Posted on: July 5, 2024

ZApHXLII_42
Verified ownerGames: Reviews: 20
An acquired taste
First off this includes Night of the Raven, which shifts the leveling system and in some cases makes things a lot more tedious, second off played with OpenGothic, a source port of the game which allows it to run natively on newer hardware without compatibility patches. To Gothic 2 itself, it falls in "eurojank" since it's both well polished and buggy, the game takes a while to get used to playing as combat is directional (as in you have different types of strikes dictated by how you move) for melee and magic is, for the most part, unviable for your first play through (aside from the scrolls you pick up) but that's compensated by a tightly designed world space without level-scaling, never is there an area that feels like it needs more to do nor is there a bunch of empty space, Gothic 2 places either a mini-counter or a quest everywhere and your build dictates your best course of action. Aside from the world space, Gothic 2 does a great job of making the world feel dynamic due to its small size and npc interactions, you'll find if you are too generous you won't get a return on your generosity, a few faces from Gothic might recognize you but you are a stranger to most, often times the best decision isn't clear cut, etc... and the major factions play nicely together too, you'll find that, unlike Gothic 3, if you side with a faction you will get unique reactions from other factions. Overall the game is a little janky at first but underneath that jank (and min-maxing thanks to NotR) is a tight-knit, well-designed, world space with engaging quests.
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