My wife and I have always played video games together. Back when we were first dating, she bought a gaming PC and left it over my house so that she could come over and play Neverwinter Nights and Baldur’s Gate with me. Later, we played Dungeon Siege, Champions of Norrath and Gauntlet Legends together. These top-down or isometric action RPGs are amongst our favorite games to play together. Recently, we’d been looking for a game of that ilk to dive into on the Playstation 3. While Sacred 2 is by no means the most recent PS3 game, it was well-spoken of, so we figured we’d give it a shot. On a whim one weekend afternoon this past spring, we popped by a GameStop and grabbed a copy. I’m not a big fan of teh Gamestop, but it’s good for impulse purchases.

Sacred 2 is awkward and difficult to understand. Each character has three skill categories, and four skills in each for a total of fifteen powers/spells/techniques. Most of them are difficult to use well, don’t do much damage, and don’t seem very cool. You can combine two into a single power and slot that power on a given button, but I have yet to find a good use for that, as the powers are mostly useless anyway. The game’s weapon system is similarly opaque. You can see the damage and level of weapons, but is a level 8 weapon that does 10-28 damage somehow better than a level 5 weapon that does 12-36 damage?

So far, it’s nearly impossible to die in Sacred 2. And while this is infinitely preferable to an error on the opposite side of the scale, it means that strategy is absent. In Diablo 2, you’d dodge incoming enemy fire. In Champions of Norrath, you’d use area attacks to take out enemies before they could close. In Sacred 2, this is not an option, nor is it necessary.

There is so much more I could complain about in Sacred 2. And yet we continue to play. The game mechanics suck, but the running around and killing things is somehow enjoyable.