Well, I tend to question the validity of any review on GOG that even mentions the word 'graphics'. (other than such things as "Great graphics for its time."
But I have to ask, do you like action RPGs?
Because you do know this is just an action RPG, which means of course the story is .. mediocre at best.
And the sole point of the game is to travel to interesting places, see weird creatures, kill them and take their stuff. That's all action RPGs are there for. Diablo? Diablo II? Titan Quest? Fate? Need I go on? They -all- follow they same formula.
The respawn is semi unique to Sacred, as most modern action RPGs things respawn when ever you load the game. (Mephisto or Baal runs, anyone?) The only difference here is you don't need to reload the game to go farm a good place for XP/loot. Which doing so is purely optional.
If the respawn makes the game boring for you, .. run past the respawned baddies.
I will grant that the sheer number of side quests in Sacred can be daunting. And a good number of them are ... retarded. I mean, just how many times is this great hero, slayer of dragons and all that.. going to go find some kids ####ing teddybear. >.>
Overall though, Sacred is about what you would get if you combined Diablo II and Oblivion.

Spawns will continue until you kill a number of enemies per region (per session). Clear the region, unlock the regional boss monster. more info here
The game is a grindfest though, intentionally really. It really shines in multiplayer.
I do agree with you on the story element. After a while, I just ignored it and focused on the checkpoints and finding set gear for my character.

the graphics remark is regarding how the game looks not whether or not the game is good. though even with old games graphics is an important element. i've played games that had such bad pixelation that i could not even see what is on screen. also i have gamed for a long period of time (about 17 yrs), and can judge whats decent for the time that the game was made. but i wasn't taking off points for graphics. i like fallout 1 & 2/arcanum/ and plenty of old nes/atari games.
while the concept of respawns may be a good thing, respawning the moment the screen switches is annoying. especially when not meaning to even go to a different area. such as hugging the bottom of the screen. oops i changed screen, almost dead, o great, monsters are back now i am dead. when i could i did run past, but, doesn't mean i like having to re-clear a room when trying to finish a quest or explore. thus making clearing a room not purely optional. also made escort quest very annoying. at least some gear allows slaughtering of lower level monsters upon them seeing the player. though that does almost nothing on the highest difficulty levels.
i wasn't expecting epic story, but one enough to make me care that there is one. but there were no interesting places to travel in this game. at least to me. why? because most of the areas look the same. seen one forest, seen them all. what happens at those places is usually what makes them worth visiting.
"They -all- follow they same formula."
that isn't always a good thing.
i like to unwind and do mass damage to a bunch of npc's as much as the next dungeon runner, but when the story is bland, combat is bland, and travel too, then i'll find better ways to develop carpal tunnel. mavis beacon typing lessons strikes me as one way.
btw thanks for the link ois.

Did you care about Diablo's story? It's basically the same, and there are about 700 fewer quests in Diablo. And the travel in Diablo was worse, well, there wasn't really any travel. Save for the "checkpoints" in Diablo 2.
Exactly what games are you comparing Sacred to, when you conclude that the combat is bland, the story is lame and the travelling sucks?

never played diablo or its successor :P.
also i dont have to compare it to other games to say that those things are boring or sucks. but some of the games other games similar to this, such as, baldurs gate, never winters night, arcanum, fallout 1&2 were all reasonably fun to me. oddly enough i remember the story mostly in those, all i remember story wise from sacred gold is i had to escort a baroness.

NWN was asstastic to the nth degree. It had a plot that was no better than Sacred, and dull game play that took all the worst elements of D&D 3E, and none of the good. the travel was nonexistent, the story progression was insanely linear disguised as being "nonlinear".
... How can you even consider putting NWN with the likes of Arcanum and the Fallouts?
... Rant aside. I see your problem, you're comparing apples to oranges here.
BG series, Arcanum, Fallout series: They are tactical RPGs, for the lack of a better term.
NWN is a classic Western RPG.
Sacred is an Action RPG.
BG, Arcanum and Fallout may share a camera angle, but that's about it. They are all games driven by their plots, where there IS action but it's not the focus of the game, the story and the characters are the driving force behind the game. The ability to do what you like (especially in Arcanum and Fallout 2), go most anywhere. Slaughtering things and gaining in power was just an added bonus.
If you expect that from an Action RPG, you're going to be disappointed. Action RPGs are focused on .. minimal plot, generally linear gameplay (Sacred is an exception to that), the point is to slaughter everything in sight and gain as much power as you can. Obtaining mass amounts of experience, wealth and powerful items, so that you can do it all over again in a hard difficulty when you beat the game.
They tend to have multiple character class choices (or in rarer cases a single manipulatable class, or with Titan Quest it was 9 skill sets that you could pick 2 of), and generally a myriad of options on how to progress that character.
TLDR: The games you list are NOTHING like Sacred. That was your problem. And, I hate NWN. :p

