I remember falling in love with this game as a kid, the prettiest game I had ever seen with so much detail in the world, its clear a whole lot of love went into making it. all the quotes inscribed on the statues, the silly conversations the villagers have with each other, the relaxing atmosphere, they all come together to make the game very immersive. I love ancaria so much! compared to similar games with a randomly generated world like diablo 2, that could never be as charming as this one
I wish all areas had as much love as the first ones tho. few of the statues in the jungle or the dryad islands have inscriptions. I was for example disapointed theres nothing inside the big temple in the jungle (not the one in the middle) and the amazing dryad city in the trees is underused, possibly because its somewhat hard to navigate the first few times. the wasteland doesnt have any sidequests and is a pretty bland trek towards the great machine.
whenever I play sacred 2 it I wish it had even more, more combat arts that synergized a bit better so you dont just spam the 1 or 2, more challenging bossfights, more hidden secrets, more fun questchains... theres a few very fun ones but the game could have used memorable quests maybe a small puzzle here and there would be cool or some more quests with varying possible endings. all the content that is there is pretty top quality and the theres so many memorable things about this game. the wide variety of builds also ads to the fun, so many different stats and modifiers to experiment with.
while the combat can be a bit janky sometimes its very enjoyable once you get the hang of it and the mechanics behind the combat are very solid and addicting.
this game is a gem, one of the best rpg experiences ive ever had and the one I keep coming back to the most.