At play in the worlds of Aranna and Ancaria

Last week, I have been alternating between Dungeon Siege 2 and Sacred. Sacred was the more engrossing game with more of a whimsical world with free-form adventures and side quests. I feel that the tightly-scripted Dungeon Siege 2 was somewhat too linear. Before long, I had reached Act III in Sacred and collected three out of the four elements. I have put away the somewhat drab Dungeon Siege 2 for now. I expect to finish Sacred in two or three days. Then, I will embark on Sacred: Underworld.

Sacred brings back a lot of fond memories of Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress which I played in 1983 due to the free-form nature of the gameplay, the huge sprawling world, the freedom of travel and the limitless monsters. Last weekend, my battle mage was level 18 and I took out a level 21 dragon*. Later, my level 25 battle mage was killing level 34 monsters with a single fireball. I was tired of creating weak melee characters and hybrid types** in other games and had reverted to playing spellcasters. I would go back to building my usual overpowered spellcasters now. By focusing, my battle mage regularly destroys monsters 4-6 levels higher with a spell.

Upside

• The size of the world of Ancaria. The varied towns. The fact that one can enter each building, structure, they are not merely props and decor like in World of Warcraft, Battlefield 2 and so forth.
• The many side quests allow one to be pleasantly diverted. They add flavour.
• The character design. The monsters design. The architecture of the buildings. The design of the medieval fantasy towns and villages. The design of the forests.
  

Downside

• The rendering of the arms and armour in the inventory section is lacking. The items appear extremely unappealing.
• The camera angle of the game is somewhat strange. During combat, it is hard to play close up as one requires distance especially when using ranged skills or spells. As a result, one misses the lovingly crafted details in the game.
  
• The somewhat clumsy translations. The unimaginative things said by the townsfolk are surely translations that did not come out too well. And they appear too generic.

Tips

• The use of a horse is paramount for speed of travel. While there are teleporting gates, one will need to do a lot of exploring. The world of Ancaria is huge, comparing favourably with The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. A fast horse like the light riding horse and normal riding horse with a speed of 200 and 220 will be essential. And these horses are needed for the avoidance of monsters which spawns randomly, much like the Ultima series of games. Warhorses and nags are too slow though the two warhorse types confer a lot more damage during combat than the others.
• Accumulate those spell and skill runes and trade four in for a needed type. This is quite basic really.
  
• Do do do the side quests. They are usually simple affairs and one is usually rewarded with a spell or skill rune. With many of these, one can easily rise in power fairly swiftly. That is who I build up. By level 15, my Fireballs was doing over 2000 points of damage. Right now, I am doing over 3000 per Fireball and my cast time with Ghost Meadow is about 1.3 seconds.
• Watch for the skill or spell re-charge timing. Sometimes, it is better to have fast re-charge skills than merely powerful slow re-charging ones.
• If one is using ranged skills or spells, one should always attack from a long distance away. The monsters in Sacred can run really fast.
• 'Kiting'*** is easily effected with ranged skills or spells. Crowd control**** is not really necessary if one has a fast horse and one can use terrain well.

Sacred is highly enjoyable. I am quite engrossed.

* Dragon. A large 'boss'.
** For instance, pet and spell casting types like the Warlock in World of Warcraft. An abysmal design.
***Kiting. Gamers (Kids) terminology which refers to luring the monster around like flying a kite and shooting them.
****Crowd control. Gamers (Kids) terminology for dealing with multiple enemies.