Gothic

I always fancied sci-fi above fantasy, however, Gothic gave me tens of hours of fun and made me to replay the game multiple times just to enjoy the story in different castes. First, I cursed the XP and fighting system - at level 5 and in the possession of a sword the first wolf tore me apart... what the heck? Then I gave it a second chance, and learned to appreciate the viewpoint of the game. You are not a superhero, or a noble adventurer. You are the 621st no-one in the colony, not skilled in any form of martial arts, so you have to learn, and adapt to survive. If your face is too big, you'll easily get mauled by the first guard, before you even had the chance to comply your mission. Later on, you'll learn to appreciate the power you wield, and in the final stages you truly become a hero among mortals. I aslo like the ethics of the world you are in. As you are mainly among convicted criminals, you have to know, when and how to talk and act with NPCs. Sometimes, downtight cheating and stealing will lead you success - sometimes, it gets you beaten up, and even getting stabbed to the back in a dark alleyway. If I had to mention negative things, there would be two: thief skills are mainly useless, and the fire magic is way superior to the other classes. All in all, you won't be dissapointed with this one.

No other game has a world, that is created as well as the world of Gothic. Add on top of that a very well balanced and paced gameplay, and you get this masterpiece. Gothic 1 for me still is the Gold-Standard of open world games, that no other game ever reached. There is no other World where exploring ever felt as rewarding as in this one, without holdind the players hand to much. The game strikes a perfect balance in that regard. The Characters are very believable, and a lot more lifelike than in traditional fantasy games as well. Gothic 1 does not try to stuff its pretty good story down your throat, it let's you experience it. Can not recomend this game more, everybody should have played it, it's a absolute masterpiece.

I've played lots of RPGs, including Gothic 3 and the much maligned Arcania (Gothic 4), both of which I enjoyed enormously. I was however wary of playing Gothic 1 because of screenshots of its dated graphics due to its age (released 2001). I nevertheless gave it a go in August 2019 and am very glad I did. What a gem! Firstly, the graphics for the dungeons are still pretty good, detailed and atmospheric, including different lighting effects for torch or Light spells. True, the exteriors were a bit crude compared to, say, The Witcher 3, as you'd expect, but you get used to this pretty soon once you are immersed in the game. The game has the core RPG elements - big world to explore, lots of quests, lots of weapons and spells with which to kill lots of baddies/monsters. It has different factions, offering replayability and also has a day/night cycle which personally I find annoying but some enjoy for immersion. It took some patching to get the game working reliably (still not exactly sure what I did) but it was certainly worth it. I can be sceptical of the nostalgia crowd banging on about old games but if you are a RPG fan who hasn't played this game, you will almost certainly enjoy it despite its age. I'm now, very much looking forward to playing Gothic 2.

Gothic 1&2 are not about visuals or top notch gameplay. Character progression, atmosphere, music, dialogue writing, world, level design and such... now those are irreplaceable. Both first and second game (Gothic 3 is a very different critter) created distinct world which feels like living, breathing place which is so enchanting. Gothic 1 though had way more "unique" idea. Cut off from supervision, fantastical gulag has quite an atmosphere supported by great cast. Gothic unlike Elder Scrolls and similar titles of it's time focuses on smaller, yet more active number of characters. It makes them much more memorable. Most of all, they act and talk in somewhat authentic manner (at least in Polish version). The whole experience feels far more grounded in reality. Even dry humor for some reason never feels out of place. The semi-open world feels organic. It's never huge for the sake of being huge. It's actually fairly small if you go through it in the straight line. Gothic goes for quality instead of quantity, making the areas incredibly dense. Some areas within the world are separated by the plot progression, but what you encounter more often is clever monster placement to halt (yet not block) your entrance. And if you are good enough or just smart enough to find a way... designers never fail to reward you. Now combat is an acquired taste. Once you get a hold of it it can be pretty fun but first impressions can be really bad. I imagine it will put off many people willing to try the game, and I can't hold it against them. UI is really the point where it gets bad... it's oddly similar to consol-like equipment selections which is funny since Gothic was PC exclusive xD If you want to play it with mods now and still want to keep it in somewhat authentic, original feel: Resource Manager/Union is must have add-on/plugin framework for the game. you can look for it on Myrtana.net Whichever plugin you install you can always turn them on and off by editing gothic.ini (some but not all inject themselves nicely into gothic in-game menu). From there for Gothic 1 I would recommend especially "Headin's Advanced Inventory". Dude has many cool plugins on his google drive if you are willing to look for it. Oh, and on modern systems GD3D11 (basically DirectX 11 for the game) will help everything look way better and often run better.

Just installed it today and it works fine !