Gothic 3

Before I begin I assume this is played with the community patch- absolutely mandatory for this purchase. I'm actually a real fan of Piranha Bytes, I think they do great work. Risen was a graphical masterpiece and a strangely satisfying RPG- I'd read good things about the Gothic series before I got my hands on this in early 2007 but I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The installation touted the soundtrack (which is spectacular) and the graphics (which are also very good), and on paper it looked like a great game. And on paper it is a good game- the screenshots for this one are breathtaking and set that to music and you've really got something. Sadly, once the game starts up so do the problems. To it's credit it's actually very nicely detailed. From the surprisingly well hidden camp of Reddock to the old farmer's cottage near Kap Dun, the world really is brimming with artistic vision of a beautiful game the engine sadly can't do justice to. You'll enjoy shooting down majestic elk in the forest and selling their hides to the local ranger, Jens, and may even earn a few crowns and a slave in the Montera local arena. With a bit of practice you might decide to venture south and learn from the desert merchants of Varant, convene with the Druids to learn the ancient magic or find your way into the capital city of Venguard and make a contribution to the war effort. The RPG and progression system all work beautifully and intuitively, in fact a system the more recent Skyrim has drawn inspiration from to replace it's class-based predecessors. The story is surprisingly engaging with it's painting of moral ambiguity on both sides, something Piranha Bytes seem to do especially well. I loved the setting, the story and the system. So why didn't I like the game? It's a sad fact of life with most games that they are only as fun as the core mechanics, which in this game are just not very well done. Combat especially feels very unfair- enemies telegraph but it's rarely clear if a block or dodge will be effective and it will take some time to get over the haphazard system. Archery and magic are less ambiguous, as they often are, but most enemies attack melee anyway so it doesn't make much of a difference. Repetitive and confusing combat seems like a minor gripe that would be easily overcome if the majestic and sizeable world was as interactive as it seems to promise. At first you almost dare to dream the romping fields and endless forests may house a sandbox RPG but you're quickly brought to the ground with monotonous side quests and poor characterizations. None of the NPC's seem to have much personality, and seem to exist merely to give quests or trade equipment. The quests themselves are extremely repetitive and uninteresting, which is disappointing granted the material provided. Why must I clear another wolf den in the midst of a civil war, when I could be assassinating orcish nobles, freeing slaves, charging castles? Even the epic fights between towns feel monotonous and rather deleterious to your project- complete the same quests for each camp then slaughter everyone in one camp- the second then occupies it and there's nothing left to do but move on to the next pair of towns. This game seems to give the illusion of being a sandbox but it's depressingly linear once you get past the epic scenery. Towns come in sequence through the roughly straight road that runs through Myrtana, and the game expects you to visit the towns and indeed the countries in order. I wanted to visit Varant to learn two handed sword-fighting near the start but the path is filled with monsters that would take many levels playing as a character I didn't want to be just to get there. There are points later in the game you can skip ahead but the sharp difficulty you'll encounter really destroys the illusion this world is one you're free to explore. Yes, this allows for a more graded challenge but as the challenge is already unsatisfying due to the poor game mechanics, so freedom is all that is left. I tried really hard to absorb myself in the world of Myrtana but before long the pretty pictures and the wonderful sountrack were all I had- the rest of the world was impenetrable, uninteractive and devoid of life. Which is such a shame granted the grand vision that Gothic 3 clearly had- a great setting, a good story, every ounce of the game brims with incomplete innovation and untapped ideas. Some of these came to life in Risen, a game I can really recommend. Can I recommend Gothic to the world of 2011? I'm sorry to say that I can't. But if you can see past the screenshots and think there's a great game behind this then please buy it; I can't wait to see what Piranha Bytes come up with next.

