Others say...

"a good game to spend a lot of time in"
Sacred is very similar to Diablo but set in a more interesting universe. Showing your character running around the screen and interacting with the environment, you can see the bad guys running up and taking damage. 3 zoom levels are available but I never used anything but the most zoomed-out, otherwise your running around blind.

The game starts off with several different character types, each one is fairly generic (Dark Elf, Vampire, Gladiator, etc.) but what makes them interesting is that each is given a unique fighting style. I selected a character that has spells as well as fighting abilities.. it made it fun as the left mouse whacked the monsters with my sword and the right mouse button cast a spell at them. I found that I used the wind spell and the ring-of-fire spell. The ring-of-fire is cool because you can stand unharmed in a ring and the monsters have to walk into the fire to get you..the fire usually does twice as much damage as I do!

The world is HUGE! its amazingly detailed - the artists deserve massive kudos for what they put into the game, there is a simply amazing amount of detail, from the mushrooms growing bewtween cracks to half overgrown altars in the woods to the very trees themselves..just astonishing. And the dungeons look fantastic as well.

The main quest is intertesting, although its a standard "kill the big monster" plot line, there was enough detail, especially as you discover what is going on, to make it fun. The side quests are a welcome system ,you can do them or not - its your choice. They are almost all the typical "kill the monster over there" or "rescue my sister/wife/maiden/etc" or "escort me to x".. but you can accept or not as you choose.

What Sacred gets right:
The spells are interesting and their effects are great. The spell concept of auto-recharge is a welcome change from the tired "mana-battery" style of play where you have to keep drinking "mana potions". In Sacred all spells have a "recharge" interval and after so many seconds you can cast the spell again.. simple as that. The more complex or potent the spell the longer it takes to recharge. It works great and makes battles fun as you select repeatable spells.

The world and quest are fun and interesting.

The objects/weapons/armor you find are interesting, especially the ability to insert things into objects - makes it fun to try new things

What Sacred didn't do so right:
The "combo" system.. its supposed to be some kind of thing where you can combine different attacks to do something but it never worked right for me. The combos were so weak and the recharge period so slow that the spells worked 10 times better.

The horses.. supposedly riding the horse is one of the big things in the game, I never found them to be anything but a pain. They die all the time, you can't do much of anything while on horseback, they are only marginally faster than running and when doing rapid clicking in the midst of a battle you tend to automatically dismount and run around off the horse anyway.. after the first few died, I just ignored them after that.

The objects.. supposedly like Diablo there are tons of cool objects with different powers, but I found "Dagowits" objects fairly early in the game and never found anything better. The stores don't sell anything, even healing potions. I quickly had hundreds of thousands of $$ without anything to spend it on.

The spell levels.. I think its goofy to have a level 43 character and still be using level 3 spells. You only get the spell levels randomly and they arrive far too slowly. By the end of the game the spell I used the most was still only at level 3! Its massively frustrating to clean out an entire dungeon and get to the chest at the end of it, open the chest and have 642 pieces of gold pop out when you already have 300,000

The ending.. I won't give it away but I really expected a lot more.. bigger I guess, there is a big boss monster, but I think I had a glitch because it appeared right on top of me and I never took a hit from it. I just expected things to get bigger and tougher, with rooms filled with new monsters or something.. you start chapter IV and then there is only one room and the game is over.. wierd.

Overall however, I liked the game. It was fun to play, the world is a kick to run around in and explore. I spent a lot of time going to places I didn't need to go to, like paths through the woods just to see what was there.. its amazing how much detail is around. I did most of the quests, just to talk to people and see what was around. A good game to while away some hours!

"i quite adore this game."
this is a great game for any diablo or diablo 2 fan. the graphics are superior and the quests are less routine than those of diablo 1 or 2. plus, you can have a horse which makes traveling quite a bit faster. also, the game was less jumpy for me than when i tried to play diablo, which caused my computer to freeze. as i said, the graphics in this game are much sharper than any other game i have played on my pc. the features keep my interest longer than diablo, which gets boring very quickly.

"Tedious and boring."
I tried this game over a course of several months and really tried hard to enjoy and like it. But unfortunately it is just too boring. Nothing of significance ever happens. You just go from one place to another slashing and hacking but get nowhere. Unfortunately this problem is not unique in PC games. Some games such as the old King's Quest and Ultima series as well as the newer Baldur' Gate manage to keep the story interesting but this one does not! For example, you can do a whole dungeon and all you get it is some very standard treasure. On the occasion you may get a stand alone side quest. To keep the game interesting a story must unfold. Conversations with locals is very limited and you don't get much by going around and talking to people. On the good side, the interface is great. In fact the game engine by itself is very good and able to create a great game. It is the story which is poorly done.

