Sacred 2 Remaster review – Tech-Gaming

Back in 2008, Sacred 2 spawned a cult following thanks to its vast open world and deep character customization. While the era saw several competent Diablo-clones, developer Ascaron ensured the title was built upon sturdy foundations. As such, combat was fast-paced, exploration felt fulfilling, and a sprawling storyline set in the high fantasy realm of Ancaria piqued curiosities.

While exploring a simulated 22 square-mile map was undoubtedly alluring, Sacred 2 wasn’t without some glaring issues. Crashes were common and controller support wasn’t officially provided until the game received console ports a year later. But with the release of Sacred 2 Remaster, contemporary players now have the opportunity to visit Ancaria. But given the number of lingering issues and the appearance of several new ones, they might be puzzled by the game’s popularity.

A Remaster That Hasn’t Squashed All of Its Bugs

One area where the remaster sees the most improvement is stability. While still far from perfect, the game is far less prone to the unpredictable crashes that plagued the original release. The Steam release of Sacred 2 Gold would crash nearly every two hours without any community patching. The remaster came to a halt four times across a 30-hour span, which isn’t great, but definitely a step in the right direction.

Meanwhile, auto-saving is more reliable, zones transitions are a bit smoother. Now, dungeon interiors aren’t the high-risk areas where memory leaks are as dangerous as any monster. Yet, sporadic CPU spikes, pathfinding quirks, and sporadic UI glitches are a reminder that even with polishing, Sacred 2 can still be disobedient.

Finding the Rhythm in Remastered Rumbles

Pleasingly, combat retains its hectic charm, with classes like the Seraphim and Shadow Warrior dishing out damage to any in-range enemies. Here, the remaster exhibits an improvement to responsiveness, allowing for a palpable rhythm to battle. From stringing together melee and ranged attacks, weaving in buffs, and unleashing the sporadic area-of-effect assault, it’s fun to find the cadence of conflict. The console ports of Sacred 2 mapped skills to the different face buttons of your controller. But now, you’ll have to cycle through your abilities, which undermines the change in tempo.

Expectedly, some balancing issues still linger. Some builds can annihilate swarms of enemies while others require a lot of micro-management or grinding to remain viable. As such, it’s challenging to not envision how a more comprehensive rebalancing would have made a substantial difference. That said, once I thought of builds as granular adjustments to the game’s difficulty, my irritation subsided. Still, I hope one of the three co-developers who worked on this remaster could attempt some class equity.

Exploration Still Shines, Even If the Pathfinding Doesn’t

Thankfully, the enjoyment of exploration remains intact in the remaster. Ancaria still feels massive with biomes that provide their own visual variety and their own set of side stories. The remaster’s improved draw distance and tweaked lighting make those long overland treks more rewarding, while adjustments to the world map improve play. Still, the density of enemies, uneven quest pacing, and occasional visual pop-in may test the patience of new players who aren’t accustomed to the quirks of a mid-2000s open world. Occasionally, a lack of quality assurance is obvious, with the remaster allowing you to cross sections of water that were once untraversable.

Meanwhile, Sacred 2’s remastered audio delivers a mixed experience. Sure, the iconic Blind Guardian questline sounds better than ever, and ambient effects benefit from improved clarity. However, some of the game’s accidently hilarious voice lines fluctuate in volume, while the soundtrack loop can occasionally desynchronize during battle. These issues don’t ruin the experience, but they contribute to the sense that this remaster doesn’t completely polish the game’s rougher edges.

Take Your Pick: Fewer Crashes or New Bugs

Sacred 2 always aimed higher than its budget and hardware allowed. Unsurprisingly, this ambition is still present in the remaster which at times can feel unwieldy, eccentric, occasionally frustrating. Yet, the game is also rewarding and almost endlessly customizable, providing an engaging outing for fans of open-world role-playing.

For longtime Sacred 2 fans, the remaster is the best version available, preserving most of Ascaron’s magic while eliminating at least some of the original game’s most unruly behaviors. While newcomers probably won’t understand the allure, Sacred 2 Remaster provides a way to reexamine one of the genre’s boldest underdogs. That said, its hard not to feel that the title deserved better.

Sacred 2 Remaster was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.