Gothic

Gothic is a brilliant game, by far the best in the Gothics series, and still a lot of fun. No other ARPG has such a living world, such love for details, and such a gritty dark vibe, though the Witcher or New Vegas come very close. But.. of course the graphics are outdated, and that is coming from one still using a 840M which barely handles New Vegas on medium settings. The controls are unusual. No bad per se, not even complicated or counterintuitiv, but you might need about half an hour to get used to them. Which, btw, seems to be the reason for at least half of the bad reviews. After an hour tops you should be fluent with the controlls, and it's worth it. Also, the game isn't particulary hard, but it's not Diablo either. Towards the end hack and slash is a viable option, but at the beginning you need to play smart and learn about your environment. Enemies do not scale with your level. So leveling up actually means something, and the more powerful you get the more regions you can travel to without being killed by the first thing you encounter. For me that's a good thing. It also means that in the beginning a lot of things can easily kill you. So, what to do? Well.. you can travel with powerful people. Or if they don't want to, just follow them. You can learn about behavior. Most beasts don't charge at you right away, but go through an intimidation animation. Which, for the fresh inmate, is the cue to run. You can study their favourite foods. A wulf prefers to eat sheep, and should he stumble upon one he likely goes for it, even if he was hunting you before. Lurkers prefer goblin meat... Many ways to go, but yes, for those used to "starter-dungeons", level appropriate enemies, a starter kit with assorted weapons, full set of armor and two dozen potions that might be a letdown. And, as I suspect, the reason for the second half of the bad reviews.

I came back to this game after many years. You can call it my childhood so perhaps there's some kind of sentiment. However - even after many years game is great. I like the story, how the game is harsh at the begining, kind of being free to explore the world - just some monster are too strong at certain points in the game ;) but theoretically you can. Mechanic of fights/interaction is kind of old and not well designed but after you get used to it - it's just fine. There are minor bugs sometimes but are not show stoppers. It is very exciting to choose the guild you would like to join. The plot is going to surprise you later on. I'm not just sure whether GOG version is optimal enough. I have series of attempts to run the game unfortunately - some even 15-20 times despite using compatibility mode. Maybe some kind of patch or fix would help. I'm on WIN10. Anyway game is still enjoyable. Summary: *Great story *Kind of ancient mechanic/interaction system but still enjoyable *3 guilds you can join *Many monsters/open world *3 styles of fight: "Warrior"/"Mage"/"Bowman" *Many items including fancy armors you that you have to deserve to wear them *Not many bugs/game almost doesn't crush *Discussable GOG version but still worth to play

This is my first real PC RPG, and I'm glad this was the one. Never played before until it came to GOG, and I can't recommend it enough to others. Two things first: the graphics looks much better than the screenshots you see here, particularly if you use the resolution hack found in the forums. Ages pretty well! The other thing is the controls: a lot of people complain about them. I couldn't get into the game after FIVE TIMES of trying the demo because of the controls, then I had them explained to me. Once I figured them out (in a matter of minutes for the basics), it was smooth sailing. Basically you use the left mouse button and the WASD keys for a lot of stuff (to attack, hold left mouse button and use the keys to swing your weapon in a given direction or cast magic, for example). It feels really "interactive" and I grew to love it. That stuff aside, Gothic is a really classic RPG in every sense of the word, in terms of that old gritty feel, all the staple elements (quests, open world, magic, weapons, etc), and is just an overall great package...there's a lot of things that can't be explained, only experienced. On top of that, it does a lot of things very uniquely (again, can't really be explained) which will make this a game you reference often when talking about RPGs. The dialogue is very funny at times, and personally I found the story pretty innovative. Some of the voice acting is really good, some really bad...the bad doesn't hurt the game much, but I did find myself wincing a bit at some of it. Combat is very fun -- I played as a mage, a very satisfying experience. Be sure to tweak the config and crank the blood to 3. ;) There's also great music (don't forget the In Extremo patch!), lots of quests, routes to take, etc. Just try the demo and you'll likely be hooked. It gets a whole lot worse after that. ;)

Let's be frank, Gothic 1&2 didn't really hold up too well in visual and gameplay department. The atmosphere, music, level design and such... now those is irreplaceable. I played the second Gothic1 back in 2003 I think (+couple more times later on), and so I tend to grade it according to it's time of release rather than holding it up to modern day standards. Both first and second game (anything after doesn't exist for me... inner peace) created distinct world which feels like living, breathing place and it's absolutely enchanting. I'd attribute it to characters, the world itself, level design and UI, all of which attemt to keep you inside it's setting and put as few walls between player and nameless character as possible. Gothic unlike Elder Scrolls and similar titles of it's time focuses on smaller, yet more active cast of characters. It makes them much more memorable. Most of all, they act less like fantasy characters as many of us grew used to. You could really see most of them living somewhere in our world. The whole experience feels far more grounded in reality and yet silly all the same. For some reason humor never is out of place. The 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 stright line. Gothic goes for quality instead of quantity, making the areas incredibly dense. Some regions of the world are separated by the plot progression, but what you encounter the most is very smart monster placement which make your life harder (yet not impossible) with numbers or strength. And if you can overcome it... designers never fail to reward you. ... And yet the combat is terrible xD It's like tab targeting inside action, but the first locks you in action and action doesn't really work if you don't lock your target by performing action or... it's so weird to explain and unintuitive to play. Never stopped me though :D

Gothic - stern but fair the german way Five hours into the game and I was planning on a scathing review, six hours into the game and I went crazy. Crazy in the sense that I LOVE the controls, are they the worst german roundabout controls ever made or so on point and advanced lesser races simply do not understand them? Same goes for the combat, it' so intense! This game reeks of german "flow", its so horribly unhuman and unintuitive it somehow ends up being the best ever. Same goes for everything in this game, you will hate it until you love it. Use a guide to get 60 fps, use a guide for the first few hours to get your bearings with the controls, quest and "feel" of the game. This game is also a good way to gauge your add-levels brought on by modern games, this is a proper RPG not an Arpg. Play accordingly or suffer the consequences. Game also has beautiful 3dgraphics, no shitty bloom bullshit shat on everywhere by some affirmative action sjw last minue employee. Yes, in this day and age this is an issue you need to adress when reviewing a product people spend their money on and if you don't like that fact well too bad for you, buddy. The game does however feature a very "diverse" cast of characters, it is after all a prison game. The story is kickass, the world is inhabited and it is fun to explore and not once did I feel I was "wasting my time", both in game and irl, doing seemingly mundande things. That is a great achievement for a game to pull off. Paramount but often overlooked and ignored. In summary, this is a game made by autistic white germans for autistc white males, the golden age of gaming the way it should be. And if you don't like these kinds of games, good games, then why are you here reading this?!? As for me, I'm currently playing Gothic 2.