 Sacred 2: Fallen Angel has finally made the port from the PC version to the 360 (and PS3), and the transition in many ways improves upon the strengths of its progenitor, while unfortunately only truly addressing one of the game’s more serious flaws. For console owners who never had the pleasure of playing this title on the PC, Sacred 2 is certain to be one of those hotly debated games, each side taking up staunch positions on either end of whatever point or letter grade system is used.
In fact, in weighing the pros and cons of this game in an attempt to ultimately decide a score, the process is very reminiscent of another Action RPG released last year -- the points on both sides are basically the same, but the key difference here (and what keeps the flames manageable) is that there wasn’t nearly as much hype leading up to the release of Sacred 2: Fallen Angel as there was for Silican Knight’s Too Human.
Still, it honestly amounts to the same thing, as for all the reasons people might have loved or hated Silicon Knight’s last title, they could just as easily love or hate Sacred 2 as well. There are problems with targeting enemies here, occasional graphics hiccups and other technical flaws, and the story leaves quite a bit to be desired. The combat, loot dropping and level grinding co-operatively in this title still has as much appeal as it did on the PC and the multiplayer aspects of the game benefit greatly from the solid Xbox Live system.
Hit the jump in the second combo button for more. (Refer to your manual, forums and wiki’s for help in understanding the combo system.)
The story of Sacred 2 revolves loosely around “T Energy,” which is the major source of conflict in the world of Ancaria. You can choose a light or shadow campaign, and of the six playable characters most lend themselves to a particular alignment. There’s a large amount of variety in the design of the player characters and the innate persona that each one has, but you may just find yourself deciding your fate based solely on the idea of what unique “Special Mount,” you eventually want to ride -- whether that be a giant spider, a monocycle, or (my favorite) an enormous tiger. But once you leave the character selection screen, it becomes all about the gameplay.
Sacred 2 is an Action RPG. That’s it. If you don’t like action, or RPGs, this game won’t be for you. But for Diablo, Titan Quest and (yes) Too Human fans, there’s something here to enjoy. In general, Sacred 2’s strengths have been in the departments of graphics, humor and interesting combat. Of course the graphics on the 360 can’t quite match the high-res texture pack included in the PC’s Collector’s Edition, but this game still compares quite favorably to most other Xbox titles.
 Unfortunately, there is noticeably more screen tearing in this edition, which gives the sense that the game is really pushing the system’s response time to its limits. This can be easily mitigated by changing the camera from “dynamic” to “static,” which actually feels much more true to the console ARPG experience, placing the camera in a fixed position behind your character and allowing you to pan and zoom with the right thumbstick.
One of the greatest criticisms of the first game was the massive amount of information that new players were given, with no real explanation -- in the past you could have several different inventory windows open at once, displaying items, attributes, skill and combat abilities in dizzying colors, numbers and quantities. The 360 version has seen a massive amount of streamlining, limiting you to one window open at a time which not only displays less information at once but goes into greater depths of explanation.
 Here you can actually take the time to plan out the advancement and style of your character, and compare the different types of gear in a relatively easy manner. This extends into the actual gameplay itself for what is the most significant improvement to the title overall. With the streamlined interface, everything you can use, from potions to weapons to combat abilities and combos, are all assigned to the controller’s face buttons, which serve as hot keys to whatever you have assigned. For example, let’s say you want to hold the A button down to attack -- just put whatever weapon you want in that slot and A will be your attack button. Want it to be Y? Put your weapon there. Then put an alternate weapon somewhere else, and you can change from ranged to melee combat on the fly.
Granted, four buttons don’t make for endless possibilities, but luckily you can hold down the left or right triggers to gain access to a new set of hot keys, tripling what is immediately available to you. Assign potions to one trigger and combat arts to another, or any combination thereof. What’s important (and in a way almost ironic) is that this UI actually ends up giving you more accessibility with fewer details cluttering the screen than you had on the PC. It’s an impressive enough improvement that I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a mod for the computer soon accomplishing the same thing.
 Another area in which this title exceeds is the ease of matchmaking via Xbox Live. You don’t have to type in router numbers or IP addresses, pick servers or ping anything. The invite system alone would be enough to say “this is much better,” but you can also connect and search for other games as well as host drop-in/drop-out matches much easier. And everything that your character does, from the gold and experience to earned equipment, follows that character when you move them between games.
There are some areas where this game fails to perform. Apart from fixing the interface and crashing issues, there are some bugs that have carried over with the port, particularly those involving enemy characters falling through or becoming partly stuck inside the ground. A new problem which seems to have been introduced is related to the combat system itself. Without the precision of the mouse, it can be difficult to get the auto-targeting system to pinpoint the exact enemy you want to defeat in a group of foes, which reduces any tactical aspects the combat might have had.
 Thankfully, holding down a face button is sufficient to sustain an attack, but this doesn’t go over well when changing targets or moving from ranged to melee weapons. The combat animations here feel scripted to the point where once one is begun (such as drawing a bow) it cannot be interrupted, and any other button presses in the mean time will be ignored. This means that if you press and hold the button to swing a sword while the game is still firing a ranged weapon, you will continue firing you ranged weapon, even though you are holding down a completely different button. Granted, you could just be slightly more patient, but imagine that the button you were holding down was for a desperately needed health potion, yet your archer kept firing away. That can complicate things.
Of course, dying is as negligible here as it was before. You’ll simply respawn at the last activated monolith. It would have been nice to see an update here that would let you teleport between all visited plinths, so that you don’t have to traverse twenty miles just to move between various towns and quests. But it’s no more annoying here than it was on the computer.
 There are some things, such as the user interface, that this version gets right, and there are aspects such as graphic fidelity and the fluidity of combat that are done better by its PC counterpart. Ultimately, the pros and cons of this version equal out to be about the same as the original game, and which version you buy as a fan of these titles is going to come down to just a couple of simple questions: how good is your computer, how much do you like achievements, and how important is it to chat with your friends on Live? (Personally I favor the ease of talking to people in this version over having to involve third party chat software on the PC, plus who can resist that little boost to their gamerscore?)
This type of game on a console, for whatever reason, is actually fairly rare, so if you don’t own a PC and were a huge fan of D&D Heroes, Dark Alliance or Champions, this is absolutely the game for you. Despite some flaws or better features found elsewhere, when it comes to making the decision between one version or the other, what it essentially amounts to is this -- the PC version is a better single-player experience, while the Xbox 360 rules the multiplayer arena, and bother versions stand out above the rest when compared to other Action RPGs on their respective platforms.
Final Score: B-
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