Achievements, Trophies, and the Addiction of Unlocking Them

Achievements, Trophies, and the Addiction of Unlocking Them

Normally the bulk of the information that is being presented to you in this section would appear at the back of the guide in the Addendum Section (and in fact it DOES appear there) but in this case what follows in this section is not so much the list of Achievements/Trophies as it is some important remarks about them.  If the unlocking of Achievements or Trophies is at all important to you, why then you will want to read what follows.

From here onwards the words "Achievement" or "Achievements" will be routinely used; when you encounter these words, know that their use is intended to include Xbox LIVE Achievements, PlayStation 3 Trophies, and Windows LIVE Achievements interchangeably, with the words being used for convenience rather than serving as the presumption that all of you will be playing just the version of the game for Microsoft's Xbox 360.  We want to make it very clear to all who read our guides that we have the capability of playing games on every platform! 

The staff of Senior Gaming Writers as well as the Senior Game Reviewers at Super Cheats (and Gaming Update and MMOFan) all own at least one exanple of every major video game platform.  The writer of this guide personally owns at least one of each of the mobile and console platforms, as well as a PC that can be conservatively considered to be a Gamer Deck.  The fact that the version of the game that was used for this guide was the Xbox 360 version in no way implies any favoritism for a specific platform, it just happens to be the version that was purchased.

In addition to maintaining a full stable of all gaming platforms the writer maintains several identities on the official gaming services, including Steam, Nintendo Online, Xbox LIVE, Windows LIVE, the PlayStation Network, and numerous other special-use gaming services such as those attached to the PC-based digital distribution services presently active online.   The reason that several accounts are maintained is to ensure that the process of shooting video illustrations for the games that they write guides for can include the unlocking phase for Achievements -- a necessary evil since the use of hidden or secret Achievements by developers often ends up resulting in said Achievements being unlocked with little or no warning. 

Our aim is to provide you with entertaining and informative game play guides, and to that end there is literally nothing we will not do to be effective in the process, including multiple play-throughs and the use of multiple ID's to facilitate this.  We are just saying...

== Notes on Unlocking Achievements ==

You will notice that there are a fair number of Secret Achievements in the game.  A lot of gamers do not like it when a developer chooses to hide the nature of a large number of Achievements in a game, particularly because they often do that when the Achievements are tedious ones.  In the case of Risen 2 I am happy to note that that was not the reason that they hid the Achievements -- it appears that they made them Secret largely to prevent the unintended introduction of spoilers to the base game content that will result when the player has open access to all of the Achievements in list form with descriptions...   We disclose that factoid here as an official warning to you that reading the Achievement lists and sections in our guide will, necessarily, constitute spoiler content.  You have been warned!

While we are on the subject of Achievements, there are a significant number of what most gamers think of as "Metered Achievements" (classically these are thought of as Achievements that have the gamer  perform X actions X number of times and the like).  The good news here is that the game uses a dynamic stat-recording system that is NOT tied to the game save system.  Let me explain that -- the game maintains two completely separate sets of records, with the game saves being one set, and all of the stat-action tracking in a dedicated table being another.

In Risen 2 all of the action counters are dynamic, so if you open a door it immediately adds 1 to the counter for opening doors.  If you quit the game without saving and then reload your last save when the open door counter was at 144, it is STILL at 144 when you revert to the previous/older save, and how cool is that? 

Very cool actually, because it means that, for example, when you find yourself facing three or four Giant Clams you can save the game, then go ahead and kill all four, revert to the previous save, kill all four again, revert, over and over until you get the counter to the point that it unlocks the Achievement you want to unlock.

This is important largely because there are some Achievements that ask you to do things you cannot do in a single play-through -- like slay 2000 monsters...  So grinding them in the most advantageous manner is really in your best interests.  Just saying.  And just making you aware of this.

Another aspect of this table-based dynamic stat tracking is that you can use it to your advantage with respect to any and every element that is associated with the PRNG System (Pseudo Random Number Generator System).  A perfect example of this are the Clam/Oyster Shells that the player finds on beaches.  In theory there is a chance for each of these shells to reveal a valuable Pearl in loot upon opening, but in practice whether or not a given shell actually does contain a Pearl is purely a function of the PRNG, so if the player was so inclined, they could make a save, then open a shell and, if the action did not result in the desired finding of a Pearl, simply reload their previous save and try again until the action of opening the shell obtained the desired result.

We are in no way suggesting that you do this -- in fact many gamers think that this sort of play represents a manipulation of the game environment and they consider it cheating!  We do not judge you or your game play style, or whether or not you choose to take advantage of the PRNG, of the dynamioc stat tables, or any other aspect of play...  How you choose to play the game is your business, but as these elements exist, and as it is our business to write these guides, we must cover each aspect and each tactic with an eye towards its implementation by players because you may find that useful.  Remember we are all about being useful!

== Achievements in Risen 2 ==

This game contains a total of 1000 Gamer points in 50 Achievements in the base game.  In addition to the base of 1000 GP and 50 Achievements, the DLC offerings available at the time that this guide was written includes another 100 GP contained in 6 Achievements (divided by 3 Achievements per DLC, and totaling 50 GP per DLC). 

In our experience in playing the game the average player will spend between 50 and 60 hours of active game play through the base game, with an additional 10 hours of game play for both DLC, giving the game an average play time of roughly 50 to 70 hours total; due to the fact that there are several Achievements in this title that qualify as Grinded Achievements, in our experience the actual play time for gamers who desire to unlock ALL of the possible Achievements in this title works out to something more like 85 hours of game play due to the need to grind-out 2000 kills.

Despite the fact that significant time muse be spent in repetitive and somewhat boring play in order to unlock the two Grinder-Class Achievements in the game, it still receives an estimated difficulty rating of only 4/10.  What that translates to is simply that 100% of players will be able to fully complete and unlock ALL of the 56 Achievements in this title if they are willing to put in the time and the effort that is required to do so.  None of the Achievements present challenge-or-skills-dependent Achievement limitations in other words.

In the Addendum Sections of the guide the reader will find a complete listing of ALL of the Achievements in this game (by platform) including the "Secret" ones, so be aware that reading the aforementioned sections will present information of a sort that is generally considered to be "spoiler content" and further, since every effort has been made to explain the best tactic to use in unlocking of any Achievement that warrants that treatment, further information of a potentially spoiling nature may be present.   This is the second and last warning you will receive of that fact.