ArcaniA

Arcania is very good looking and breezy piece of RPG escapism. Yes, it may be too lightweight for some of you, oh so serious, Gothic 1/2/3 fans, but taken on its own terms, it is a very enjoyable piece of entertainment. Lots of monsters and baddies to zap, whack and loot. Melee, ranged weapons, magic. Quests to fulfil. Items and potions to craft. Big game world to explore. Delightfully naff voice acting. Basically, lots of the usual RPG stuff which we all love. The game is still very good looking in 2019 and, importantly, can be played on the PC with a controller, although you do need to research the instructions. I enjoyed the game very much. I'm now looking forward to playing the add-on 'Fall of Setarrif'.

This is the game, that officially finished off JoWood as publisher. They promised a better game than the inferial, "without any story" in an RPG: Gothic 3, ... and failed. Yes, they showed, it actually can get even worse. And this is the result. Gothic 3 had at least a witty protagonist. Here you have to play and to listen to the dumbest person known in all Accania. Really. It's absolute cringeworthy to listen to the dialogues. And your intelligence drops some degrees, if you follow the conversations too closely. The combat system is again, a click it dead until it stops moving system. The story is dumb. The motivation of the main char is weak at best. You have zero investment in the fate that main character. And on top of it all, it is unfinished. You have to buy the next part, "the fall of ... whatever", to get even a whole gaming experience. Avoid it like pest and cholera combined.

I picked this game up in a Humble Bundle and decided to check it out as I am a long time Gothic fan. What this games does is takes all of the bad parts of Gothic 3 and expands upon them. The biggest offence is the lack of any feeling of exploration that the previous Gothic games held. While it is an Open World, you are basically on rails through the whole adventure. Go to town, get goal for town and side quests, complete and move on to next town. Rinse and Repeat. You literally start at the bottom left of the world and horseshoe around to the bottom right. The travel and exploration is boring, the story is forgettable, the characters are wooden and the game play is just down right repetitive. This has to be the biggest offender in my gaming history when it comes to forcing myself to play through and one of the rare few that I just stopped playing, forgot about and never returned. I suggest you never start, especially for the full price, I don't even think I could recommend at the intro sale price.

No, it isn't the next Skyrim or Witcher, but, there is a place for a Gothic title that is a little more focused than the others while immersing you in its familiar world. This is done by making the path of your travels ultimately linear (though there can be alternate routes), which, as I get older, I increasingly prefer because my patience for an endless barrage of cookie-cutter inconsequential side quests has become quite strained. Combat mechanics are an improvement over the first 2 in the series, graphics are good for the time it came out and still more than adequate at the time of the writing of this review, story is serviceable if not spectacular, and, it's a game that one can relax with while recovering from their last, really intense game and preparation before heading into their next. Myself, I'm alternating between this game and Titan Quest Ragnarok, and, it perfectly fits the bill. I think the problem for a lot of people is that the path you follow feels laid out for you as in a fight game like God of War or something, but, without the awesome combat mechanics and hectic pace, while, as an RPG, it doesn't truly have as much freedom and upgrade choices one would expect from that genre. Rather, it straddles an area somewhere between these two extremes. So, do I recommend it? Well, I've attempted to give the reader an objective assessment of the game, pointing out its nature so that you can make that decision for yourself. A huge fan of The Witcher and Thief franchises, I, nevertheless, enjoyed this enough to give it 4 stars and one more to balance out the reactionary - and, unearned - negativity. The key is to be in the mood for a more laid back experience.

I completed this game in 27 hours, on "Gothic" diff level, using mostly 2h weapons and sometimes bow/crossbow. If you expect gothic-like rpg, then this game is an opposite to what Gothic games were. Compared to them it does everything wrong. - It is linear - Is not even an rpg at all! Your skills allow you only to build into ranged/malee/magic character. No other perks, nothing. Rarely quests give you freedom of choice, but it is illusory, because outcome is always the same... Therefore you cannot role-play, you just complete consecutive elements of the story in one only possible way. - Everything else you loved in Gothic games, here is not present or messed up. Therefore I would label this game as "Linear action adventure game". When you expect action adventure game, you can notice some pros: - some locations are made nicely, they look really good. However they are quite empty and boring. - story is mediocre. I know it does not sound like an advantage, but compared to other parts of the game it is not that bad :) Or it would be, if it not got cut after last fight in the game. After this fight, game just cuts you off, without explaining anything! Yes, you get a short clip, but it's not very informative. The true ending of the story is in dlc, which looks like it was a part of basic game, which got cut off just to form a paid dlc. Which most of players probably bought, because it would be bad to not finish a basic game which... got its ending cut off and placed elsewhere. So, I would give this game 2 ratings: - if you expect gothic-like rpg: 0/10 - if you expect simple linear action adventure game: 4/10 Here I marked it overall as 1/5 simply because you are not allowed to rate 0/5.