Gothic 2 Gold Edition

Be warned! If you play Gothic series 1+2 you will become addicted to RPG Gothic style. All RPG games you will play next will be compared by your mind with Gothic. And you will be forever unsatisfied because this game is perfect in its genre. It is the best of the best !

I am never playing this game again. Simply because after the first time I completed it, I felt the visceral urge to complete it again on Hard mode almost immediately. Heads up to new players who have just finished Gothic 1: Gothic 2 Gold Edition is Gothic 2 + Night of the Raven expansion preinstalled. What is Night of the Raven? It's the expansion that added a new zone to explore and ratcheted up the base game's difficulty, because the game's core audience of Polish masochists criticized the studio of German sadists for the game feeling too easy (from what I gleaned, Fire Magician specialization was too OP in vanilla release). Which is why it feels more brutal than Gothic 1 when you first boot it up. Take my advice and contact GOG customer support and they will send you a link to download Gothic 2 without the expansion, this will be on Gothic 1 difficulty. Once you've beaten it, it wouldn't surprise me if you feel like playing it again, that is when you should give the updated game a shot (new game plus, as it were). Troubleshooting aside, I do not exaggerate when saying that Gothic 2 felt more addictive than any other video game I have EVER played. If you liked the original, you will love the sequel as it takes everything that was so swell about Gothic 1 and improves upon it (without feeling like a radical departure). Adjusting from the vanilla release to Night of the Raven might still feel jarring to many players, so one final suggestion from me is to read up on enemy weaknesses and resistances on World of Gothic site. For example, if the Seekers (hooded cultist mages) feel unbeatable, take note they have no resistance to Wind spells, so Fist of the Wind is your ticket to downing them. Gothic 2 Gold will punish you, but you will still feel compelled to best it, a quality that I have not encountered in that many games. It is hard but not frustrating and obnoxious. Dark Souls is for boys, Night of the Raven is for men.

Very few reviews mentions the insane differnce of difficulty betweens those two games. Gothic 2 was my first game in the series, played it tenths of times... literally... I know all caves, corners and nooks like a back of my hand. And there is Night of the Raven add-on, which adds a lot of new content, but increases difficulty drastically. So everyone who finds Gothic 2 Gold Edition too difficult, try to get your hands on vanilla game. Game is still a challenge, but not a punishment like NOTR. A few tips to newcomers. I played both games without cheating and with a lit a bit of cheating, I explain why. Gothic 2 is hard at the beginning, but you develope your character much faster. And it isn't really important which faction you choose it's becomes pretty easy in the end. But to rank factions from easiest I would say: 1. Mages (summoning spells are very powerfull) 2. Paladins 3. Mercenaries. But in Gothic 2 NOTR the deck shuffles and rankink looks like that: 1. Paladins 2. Mercenaries 3. Mages. NOTR makes mage faction almost unplayable, and that's where "small" cheat saves the day! As soon as I turn on mana regeneration on reasonable rate, game becomes fun to play as a mage again. You don't need any mods btw. Mana regeneration is integrated in the game, just turned off by default... Playing with sword in hand you don't need any cheats, the games becomes easy enough in any case...

This game... is the best... It has so many things done well. I played it more than 20 times... I know, I know that number... is too low, I need to play as mage next time, thanks for reminding me. Now let me tell you couple of things about this wonderful piece of software... First: don't read too much reviews, just trust me: do you like open world RPGs? Yes? Then buy this game. If you don't have "lots" of money buy it on sale. For couple of bucks you can get Gothic 1 and 2 - which is incredible. Today this game comes in "Gold" edition which means it has expansion and base game. This edition game is much much harder than original Gothic 2. It's not really for the new players. Because there's no "classic" version anymore on the net (or maybe there is but I cannot find it) I recommend Gothic 1 for first timers. You will not be disappointed. But if you find classic version of Gothic 2 - play it over Gothic 1. Apart from that, I should mention at least one bad thing about this game... It pains me to say/admit this but... Controls in this game are not really good. They are not bad, they are just... ahhh just play the game, after 10th time you'll be so used to them that you'll think that they are perfect. For the end: there are 3 very very important patches for this and Gothic 1 game that you really need to install if you want to play them on modern systems. Just search the web for patches.

Gothic 2 is a big, open-world RPG in the best sense. Other people have lives, different responses based on which faction you join, and _everything_ is scripted and voiced. This is a marked step up from other RPGs. The world itself is varied and interesting, with dangerous monsters lurking just off the beaten path and tons of things to do. Be as good (or as bad) as you want! Will you shake down farmers for their money? Will you be a virtuous paladin? Will you join the mages? The game lets you play your character, your way, for the most part. Vurt's Gothic II Graphics Overhaul makes this look great, especially for its age. Unfortunately, someone convinced the developers that a game must be punishingly hard to be fun. Not even cheating can save it. Load up your character up with weapons, armor, health, and abilities. Try to kill the off-path monsters in the first world. Some of them will be one-shot kills that get oddly strong hits in before they go. Others will stomp your fully-cheat-loaded butt into the ground. Unfortunately, this includes people/things you have to beat up for quests. To be blunt: if I put 20 hours into a game, I expect to gain enough power to beat stuff up. On that score, Gothic 2 doesn't deliver. And it's a pity, because the world looks amazing.