US PS3 Sacred 2 Patch May Be "Soon"

Confirmed here and here, a US PS3 patch for Sacred 2 has been submitted to Sony and should be available "soon".

Fate Of PS3 Sacred 2 Patch Seems Uncertain

While we love Sacred 2 here at Cathode HQ, there is quite a bit that we'd love to see fixed, not the least of which being to actually trade items with each other in offline coop. A European patch was rumored to have been released, but a recent post at the forums for the US publisher, CDV, indicates no release date and please stop asking since they have no control over it.

When I tried to contact Ascaron, the developer, on it, I got rather swift, possibly automated, and somewhat ominous reply:

Dear Customer

the support for this game will be terminated on the 29.05.2009.

Sincere thanks to everyone who has supported us. We have had a fantastic time, and could not have done it without all you.

Your Ascaron Technical Support Team



so long and thanks for all the fish ...

Since there is planned DLC for the PC version, I wonder if they dropped PS3 support.

Update: Looks like a patch was submitted to Sony. Ascaron maintains console patch status in a forum post (even if you can't them via email)

Game Play: Sacred 2 (PS3)

I've already posted about Sacred 2's bizarre coop setup (bizarre being a friendly term there), but since we got past that weirdness, we've been able to jump into the game with more earnest.

Let's deal with some of the bad first. Framerates drop. Bugs crop up here and there - we had one instance where our characters stopped responding to our control and nobody could take any damage. The Girl resurrected once somewhere she couldn't move, until she was knocked aside by a giant squid. When working correctly, the game's rules are a bit arcane and sometimes even when it is working - it almost feels like it isn't. We've been playing it on and off for a few days now and I think we're finally getting a hang of the statistics, what some of the items do, managing the characters, etc.

So this is not a pick up and play kind of game. You have to put in some time just to get the hang of it. While still using a very much a Diablo-style format, the game employs some pretty serious mechanics to it.

The good is that once you get the hang of it, Ancaria is a huge and well realized world. Few games in this genre, especially for the console, allow you to roam so freely about, picking up side missions and honestly just exploring. The non-linear aspect is a huge bonus, compared to the specific chapter flow of most games of this ilk. There is a decent amount of diversity that we've seen so far, although at some point you wonder what in T-Energy made the rats just so darn mean. Still, you get the impression you are adventuring across a vast landscape, not just fulfilling task A which will be followed by task B.

Truth is, now that we're in the thick of it, this is honestly one of the better two player hack and slash RPG's we've had on the console. The game shines when you head down a hill and meet an army of monsters and get engaged in brief but somewhat epic battles. In fact, the game is better at throwing ten or more creatures at you than it is at boss fights so far.

I have an armload of fixes and tweaks I'd like to see in a patch at some point, but the game is definitely recommended for fans of the genre - with the caveat that it takes a little bit of time and frustration to enjoy.

Sacred 2: Offline Coop - Nearly A Fail

The Girl and I were big fans of the Baldur's Gate and Norrath games (and their clones like Justice League) because they offered a good method of couch coop. The best implementations made it easy to create a new character, start a game, and join in and out of current games.

Sacred 2 just recently released for the PS3 and I was pretty excited to get something like the above for the new system. It's a shame that the offline coop nearly wrecked the whole thing.

So for people in our position, there's a trick to doing offline coop right. You won't find it in the manual and the game is of now help. Not sure who figured this out online, but hats off to them.

To play two characters on the PS3 and be able to save them:
- Make sure you have two users on the PlayStation 3 system. That's right, get out of the game, go to the system menu and create a new user. Just for this game.

- Log in as one user, create a character.

- Log in as the second user, create another character. You can now start a campaign and when the second controller hits start, select the first user.

- Now you can select the first character, play and save together.

There's a few odd things that still hang around offline coop - like not being able to trade with the other player. But at least with the above you can play together.

Overall opinion on the game forthcoming, but the above is just a terrible concept.

Update: Review up now.

Update: With the latest patch, you can do offline trading. When two players are close to each other, "Trade" will appear above (like "Use" or "Talk"). It's a bit unfriendly when you're in the heat of a battle, and both users need PSN accounts and be signed and it seems buggy and will flake out on detecting a signed in user ... but it does work. Mostly.