Gothic

Gothic 1 is not a generic fantasy game with medieval knights and dragons. The atmosphere seems more exotic, ancient, mystic and earthbound alike, mixes the feelings of post apocalypse, Conan the Barbarian and an alien world of the "Unreal" game. You can align with one of three unique and interesting camps, with their own culture, hierarchy, weapon preference and magic lore. Combat mechanics is very satisfying and revolutionary for its times. Fighting animations change along with fencing skill level which also means more combinations are unblocked and your moves are quicker and less crude. World is interesting and you really feel you participate in it. You will subconsciously evade woods at night, mysterious ruins or dungeons when your character is still on lower levels and weak. You just treat your character serious. Life in the game feels like a real when you run across the communities and witness as a NPCs do their daily activities and talk with each other. You yourself can talk with everyone. Animals and monsters have their unique behaviors and combat tactics. Some initiate aggression from afar and track you, some charge on you and jump toward your throat while some tries to scare you away, and many more. Good trade system based on a barter exchange instead of gold, although there's still a universal currency in the game. The best thing about Gothic 1 is the fact that this game's full potential was utilised in just a small extent and still it came out to be the masterpiece. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THIS GAME.

Das Spiel ist mittlerweile sehr alt, aber für mich ist es immernoch das Spiel mit der meisten Atmosphäre überhaupt. Es gibt nur wenige Spiele in denen so viele Details einfach wirken als wäre eine funktionierende Welt abgebildet und nicht einfach nur eine Welt durch die ein Hauptcharakter toben soll. Die Meisten Gegenstände wirken natürlich platziert, die Grafik sehr stimmig und die Synchronsprecher Meister ihres Faches und die Dialoge sehr unterhaltsam. Es ist natürlich nicht perfekt und schwächelt gerade mit fortschreitender Geschichte an Stagnierenden NSC und besitzt keine wiederholbaren Quests oder weiterführende ausbaumöglichkeiten (wie Hausbau, crafting usw.). Dies ist zum Teil dem Alter zum Teil aber auch dem Fokus der Entwickler auf andere Dinge zuzuschreiben und sollte kein Grund sein auf dieses Spiel zu verzichten. Keiner der von sich behauptet Rollenspiele zu mögen sollte sich Gothic (und ich spreche hier nur vom ersten Teil) entgehen lassen.

Getting past the oddball control scheme and laughable voice acting is a major challenge. Once you do, however, you will find an absolutely amazing game, with unparalleled interaction for its time, an impressive story line, and an immersive world. If you're one of the people that missed it like I did the first time around, it's worth your attention.

Never played it before but the 22 hours it took me were just amazing comfy RPG goodness. Great prelude to an even better sequel.

The following serves as both review and beginner's guide. Gothic is a rather unique game. It is not an open world game where you can just run around willy-nilly and stick your nose in ominous ruins unprepared. You will die in a hurry. Repeatedly. You have no choice but to git gud, especially as the mouse-free controls are unorthodox (yet surprisingly easy to get comfortable with). Take it slow. You are a convict in a prison colony and you must learn the ropes if you wish to survive. Without spoiling too much, you have a choice between three factions: Old Camp (AnCapistan), New Camp (reformed, less corrupt AnCapistan) and Swamp Camp/Cult (Hermetic Brotherhood of Weed). Choose what best fits your aesthetic. From there, the game offers you a fair amount of freedom as to whether you opt for a melee guy, a ranged guy or a hybrid, and whether you wish to become a dedicated caster with memorized spells or simply cast spells from single-use scrolls. You also have the option of learning thief skills, which can make you wealthy in a hurry if used wisely. The gradual evolution of the PC combined with the gradual power level of enemies you'll encounter make the game feel like a balancing act for survival, but ultimately feels quite rewarding. You quickly learn which enemies are above your paygrade and should only be challenged when stronger and better-equipped (quick tip: the Orcs hit like a Mack truck, NOT for rookie convicts). One of the game's more grueling features is blocking and parrying in melee combat (against weapon-wielding humanoid enemies like fellow convicts and Orcs, you cannot block attacks from hostile animals), it feels quite twitchy and unresponsive at first and may turn off a number of players from melee-only builds (as it pays to soften them up with arrows or spells from range first). Aside from that, I haven't encountered significant bugs that impaired gameplay. Overall, highly engrossing and challenging and things only get better in the sequel.