ArcaniA

I played Gothic I and II as a kid, never finished Gothic 3 but almost finished Arcania. The system and world is good enough for me as casual player. 2 years ago I almost finished the game but unfortunately it stopped loading my saves and crashed everytime. That was on my old laptop. I stopped playing because reinstallation didnt help. Now I installed it on my newer machine and encountered issues: First and Error: Could not switch to new screen mode, and can't restore previous one! My installation was missing VideoSettings.xml file. So I made one as per guidelines on internet forums. Then I encountered an issue with missing textures (showing pure black instead) and strange shadows. I saw in my VideoSettings.xml that the game set the video adapter to my integrated Intel GPU, so I had to go to NVIDIA Control Panel where Preffered graphic processor setting was at Auto-Select option. So after switching to my dedicated GPU the issue went away. I hope this helps if somebody encounters similar issues.

If you want to enjoy this game you have to put off your Gothic glasses. The story, the world, the opponents, the fighting are quite ok. The graphics were probably good when the game was recent. The dialogs however are some kind of anoying. It's also no real open world. It's more like an action adventure with some RGP elements. It's no masterpiece, but it's playable.

To move it out of the way - I wanted to personally confirm if the game is really as bad as people tend to portray it and oh boy - were they not wrong. I've spent 25 hours with it (started to have my doubts around 5th...) and completed it so you do not have to. First Gothic is one of my favorite RPGs - finished it multiple times, loved how open the world was, memorable characters and sense of progress, character development. It may seem clunky today but if you get over the "rough" and give it a chance - you are in for a treat. ArcaniA on the other hand tries REALLY hard to be not only a poor Gothic title but a poor excuse of an aRPG in general. One-star reviews truly state what's wrong with ArcaniA as a game - simply put it's boring, uninspired and unfinished. Other than occasional music this game just doesn't have any redeeming qualities. Most of the mechanics just feel like prototypes or placeholders or were they purposefully dumbed down THAT much? Jumping barely works, virtually the same enemies throught the game, nobody cares about you opening every chest you see/stealing stuff, boring character development, no thought went into making ANY quest interesting and the list goes on... Ending is cut away from the game - there's no conclusion. You went through all of this borefest just to be greeted with a big disappointment and unneeded questions. Oh, maybe it's resolved in the standalone DLC which takes barely a few hours to finish and costs almost at the price point of the original game? No idea, didn't play it at the time of writing a review - not expecting miracles though. It's made by another studio (not Piranha Bytes) and it's clear as day as you play it. Wonder what's the true reason behind releasing at this state - lack of funds, publisher's pressure, lack of inspiration or experience? That's the perfect example of handling the license poorly.

its a winner. Should not have waited so long to play. A solid game.

Its if anything a spin off with the style and the narrative. the game feels more like its trying to be diablo linear story and i mean LINEAR, leveling system is watered down you can learn 3 spells but under all that there is an adventure game, its nowhere close to gothic 2 but at least it isnt forsaken gods