold contains enough depth to keep the experienced gamer active for a while. The storyline is linear but there is more locales than in Diablo and the action is fresh. Various attacks forms for each of the different player options allow the player to build to his own liking and makes each class viable. Sacred is a great game for those that enjoyed Diablo-esque type games.

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