Gothic 3

I added only 2 mods, the update of the community patch (Update Pack 1.04) & the parallel universe patch (v1.0.5). Thanks to GOG & the Community for making this possible! Back in the day I bought the CE edition of this game only to realize that it was unplayable. I tried again later with an early version of the CP but the game still crashed all 1-3 hours (sometimes more). I also started to free all the cities right from the start so at some point all orcs that saw me attacked, what made the game again unplayable for me. Now I was finally able to finish it and while it is still the weakest game from the original trilogy I still liked seeing all the locations & talking to all the chars. As already mentioned by others Gothic 1 & 2 are better. Gothic 1 gets a remake soon, which will hopefully be good... Gothic 2 looks amazing with the Gold Remaster mod. G3 still looks nice to me with the patches & mods, but if one is not a fan of the world & chars then there are probably better RPGs to play out there. I enjoyed playing it though.

This review is for the version 1.75 without any additional content, no alternative balance. Gothic 3 is at the same time fun and frustrating to play. There are two viable builds: warrior and mage; other playstyles (ranged, stealth) should only be considered as side activities. Gothic 3 partly consists of grinding for exp and gold (quests, killing mobs, freeing cities) and the part where you do stuff for fun that will never repay the gold/exp investment. Bows in Gothic 3 are terrible: drawing takes a lot of time, there is no support for aiming, damage is laughable. The best bow I've found (115 dmg) with all perks learned can't one-shot a goblin or a wolf unless you aim for the head. The game has lots of small issues which add up: the way enemies block is annoying, animal attack animations and hitboxes, generic quests, generic loot, shallow characters, occasional bugs and the fact that there is no good map for Nordmar. In fact Nordmar is also dull visually: it's just snow everywhere in a way that is almost unrealistic. There's a similar problem with Varant: sand and more sand; there is a nice buffer area between Varant and Myrtana and the habitable desert regions should resemble it in some extent. The music is good and settlements vary in flavor. There is a lot of memorable dialogue lines despite the overall genericity of the narrative. Also I like that the game tells you what's it's all about right off the bat: you arrive at Ardea, kill all Orcs and loot all houses; that's what Gothic 3 is ultimately about.

Never been much of a fan of the Gothic series, but if Two Worlds taught me anything is that there is a lot of fun to be had with low-budget junky RPGs. Gothic 3 is a step-up from its predecessor in that the combat system is *slightly* better and the series really does excell in encouraging exploration and providing a lot of interesting nooks and crannies in its massive world. In many ways, Gothic 3 is a better game in that regard than the Elder Scrolls series. The problem is that the aforementioned combat system really drags the whole game down by a ton. I attempted the game as a hunter/rogue, which worked exactly as I intended to; find a mob, pull enemies, backpedal and shoot until they're down. If they get too close, bust out a sword and run in circles looking for openings. It's a combat style that's oddly absorbing and it's one that I loved in the first Two Worlds. Unfortunately, Gothic 3 lost the plot quickly afterwards and started throwing me in areas swarmed with enemy mobs that hunted in packs, be it wolves, wargs, Orcs or the regular-arrow-immune skeletons. Difficulty in and on itself is never the problem in a game, but when the game becomes repetitive and frustrating is my personal breaking point. Even with quick-saving and multiple attempts, when most of the game time is devoted in pulling and playing happy-slaps with enemy mobs ad nauseum, it's hard to stick with a game just for the exploration and maybe the story. It doesn't help that it's a technical mess. The GOG version is bundled with the previous version of the Community Patch, which makes the game prettier; but crashes still happen and load times are ridiculous for modern systems. I gave up on the game when I just got tired of waiting another 10 seconds of after my millionth death. The game's still fun if you can deal with the above and it has a lot to offer; but it's definitely made for the patient player.

I leave this as a warning to players who might think that the first 2 games are good and thus the 3rd is also good. Unfortunately it is not, the game development was rushed and the game was shipped in an unfinished state. Even the community patches can't save the broken state this game is in at. The only thing this game is good at is giving a good scenery and an amazing sound track. If you are looking for a spiritual Gothic 3, try Risen instead.

This game is fun to a certain extent, however, if you have been spoiled with high quality RPGSs (like Gothic 2) this might leave you a bit disappointed. I'm quite sure that I would have enjoyed this game much more I hadn't played Gothic 2 a few years before it. With that mindset in mind (lower your expectations) this game can be fun, but to me it was never appealing enough to replay it - unlike Gothic 2 where I spent at least 500 hours playing it and I feel I would still love it after all the time spent on it.