Sacred 3 is a top down Hack'n'Slash RPG/ Brawler set in the vaguely sketched fantasy land of Ancaria. It is the third game in the series, and has kept the Sacred name in spite of being a quite considerable departure from the previous games in the franchise.

The enemy is the evil Ashen Empire, who want to get its hands on a mysterious artefact known as the Heart of Ancaria; an item that  is somehow extremely important.  You, and up to three other players, are going to stop them.

Your first task it to select one of 4 characters, two male and two female. Marak the Safiri warrior is your standard brute/tank character who wields blunt weapons, whilst Vajra the Khukuri Archer is (predictably) archer class with a speciality in long range attacks. Claire the Seraphim Paladin is a supposed demi-god guardian of Ancaria, and is the mage of the group, coming armed with a short sword.

Finally, there's Alithea the Ancarian Lancer, the classic "soldier" class.  She is very fast and has 2 devastating power attacks that cleanse the land of Ashen filth.  One is a power that forms giant green crystalline spikes that emanate from the ground in the shape of a wifi signal.  the second is a sort of underarm flurrish that quickly hits the target repeatedly; particularly effective against the bulkier enemies you come up against in the game.

There are 3 difficulties; Warrior, Champion and Legend, with Warrior for the more inexperienced player and Legend the hardest of the three modes.

The game throws you in at the deep end with a cut scene explaining the current plot situation in a mixture of still images and basic 2d drawn animation. It's here you first experience one of the worst aspects of Sacred 3; the voice acting and script is truly atrocious.  It's the sort of thing you might find on a really bad children's TV show, the kind that is entirely devoid of skill or wit.  It is almost patronizing, and lines containing some truly cringe-worthy attempts at comedy are alarmingly frequent.  Once this cut scene ends (thank God!) you are literally dropped into the map.  The top down view is very reminiscent of the first few Fallout games, and of other ARPGs like the Diablo or Torchlight games.  Credit to the art team is due, as the game looks very pretty on ultra with nice vibrant colours and rich saturation.  The experience is a smooth one too; I experienced no frame rate drops or screen tearing, even with v-sync switched off. There is little to complain about when it comes to the game's aesthetic, and I could have spent a good while just soaking it in.

The HUD is pretty standard RPG fare, with a green health bar, an XP bar, available potions and amount of uses left for each power.  The various voice-overs have their picture and subtitles pop up on the bottom right of the screen, whilst your amount of looted gold and player score is in the bottom left of the screen.  With all this going on, and the large cluster of information in the top left (health, Xp, powers etc), the screen can feel crowded at times, and a little chaotic.  I found this to be quite distracting on occasion and I felt that the game play suffered because of it.

Next up is the bad guys. This is one of the most important parts of this kind of Hack ‘n’ Slash RPG, and in Sacred 3 the enemy Ashen hoards come in predictable and ever increasing waves with a pretty standard line-up.

First off you’ve got your run-of the mill Grunts; small creatures that usually come in large volumes together and rather easy to kill. Larger grunts are the "Jackals" of the game, if you'll pardon the Halo reference, they present more of a challenge than the normal grunts.  Some of them even throw small projectiles at you, they normally don't do much harm but in large numbers, they can be very tricky. Heavies are big and hit hard, initially only coming in small rabbles but on occasion come in larger numbers.  To kill them, you must break their defences, this puts them in a trance, leaving them undefended and free to attack.  They can be very challenging if you have an array of fast moving grunts and heavies but you do meet them quite early on in the game, allowing you to get used to them and their more dangerous range attacks.

Bosses, as you’d probably guess, deal large amounts of damage and are hard to kill face on.  Your best bet is to be agile, quick on your feet and roll past their attacks, and they wield a fairly hefty amount of loot for your troubles.

But what does one gain from killing the same enemies over and over again? As well as loot, kills wield weapon spirits.  These spirits - which offer both status boosts and additional effects - are one of the few unusual and original ideas in Sacred 3. Equip the Dragon spirit, for example, and each attack has a chance to trigger a five-second shield, at the cost of the energy you use for your special attacks. The “Vampire” lets you gain small amounts of health for attacks on larger enemies, but reduces the effectiveness of health orbs by half. Whilst the concept is fairly solid, these spirits have an unfortunate habit of blurting out truly terrible lines. Whether you are fighting.  Some of these spirits great literary works include, "Normally, I only get ambushed by the ladies (Elvis-style chuckle)" and "Sexy pants!!!!" Unfortunately, you can’t mute them, and they’re just another blot on Sacred 3’s already terrible script and voice acting record.

It is a game that seems entirely catered to its of 4-person co-op mode; there are references to all 4 characters in cut scenes, and unlike in Diablo III - where the single-player mode is simple and fun - Sacred 3 is more like Left 4 Dead in that co-op mode is half the fun. Just like in the Left 4 dead series, there are "safe zones"; circles of light on the ground, marking the end of each stage in the level.  While you are in these areas, no enemies can get to you and you are safe to regroup with the rest of your team. Red circles of light indicate the end of the last stage of the level, and more importantly signal the last safe zone before the impending boss battle. These safe zones have little function in single player as they disappear as soon as you enter them, making Sacred 3’s co-op-orientation all the more obvious.

Traps also play a part in slowing your progress, often blocking your path entirely, unless you disable them, for a time, with your shield breaker attack.  One example included what I liked to call the "spinning disk of doom";  spinning plates with blades sticking out horizontally. Anyone caught in its area will be stuck and take massive amounts of damage unless it is disabled and once disabled, they will reset themselves suddenly. The traps don’t differentiate between friend and foe, so you can actually use them to your advantage if your timing is right.

The level design in Sacred 3 is what you may expect from this type of top down game play, combining linear design with the occasional extra room for chests of goodies.  However, the fact you are constantly moving and progressing, combined with the fact that each level is very long, makes Sacred 3 feel like it is  a lot denser than it really is. It makes you feel something of a badass, cutting through hundreds of enemies for anywhere between half an hour to an hour.  The fun, murderous style keeps you playing, and the game’s solid soundtrack is a great accompaniment.

After you have killed hundreds of grunts, heavies and bosses, you finally finish the mission.  As it is mainly a coop game, your scores are added up in different categories before a final score is given, giving XP and allowing your character to level up.  The character unlocks are automatic initially, giving you new weapons and items, but after a time you can use a system a bit like skill-trees, choosing new abilities and skills. As you complete missions, you can move around the map and attempt new one, or replay previously conquered ones.

Overall, Sacred 3 is a fun and rather addictive game to play, even with its slightly repetitive nature. Although it is nothing new and brings nothing particularly mind-blowing or innovative to the table, it still lives up to the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".