ArcaniA

How good this game is depends upon how much of the Gothic series you've played. On its own, it stands at about a 4.2 out of 10. The story is nearly non-existent, and simply serves as a way to get you stuck in the next zone. The enemy spawning can occasionally make it so that you can be having a good time one moment and be surrounded by 7+ enemies the next. The voice acting is rough, the face models can be awful, and the combat is fairly boring. However, the environments hold up incredibly well, and if you happen to run back to the starting areas after going a couple of areas ahead you really won't have problems with these issues. In context of the full Gothic experience, it is well-deserving of its bad review ratings. If you've played the first Gothic game and want to play the full series, this is your last chance to maybe enjoy playing Arcania! I cannot stress that enough. If you are a series completionist and have played Gothic 1, but not 2, 3, or Arcania, but want to play them all, play Arcania first. For context, I enjoyed the first hour of Gothic 2 far more than I enjoyed my 12 hours of Arcania thus far, despite me believing I somewhat enjoyed my playing through Arcania.

Developers took away most of good things about Gothic and created this abomination. Linear quests, zero to none dialog options, incredible lax NPC (you can steal from chest in front of them in their house, swift a sword around them and they say nothing). Uninteresting game whitch you can play with your brain turned off. The graphics is nice, the combat system is fine...

I am always happy when a game is anything like Gothic. As a player of all the Gothic series, I loved this game and it was very similar to the Gothic games. You can compare this to Gothic and call it lousy, or you can compare it to the new games of today and call it awesome. I call it awesome and continue to wait for the Gothic I remake that has been due to come out for over 5 years.

While I agree with negative reviews, if you look at this game as completly new game (not tied to Gothic universe), it is not that bad (except the story and their dialogues). I played and finished game as Mage. And I have to write, magic is useless if you want to use it, until it is not maxed, it start to be powerfull, also as you level up it allwasy rise your magic power. Unfortunately your magic damage is hi depended on items you wear. In my opinion, whole game is unfinished and wants to be something more. There are lot of things you can interact (sit ont the chair, lie on the bed, read the books, even you can play on drums), but it does nothing only you can watch the animation. On whole game you not read single word from book or text, except the quests. Also there are locked locations that you never visit. I can imagine that when you interact with smyth tools you can create sword, but you can create any item by click on shortcut C. I think they was in rush and they make it action game.

It's a somewhat decent RPG if you don't think of it as an Gothic sequel. Also worth buying with an 80% discount, full price is a rip-off.