Following Gothic 2, this seemed great at first. Huge open world, beautiful scenery, new factions ... what can go be bad about that? Well, after some hours of gameplay, it started to lose it's magic. There was not always a good sense of direction , of where and how can you contribute to the story. With a world this big, the variety of weapons, or items in general, seemed small compared to Gothic 2 and you kind'o know what to expect from every chest / character looted. No thrill of finding something. Add to all these some buggy quests and game engine fails (ex: you have to follow a character that walks through solid rock instead of taking the road ), and a combat system that feels inferior to Gothic 2. I could not finish the game , partly because of a diminishing interest, partly because of dissapoinment with buggy quests. Piranha Bytes made this game too big , too long, but could not add enough substance to it. Like a glass filled only 2/3. Maybe I'll try it again with all patches I can get my hands on, but as GOG ships it, it's only worth 3 stars.

About ten years ago, after I just completed Gothic 1 & 2, I enthusiastically began playing Gothic 3 and was really disappointed after a couple of hours: the game had no proper main plot, unbalanced fights, obviously unfinished areas, reused caves and so on. And on top of that graphic glitches and bugs. Last year I wanted to check my memories, got Gothic 3 again (there was a sale here on GOG) and surprisingly had such a good time with the game that I even took the time to finish it. Either this time I had less expectations since I did not come directly from the previous games or the community patch improved the gameplay a lot. I really enjoyed exploring the world: seeing the hills and meadows of Myrtana, walking through the endless desert and ruins of Varant, finding a path to Nordmar, getting lost there ;-), and finally finding Xardas in his tower. In between a lot of missions, new cities, fights and liberations. I did not mind the lack of a story and considered the game as a kind of walking simulator or exploration game. Or am I just getting old, preferring a more relaxing experience now? The only remaining disappointment was the lack of a proper final challenge, but I was prepared for that due to all the reviews here and elsewhere in the internet.

Much has been said about the wrecked state this game was released in. I won't repeat all this, just search the net a little. In its core, this is a solid game, but even with the community patch (which is an incredible effort!) it's still way, way weaker than the first two parts of the series. Nevertheless, for ten bucks this may be worth your time if you like non-linear RPGs. Be warned that you're in for a cold shower if you never played any of the Gothic titles. There's full body armor, for example (no individual parts, some jewelry, though). Combat has been "made accessible" (he, he) and is ... well, kind of button mashing now. Or seriously unbalanced (you can become an unstoppable killing machine easily) if you go the magic route. Large sections of the game (desert, especially) are completely bland, with generic "find X of Y" quests that makes them look unfinished and rushed. The environment and atmosphere are still top notch, as you'd expect from the series. You'll *definitely* need the community patch (and possibly the quest pack), though. If you're new to Gothic, I'd advise to try Gothic 2 instead, though.

The first two games are true rough gems with reasonably sized open worlds and a somewhat dark and sarcastic sense of humor. Gothic 3 is NOW a good game, but it is not what the fans expected. The release state was terrible and made the game unplayable - therefore the bad reviews online from that time. The GOG version now includes all the official and unofficial patches and it makes the game well, with minimum amounts of bugs and glitches. But about the game itself. The graphics are solid and even now the world looks ok, though you can see the age of this game. The majority of the quests are just "go there", "kill him", "bring this" with some interesting quests now and then and some very difficult ones without a wiki. The melee combat system is not good and is a dumbed-down version the previous ones and the reason why I give it just 4 stars. It is just bad. The ranged combat is a lot better and it is actually great! The world is now huge. Or was considered huge at the time, still it is probably smaller than something like Skyrim but it is a really impressive world with a lot of caves, dungeons and hidden areas to find and explore. The best loot cannot be just found by some creature or in a specific cave but requires you to find more chests of a specific type (old for mages or heavy for fighters) and with each additional chest you get a noticeably better gear up to the "legendary" items. A solid strength is its over-the-top voice acting. German voice acting is occasionally so bad it is amazing and the English one is just solid (main protagonist voiced by Crispin Freeman [e.g. Itachi Uchiha]). The music is just amazing and the sound design is great, though not perfect. Overall the game offers plenty of fun, a big open world, solid RPG system, great ranged combat and below-average melee combat. Maybe worth it without a sale but totally worth on sale! Also, it has educational value for language learners as it offers plenty of voiced lines in different languages.