Gothic 2 Gold Edition

It took me one whole year from the moment I installed Gothic 2 in my computer for the first time until I finally finished it. Of course I didn’t play the game every day, often spending a couple of weeks and sometimes even a month away from it. But my point is, I spent a whole year immersed in Khorinis, and loving every minute of it. I was even a little sad when it was all over. And that is what this pseudo-review is all about: the emotional impact Gothic 2 had on me. I really miss the feeling of playing this game for the first time. That happens from time to time, when I play one of those games that manage to make you a part of them. And Gothic 2, like it’s predecessor (and yes, it’s successor too), definitely is one of those involving games. The first question that always comes to mind when we talk about sequels: is it as good as the previous game? The first Gothic made me feel like I was really a prisoner in the Valley of Mines, and I was anxious to find the way out of there. Each new hope that surfaced was welcome, each failure frustrating, and all the time I knew that, if I persisted, I would find a way to escape. I was really there. The second game doesn't give the player such a strong motivation. This time, we just need to fend off an invasion by dragons... while it's a direct consequence of the events of the first game, it still felt a little out of the way, not as well integrated to the gameworld as the plot in the first game. But Gothic 2 still manages to involve the player with it’s immense, living world, much larger and richer than the first. In fact, the entire valley from the first game is present here, though some of its areas are not accessible anymore. And what a beautiful world it is. Sometimes, I would just wander without destiny, admiring the views. The graphics in Gothic 2 (like the ones in the first game) have one quality that I consider uncommon in games these days: personality. I don’t know how to explain, but when I played the first game and noticed the trick they used for the forests (the trees are cardboard cutouts that fade into real, 3D trees when you come close), that just looked special. What the game lacks in technical flair (for today’s standards anyway), it more than makes up for in sheer artistic terms. I’m not saying that there aren’t special effects in the graphics department, of course. The transition between day and night is almost unnoticeable, the lights reflect in a beautiful way (I loved to walk around during the night, the moonlight feels just perfect), some spells have nice bursts of light and smoke, and so on. But what really makes the graphics something to be remembered is the use made of them. You’d have to see the game to understand what I’m talking about, and if you’ve already seen it, then you already understand. So, walking around and just exploring the world can be very fun, but what about the story? Well, the story in Gothic 2 is very simple, especially comparing it to the compelling plot of the first game. As I said before, this time there isn’t that sense of need the first game had. You had to get out of that valley, it was a personal goal. And now you are going to kill some dragons because some sorcerer tells you to (of course, towards the ending it gets a little more interesting, but not as much as the first game). Very basic fantasy stuff, to say the least. Fortunately, the main plot isn’t the best part of Gothic 2. The two billion (approximate guess) quests you will have at your disposal – and the way they manage to draw you into the world of the game, involving you with virtually every other person in that world – are. You will be so busy talking to everyone, getting to know how life works in the land of Khorinis, helping other people with their problems (or taking advantage of them), trying to find the right person to teach you that skill you want, that the next thing you know, it’s already daylight outside and you had to wake up early. Yes, many things have been said about the virtual world of Gothic and Gothic 2. But I can write two more pages about it and it will still be less than the game deserves. It really made me feel like I was there, like I knew all those people personally, to the point that I failed a quest that required me to kill a character I liked. And that was OK, because there was another quest involving NOT killing that character, and I still received the XP. And that’s a small example of how they seem to have thought about every possible course of action the player could take. It’s the first game since Fallout that shows that level of variety, as far as I know. Or am concerned. And the way the NPCs react to the player is another bright point to the game. They know you, almost all of them at some point ask you for some favor, or are the target of another favor asked by another NPC… and it never sounds fake. They remember what you did to them in the past, and react accordingly. Also, they react to the guild you belong to, often saying completely different things to players of different guilds. And most of them are actually named, which was an impressive feat for such a huge game at the time. The guilds, by the way, are another good trick to add variety, but I feel they could impact a little more on the game, beyond giving the player specific quests and some small reaction modifiers with a few NPCs. The game doesn’t change so much with different guilds, and I know it will be a long time before I play the game again just to experience it as a mage or paladin. More important than the guilds to explain why I am such a big fan of this game is the realism. First of all, Khorinis doesn’t feel like what one would call an “RPG world”. You know, that kind of world where you find monsters which are always compatible to your current level. Here, you can go anywhere you want right from the start, and all the NPCs, animals and monsters are already around; even the ones which are WAY more powerful than you. So, it’s quite possible for you to meet a pack of wolves, a group of Dragon Snappers or even a party of Orcs at the very beginning, when you are still at level 1, without armor of any kind and wielding only a Heavy Branch… and yes, in that case, the best thing to do is run for your dear life. You’ll be running away – or dying – a lot at first, but it only makes things more satisfying when you are finally strong enough to fell a Shadowbeast with three hits or slay an entire platoon of Orcs without a single scratch (the latter will be very difficult to achieve). And to add to the difficulty AND the realism of the game, you won’t be able to open your inventory and change from your sword to that magic hammer you have in the backpack while the Stone Golem waits patiently. The game doesn’t pause while you are in the inventory or looking at the map, which can be a little frustrating at the start, but when you remember that it would be just like that in real life, you get used to it. And learn to plan your battle strategy before entering combat. Character progression is another highlight that the game kept from its predecessor. When you gain a new level, the only stat that improves is your health (I’m not so sure about mana, it’s been a while). But with every level, you receive ten “learning points”, which can be spent with trainers (along with gold, most of the time) to learn the skills you want. Finding the right trainer for the skill you want is another challenge, one that I found quite engrossing. So, we have a vast, gorgeous and living world, complete freedom of movement from the start, believable reactions from the NPCs, an interface that may be imperfect, but maintains the realism, and millions of things to do. All of that adds up to immerse the player up to their ears, making them feel like they’ve been transported to another universe. For me, no other game had done that since Outcast, but that is another story…

