Gothic 2 Gold Edition

Gothic 2 Night of the Raven is the best 3rd person RPG and simultaniously the most underrated because for some mysterious reason it did not get enough presence to the West (propably weak marketing reasons - remember that Piranha Bytes & Jowood were small companies without enough funds) however they put to shame many other AAA gaming studios in their time with this masterpiece! Furthermore I really like its strong community and the hundreds of succesful mods that were made by the community!

This game, that came out in november 2002, was absolutely marvelous, lush environment, vast world, everything in this game is briliant, granted, it's over 20 years old, bu it is still a fantastic game, the world, the characters, the side-quests, the main story, it's just perfect, I keep replay the game because there are very few games nowadays that encapsulate this feeling you have when you play, the world is unforgiven, at first, you don't stand a chance anywhere, without some kind of help, on way or another, you quickly learn that this world it's not centered arround the player, it is centered arround itself, it can and exists without the player as well, you don't have the waypoint, you have to buy a map, to navigate, the Lore is absolutely flawless, and the fact that you get to choos one of 3 factions to join, which this is one of the traits that made Gothic great, night and day cycle, and I could go on for ours about this game, this game is the corner stone and the reason for the other great RPGs that we now have.

Gothic II shifts away from the unique prison colony of its predecessor to a more typical fantasy setting with green meadows, towns, farms, forests, and of course dragons. While visually improved and technically more ambitious, it lacks much of the oppressive, distinctive atmosphere that made the first game so memorable. Controls remain clunky, though a modernized scheme was added. Combat is still rhythm-based, requiring timing and awareness. It can feel awkward and punishing at first because enemies block too precisely, and critical hits from NPCs can kill you instantly but with practice, most fights become manageable or even easy. It's a system that demands patience but doesn't always feel fair. The game expands role-playing with trades like smithing and alchemy, offering simple but useful crafting. The world of Khorinis is great: NPCs follow daily routines, laws are enforced with fines and punishments, and the city feels alive. The familiar three-faction system returns, with more unique quests and combat styles, while pacing is improved compared to the first game, with new content spread across later chapters. Progression is rewarding as enemy levels are fixed, so exploration is open but dangerous. Venturing into the old penal colony is intimidating early on, but returning stronger later delivers a real sense of growth and achievement. The Night of the Raven expansion, included in the Gold Edition, adds a large new region, quests, and factions. It's notably harder, with a reworked skill system and stricter experience management. The lack of respec makes mistakes costly. Careful planning or lots of saving is essential. Gothic II is a great old school PRG from a time where there were no RPG standards and delevoper had to be creative. It has some awkward mechanics, especially in combat but in exchange you get a memorable adventure rpg, which is absolutely worth checking out.

Gothic II is an excellent game. Period. If you missed it when it first came out and you are a fan of the genre, definitely check it out. I haven't played the original Gothic and I've only demoed Gothic 3, so I can't compare Gothic II to those, but it certainly stands on its own as being well worth the money. I'm often put off by the outdated graphics of GOG titles, but the graphics in Gothic II actually hold up pretty well for a game that originally came out in 2002. Plus, the gameplay and story more than make up for any of graphical shortcomings. In fact, Gothic II does a lot of things better than many newer RPGs and, if you can get past the initial difficulty of the game, you'll probably find Gothic II very rewarding.

Gothic 2 is very similar to Gothic, in fact it picks up only two weeks after the first ended. There have been a lot of improvements to the control scheme, and graphically it's prettier to look at. It still suffers from some of the same issues, namely that the leveling curve is incredibly steep. You'll find yourself being killed by flies for the first few levels, hemmed in by monsters on all sides. By the later levels you'll be a walking death machine, destroying all in your path with a gesture, until the final boss battle. Also the voice acting ranges from decent to laughably bad. That being said, Gothic 2 is a great RPS. The various guilds and factions you can join, and the nearly unlimited freedom you have as to which direction you want to go as a character means that the game has a lot of replayability. Even in the first town you'll be confronted with a huge amount of quests and characters to interact with. If you liked Gothic by all means, give this one a go.