We all need a bit of fantasy role-playing sometimes, no not that kind, I mean the kind which you slip into a disc drive, (or roll a D20 for). Piranha Bytes have been kind enough to provide a German made, Western RPG that is and is not just about every action-RPG that has been out on the 360 since its launch.

The game's main story arc, involving the hugely powerful Titans, plays out just a little too closely to Disney's interpretation of the Titan myth in the animated film Hercules. There are differences though. The island of Faranga, on which the game is set, is not anywhere in Greece, and the Titans escaping and going on to cause havoc in the rest of the world is because of humanity doing away with the gods that previously ruled over all (and stopped the Titans from causing trouble).

Eat blue...you...monsters

You play as a man who is a shipwreck survivor. He remains nameless throughout the game, and is drawn into the battle to save the island (and beyond) from the Titans after strange temples and ruins rise out of the earth. Early in the game you choose whether to side with a group of outlaws on the island, or the Inquisition and the world's main religion. Yet both paths cross during the course of the main story and it really only effects the quests that you receive in the first chapter of the game.

Risen is heavily quest focused. Starting one quest may rely on the completion of half-a-dozen other quests in order to get the job done. You gain experience by completing stages and whole part of quests, as well as material rewards. Every time you level up you are rewarded ten learning points that you may invest in either attributes or skills, but you will also have to pay out gold to gain these. In between talking to the relevant quest characters, trainers and merchants, you'll spend a great deal of your time running or investigating one side of the island or another, and engaging in battles with weird (and never wonderful) creatures that are on/in the high roads, old forts and temples.

Don't fancy yours much

This may all seem simple enough, until you actually try playing the game. Risen uses a journal system, common enough in RPGs, to help give you notes for quests, only it's not really notes rather the dialogue that has passed between you and relevant quest characters. There are no summaries of what you must do, which makes for large amounts of time being wasted trying to figure out what you are meant to be doing, especially after coming back to the game from a break. Often how you should go about a quest is quite vague as well, and you may spend a lot of effort trying to figure out how to give someone something, so that they give you something back, which you then need to give to someone else. All so that maybe, just maybe, they will give you the information or item you need to complete a quest.