➤ A half-successful leap forward 🎮

The name Piranha Bytes may be unknown to someone, but not to lovers of the Gothic saga, curated by the German developer. An extremely troubled history that of this studio, also passed through real failures that forced it to buy the rights of its own games. Also for these reasons, the Risen series has presented itself as a true spiritual successor of Gothic, an adventure that began in 2009 and ends with the third chapter examined in this review. Released a year ago on the old generation of consoles, Risen 3: Titan Lords returns to PlayStation 4 in a special edition, graphically improved and enriched with all the additional content released by the house in the time that separated us from the original release. The second chapter curiously explored the pirate theme, moving away from the fantasy-medieval contours of the progenitor. Risen 3 tries to return in part to that style, but without denying what was told by the previous episode.

The bizarre adventure in fact maintains many characters in common but not the protagonist, an unnamed pirate that we find ourselves impersonating without many preambles: on board a ship and during an assault by monstrous creatures. The situation is immediately tense: the enemies were not enough, the ghost of an old pirate also joins him who wants to take possession of the body of our hero. But in the end it's all a dream and the unnamed is woken up by the attractive sister Patty (coincidentally a character from Risen 2: Dark Waters). Time is running out, however, there is a treasure to be recovered from a small island nearby and we just can't help but find out what it is. Unfortunately, we pay dearly for our curiosity, since our hero loses his soul and life following the unpleasant encounter with a mysterious skeleton demon. It turns out that what lived is a simple prologue that opens the story of Titan Lords and, resurrected by a shaman, we will have to wander the world looking for a way to recover the lost soul; otherwise our body will inexorably surrender to the fascination of the forces of darkness. The incipit is curiously reminiscent of another title: Capcom's Dragon's Dogma.

Risen 3: Titan Lords - Enhanced Edition also brings the Piranha Bytes title to PlayStation 4

Pirate fantasy

Once you leave the island of the introduction, the title immediately reveals the role-playing nature with ample decision-making power: you can go immediately where you want, with a dozen islands full of missions available and countless objects to discover . As mentioned, the Caribbean setting of the previous Dark Waters is maintained, as well as the narration focused on ironic dialogues and a vaguely light-hearted general style, but at the same time we tried to recover the fantasy spirit of the first chapter. The player has many possibilities to express himself as he wishes in the game world: the inevitable main quest, centered as mentioned on the search for the protagonist's spirit, is accompanied by a generous number of secondary missions and the need to rely on one of the three factions, or guilds, which we will meet on our travels.

This is to give a precise imprint to the character's abilities, but the guilds can be attended independently. From Dark Waters, Titan Lords unfortunately also recovers the imperfect combat system. The protagonist can slash with the sword, parry, fire a pistol shot, a magic shot or perform an evasive somersault; it is even possible to perform simple combos with the white weapon. Unfortunately very little has changed from the original and all the defects are in place, including the total invulnerability of the protagonist during the somersault, usable among other things without limits, which leads to a series of almost comical situations. The lag in the commands and the slowness of the animations of the character also make it difficult to counter the asphyxiating enemy attacks, still forcing the infamous evasive move to fall back on an unsatisfactory hit and run tactic. There is a simple system of moral inclination, which will influence the recovery of the protagonist's soul at the end of the main story, altering its conclusion, while there is also an item crafting evolved at the right point and a system of skills that for once does not occur. relies on the classic progression to levels. The overall duration is satisfactory, guaranteed by the amount of content proposed and enriched by the DLCs included in the Enhanced Edition, which consist of two islands and a new uniform. In this way, fifty hours of play can be well exceeded.

PlayStation 4 Trophies

Risen 3: Titan Lords - Enhanced Edition features forty-two bronze, eight silver and two gold trophies, in addition to platinum. To get them you need to complete the main and secondary missions, which can reach up to three hundred. But don't forget to develop the character's skills, collect all the items, accumulate money and beat the minigames. You will have a lot of work to do to reach the coveted platinum.

A volte ritornano

Risen 3: Titan Lords Enhanced Edition has been revised for PlayStation 4 hardware. The improvements over the old-gen versions are evident and noticeable, from the increased resolution to native 1080p to the texture quality, now comparable to ultra settings on PC. But beyond that there are various improvements, such as variations in depth of field and some graphic effects, such as bloom. The image is thus very soft, with warm tones and saturated colors. For the occasion, the cloud system was also revised, which is now entirely volumetric. Unfortunately, however, there are various technical problems, such as the unlocked frame rate which, however, can hardly keep the thirty frames per second. The dips are constant and often severe in their severity, affecting gameplay, while a number of really annoying bugs are still present. Graphically you can glimpse the strengths and weaknesses of the work of a small house like Piranha Bytes: it is commendable to look for a visual style like Fable, but the budget is what it is and it is impossible to turn a blind eye to the paucity of the artistic direction. As far as possible, however, we tried to create environments as varied as possible, in certain situations even pleasant if not evocative.

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7.6

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Risen 3: Titan Lords - Enhanced Edition is an RPG that is still fascinating and full of things to do. However, the "restoration" operation is not optimal, the frame rate is inconsistent and the graphic improvements cannot hide the limits of a graphics engine that is so pleasant, but now outdated by the more recent productions. The problems of the original are instead always present, starting from the combat system undermined by the lag and by questionable choices up to the various bugs, which affect the quality of the gameplay. If you are willing to tolerate the limits of production, overlooking the defects, and maybe you have also enjoyed Risen 2: Dark Waters, you can still find satisfaction in this third chapter, even considering the additional content already integrated in the package.