Sacred Underworld: Part of Sacred Gold

Brief Description of Sacred Underworld

New panel showing
character bonuses

The first official expansion of Sacred with new character types and a new chapter of the Sacred story to explore. This review will mention specifics to the expansion, you'll need to refer to the basic review for general information about the game. You may end up with this as a separate expansion pack or as part of the Sacred Gold box edition (which includes Sacred plus the first set of enhancements.)

Sacred Underground adds two new character types to the game: the dwarf and the daemon. You have a choice between using pre-built characters of these two to play the expansion or import a character from your original campaign. You do need an experienced character to play the expansion, a new character would be impossible to keep alive.

Game play and hints

Improved toolbar

The toolbar has been slightly enhanced in this expansion. The areas for you to place weapons, magic and combos now have a more obvious border and it is much easier to tell which of them is the active one.

When you open the log book to review your quests, you'll find that Underworld is Chapter 5 of the Sacred storyline. This makes prefect sense, you are continuing on from the last bit of the plot from the main game.

As part of your character portrait, there is a small + sign in the upper corner. This opens a new panel which shows you the bonuses the character currently has from armor, weapons etc. It's nice to see the summary. Also, quests that involve getting x of an item - every time you find one, you'll get a message "Item name: y of x" This makes tracking some of the smaller quests much easier.

You really want to import a very well equipped and experienced character into this game. I found that after the character had 1/2 of the items needed for one of the Seraphrim outfits, she received a +30 damage bonus. After a visit to the blacksmith, the new equipment had embedded the best of the rings and amulets that I possessed and fights became a good bit easier to survive.

If you have any way to attack some monsters from a distance, you'll want to use that because it's easy to be overwhelmed by opponents if you aren't careful. I would take long distance shots when I could and only fight directly when I must.

Also, sometimes picking up portal runes just makes the portal available. Other times, they instantly teleport you. The second can be a problem when you are teleported suddenly into a monster laden area. Be ready for a big fight any time you touch portal items.

Also, there are area to area portals like the first game, but they don't look the same. They are easy anough to spot once you realise this but you need to know they do look different.

Gripes about Sacred Underworld

This expansion not only has the rapid respawn rate of the original, but many areas you'll have to traverse have simply ridiculous numbers of monsters to wade through on the first pass.

In this expansion, it becomes more obvious that mapping underground areas doesn't work very well. The mini map you call from using the tab key is accurate enough, but the main map with flags doesn't work when underground. This get very annoying by the third major dungeon area you need to explore.

Conclusion for Sacred Underworld

Quest progress

This is chapter 5 of the Sacred story. If you were a fan of the game, and can stand the idea that the respawn rates are just as high as before, you should go ahead and get this. If you had a difficult time with the original, you don't need to buy this. If you have this as part of the Sacred Gold package, do ensure that your character is doing well and that you use the best equipment you have available to you.

Final rating 3 of 5.

Some final thoughts on the game.

I played this on the easiest possible level (bronze). I can imagine playing it on silver with better equipment. But I can't imagine playing it at the gold+ levels. That must take some serious dedication.

Handy Guide to Interacting with Role Playing Games