Today, Gothic II may look like the ugly duckling, with a graphics only subtly better than its predecessor's, but you'd be a fool indeed to let that keep you from experiencing this unique game. Building upon the story, atmosphere and dry humor of the first game, Gothic II features a deep story, varied quests, memorable characters, meaningful character progression, crafting and a significant replay value due to its three distinct career choices. Combined with the Night of the Raven expansion, deftly integrated into the main game and bolstering its features and storylines, Gothic II easily delivers more than 50 hours of gameplay in a single play through.

I give this particular release a low score because it doesn't have an option to play classic Gothic 2 without the expansion. In my opinion the base game has better pacing and difficulty level and after playing through NotR once I don't feel like going through the additional chapter again. You can mod the game to be reverted to G2 vanilla, which is 5/5 game and I highly recommend playing it, but there should be an option to do it when you install or launch the game, without looking for some obscure mods. There are some enhanced games on this service which also come with the installers for classic versions, this one needs it as well!

Everything about this game is set to discourage you from playing. The terrible controls. The extremely annoying combat. The bugs. The sub-par graphics and animations. The abysmal voice acting (and the voice-over addons coming with the DLC which stand out like a sore thumb). And yet... there is just something about this game, that you let it all slide and once you look past it's many, many flaws, you can't help it but fall in love. The game is extremely rich with content and its world just feels so alive. This game surpasses even such story-rich powerhouses like The Witcher III in terms of making all of the inhabitants of the world have a life and some agency - and the game is a rushed product from a small studio from 2005! There is just so much to uncover here. Every named character in this game (and there are hundrets of them) has something to do, a quest, a story (there are literally thousands of those quests, and all have some background, some plot, none of that "exclamation mark - the rats became such pests in my basement. Bring me 10 rat tails for reward" shit. And the hiddent content! Like when you decide to say: screw you game, i will not do your quests to get into the first city. I will do my own thing, jump down a cliff to get past some overpowered monsters and find a ledge missplaced by the devs that lets me climb up a wall along the coast that has a small spot to jump down safely into the water so that i can actually swim to the city from the harbor part and break the initial quests, and... and then one of the characters in the game congratulates you on doing all that and you get an XP reward! This is just incredible. Love it, for all it's flaws, for all it's shortcomings, this game is just part of gaming history. For it's current price, you just can't not have it.

While I certainly have many more ARPGs to play before I can form a definitive answer, I will say that of all of this genre that I have played - including such games as the entire Elder Scrolls series, Fallouts 3, New Vegas, and 4, the Witchers 2 and 3, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Prey, and likely others - this one sticks out above all of them. I have been playing games since I was 5 years old, and here I am now in my twenties - 15+ years of gaming - and getting to the end of Gothic 2 was the first time, in all of my time playing games, I can EVER recall actually feeling kind of sad that it was about to end. Gothic 2 is one of those wonderful sequels where I would say that it improved on its predecessor in nearly every way, increasing the scope of the series without sacrificing quality. Compared to Gothic 1, there are many more paths to explore in Gothic 2. The factions you can join don't have the same quests like they do in Gothic 1, meaning each faction is actually unique in terms of quests, along with other perks like armors, weapons, skills and other benefits. The game scaled wonderfully in my 39-hour adventure - at the beginning I could hardly kill Goblins without nearly keeling over, and by the end I was cutting through Lizard Men with relative ease. Whether your interests lie in magic, ranged combat, or melee combat, Gothic 2 ensures that you have steady and constant progress, regular iterations where your leveling up feels tangible. On top of this, the combat and magic systems actually take some getting used to and do NOT reward button-mashing or brute-force, so you are actually improving at the game while your character gets stronger, and it's wonderful. The game is relentlessly difficult and does not hold your hand - but it's a satisfying experience all the way through. I could go on too about how the wonderful player-character, the organic story, the distinct characters, etc., But I'm out of room. This game is great!