nothing like sacred gold? no hordes to slaughter, no questing to raise characters, or item hunting, nope not similar. they are definitely not combat intensive at all(okay fallout is an single turn based way). they have tactics, action and many other rpg's do as well. games dont have to have story all the time, but when the story is bad, and the action is boring, then the game is bad.
i put nwn with them as i enjoyed the spells and combat in it. the story was eh, aribeth annoyed me, but at least i enjoyed smacking stuff in that game. the story was more apparent to me, and made me want to nuke people. granted the desire wasn't always for the intended enemies. i liked the characters that i made as well. my biggest regret was that it wasnt like fallout where i could smack everyone i wanted.
again, i dont have to compare anything to anything. i can judge the game whether or not i enjoyed it based by itself. i like action and story games, so not a matter of which i like more. can also do mindless action in any of the games listed and many more. i expected fun action & some interesting story from an rpg, and didn't get either. if someone else likes this game then yay for them. i shared that i didn't like it and why. personally i think we are splitting hairs over what an rpg is and what is this rpg. either way, this is reminding me of a freebsd vs linux vs solaris debate.

"Have to" compare it to other games? No.
But when you say "Give it a pass, plenty of better", this statement implies (perhaps not how you meant it, but it's still how it's going to be read) "Don't bother with this one, there are many like games that are much better." Which then implies that the reviewer has played a number of similar titles.
Arcanum, BG, NWN and Fallout are all turn-based. (some had the option to step outside of turnbased mode, but they all defaulted to TB), this gave you the time to plan everything out, determine your moves and play the game tactically.
Arcanum and Fallout allowed you to progress through a large portion of the game with very little combat, relying entirely on stealth and diplomacy.
Sacred is, simply put, an Action RPG. It's purely real time. Purely hack and slash. There's no other way to do things. You have one way to solve a quest, and that one way is usually kill something.
No different than Diablo, Diablo II, Titan Quest, Fate, etc.
As far as Action RPGs go, Sacred is one of the better ones. Your review, as I said, makes it sounds like you have something to compare it to when you say "plenty of better." Which, you have expressed now that you don't.

I will stop replying now. You are all that is wrong with the review functionality on the GoG website.
Don't attempt to compare a game with the others of it's genre when you haven't played any of the others. Don't post a review if you don't know enough about games to tell the differences between a hack-n-slash action RPG and a turn-based plot-driven RPG. And comparing the two is akin to a mortal sin for some of the more RPG-biased users (like me) on these forums.

To be fair to the OP, he originally just commented on the game itself, not on how it related to other games.
On the topic of Diablo, I actually liked the storyline for both Diablo and Diablo II. Between the story and LAN play, that is what encouraged me to complete both.

I don't think the guy was THAT off-base. It's okay for people not to like Sacred and its entire genre and vent their spleens a little. I understand the urge to leap to the defense of a game you like, but frankly, I think the review had enough context (it's obvious the guy's never played a "grindy" action RPG before) that it could be taken in the spirit it was presented.

I'll agree and say that if someone downloaded Sacred and wasn't familiar with the action RPG genre, then they would be setting themselves up for disappointment. That said, I have loved Sacred ever since I first played it, and am replaying it now alongside Sacred 2.....the main reason being that I love the game's funky self-aware sense of humor and its modest efforts to lampoon its own play style while still offering solid action-rpg goodness. Also, this game looks very nice (to me) even after several years, and I find Sacred a bit more challenging than its sequel, curiously.
Anyway, I can heartily agree its not a game for everyone, but boy do I love it....great for short bursts of fun over a looooong period of time (I've got a couple characters I've been gradually levling for three years now, an hour here or an hour there).

He said, and I quote:
That means there are plenty of better games out there, which is true. However the implication in that statement, to a reader is "There are plenty of better within this genre."
It's like saying "Don't buy Halo, you should get Age of Empires instead, it's much better!" They're completely different games so you can't say one is "better" than the other from a reviewer standpoint.
I'm fine if someone doesn't like a game.
I'm fine if someone expresses their dislike for a game (even one that I like).
However when someone trashes a game that I like, I will get a tad defensive of it.
And when they trash a game I like, trashing the very genre in fact, that I will find out right rude.
I don't like FPSs. I find them to generally be the same game with new graphics and a new gimmick. (same can be said for action RPGs, I know) But I won't go post a review on UT2K4 and trash it .. because I don't like FPSs.

lol this discussion has become really funny.