"Lot like Diablo, with a D&D aspect"
I found this game for $10 and at first, was kind of disappointed at the lack of options in game. Well, many options are there, but you have to find most of them yourself. Ok, first off, this is a spawnable hack and slash, like many of the reviews mention, so if you don't mind killing the same groups as you circle back and forth through the same terrain, no problem. The variety of character types is nice, each character has a great set of skills, spells, and attributes to work with.
Comparing this to Diablo I/II, Sacred delivers in some aspects. The horse riding is fun, but seems to attract more enemies, and it's almost worth it to just walk from town to town. The idea of using up to 4 sets of weapons and up to 4 spells at the touch of a key is better. There's even the option to combine up to 4 spells/skills into 1 barrage of attacks, although this works better on quick attack skills, and not so well on longer spells, so if you get knocked around and distracted, it tends to kill the combination and you may have to wait a full minute for it to regenerate to use again, so it's a toss-up.
Along with main parts of your quest, there are a multitude of minor quests you can take part. Most are simple tasks, making you feel like a gofer (you know, go for this, go for that), but they are usually quick and simple and can cough up some nice rewards.
The Save feature is pretty good, although savegames tend to clog up your list and need to be deleted every so often, but it's nice to save anywhere you want, unlike Diablo II.
Like Diablo I/II, you can find rare (Yellow), set (green) and sometimes unique (gold) items. Many have sockets, which you can have a blacksmith in any town add attributes to an item, although I highly suggest killing some undead in the desert and collecting skulls, as they add some to alot of damage to anything they're inserted into.
One bad thing about the game is that sometimes people following you can get killed, making you fail a mission. One exception is a chap named Wilbur, who actually fights with you after awhile, and you can give him a better sword and shield if you like. If he dies, he takes a nap, with little birdies floating around his head, then miraculously comes back to life, ready to fight again.
Overall, this is a good RPG with realtime combat and a nice variety of gameplay, including decent replay value.

"Misunderstood"
Do not let the 75% rating on gamerankings fool you... This is a high quality game, much like the original. Let's start with the weak points of this game.

The graphics are definitely not exciting, however, spells and abilities look cool and are fun to use. It can be argued that the graphics contain a distinct art style to them; regardless they are certainly not up to today's stantards. As you progress in the game you will notice little touches like multiple well placed corpses from a large battle. But, chances are, you will glance at the 2D screenshots and think to yourself:"Isn't this what Baldur's Gate used to look like?".

Now, the other negative aspect of this game: side quests. It's not the actual side quests themselves per say... It's how they are written. This game originates from Germany, which means that it undertook a translation. I have seen 10 year olds write more coherently. My suspicions lead me to think there was no person involved, it was strictly done by program. If you compare the main quests with the side quests you will understand my position. And yes, the main quests are uncorrupted.

If you can see past the above negativities you will be rewarded with a refreshingly deep action RPG. Lets talk about gameplay. There are multiple ways to play each character, much like Diablo 2. You simply will not play the same character the same way. Skills, abilities, spells and combat arts are all very customized. Translation: Very high replay value. Each character is original and all of them (surprisingly) are a pleasure to play. Killing goblins, dragons, zombies and Hill giants have never been funner. Battles are constant, they are everywhere, and most of them are frantic and require a touch of stragety. It's very open ended so you can visit all these beasts any time you want. Assuming of course your able to travel across Sacred's vast terrain to get to them.

If your a long time gamer you know that difficulty makes or brakes a game... And let me tell you, the difficulty in this game is perfect. A word of caution, this game will be difficult for non-hardcore rpg gamers. Length might be your next concern. And let me quiet any doubt you might have about it. It's LONG... to say the least, and much like Diablo you can return to the game on a more difficult setting, meaning better items (the important part) and of course more replay value. Don't be fooled into assuming there is no story here, there is, and while it's not the best like "Planescape Torment" or "KOTOR" it's still decent.

Sound is the strongest point of this game period. Music and sound effects. There are hundreds of different comments your hero will make (each of them) by either progressing through quests, killing beasts or simply out of boredom. Much of them will leave you sminling to yourself. Music is well placed, it's good and it's executed perfectly for each moment. It's slow when in cities and it's lifting when engaged in battle. Also, it's worth mentioning that the main quest characters all have voice overs.

The length, the difficulty, the sound, the music, the replay value, the customized choices and the sheer amount of pleasure gained by killing an orc with meteor showers forces me to give this game 5 stars. If your a hardcore RPG action player do yourself a favor and go buy it. This game is a sleeper much like Gothic II. Both of them, are simply the best RPGs available to us gamers at the moment. I strongly recommend both of them. Notice: Most of this review was aimed at the original sacred and not the expension.