Gothic 2 Gold Edition

I love this game, I really do but unfortunatly it's a pain to get running if you even can get it running at all, I have spent about 3 hours trying to get it to work, reinstalling, fan patches and more, nothing seems to get it to run. This why I am forced to give it a low raiting even though this was one of the best RPGs I've ever played and feel so sad to write this review.

Really great game from start to finish. Awesome story, good graphics, great characters. It also has unique combat mechanics, which are clunky and awkward at first (since your character can't fight), but your ability to control the character improves the more you train the combat style. The only thing that they could have improved is the difficulty Balancing. The game is quite hard at the beginning and far to easy at the end.

Unlike the Steam version, this one works without needing any fixes (I am using Windows 10). The only issue that remains is an annoying sound in the tower of Xardas, but you won't spend much time there. NICE!! FINALLY!!

This game is sort of fun, but seriously flawed. The difficulty level was a bit weird in Gothic 1, and Gothic 2 is Gothic 1 on steroids. I've never, ever had a character die as many times as I have in Gothic 2. Then, add to that the fact that the designers "fixed" the original Gothic 2 by completely nerfing the magician class and multiplying mana costs by 1.5-2x. To top it off, half the time you can't even cast a spell on a creature that's attacking you! Then add some really clunky 3D movement (monsters get hung up on objects all the time) and the often glitchy scripting (it's not unusual to greet an NPC and have a completely bizarre conversation about things you've never heard of before, then later find the ORIGINAL NPC who was supposed to give you the quest). I have no idea why so many people love this game. There are a lot better games out there.

RPG means "role playing game", what means that you take a role of a character, that you lives his life, or part of it, and that is Gothic 2, you live the nameless hero's life, you do what you want. The game itself is in third person, you can play in first person, but is only useful for seeing more closely. You can configure the controls, something recomended because de default ones are awkward, personaly, my control scheme is like the Elder Scrolls saga, is much better that way, you know, WASD and all that. Talking about the combat system is a bit hard, is something that you must experiment, you must control the "clicks", is not a button mashing game, doing 200 "clicks" per second doesn't do nothing, you must "click" in the precisely moment to do a combo. I recommend to deactivate the "Gothic 1 controls" setting in options, these are very difficult and a bit confusing. The world map is small compared with other actual RPGs, but is very very detailed, you can see the people working in the farms or in his particular things at day, then, some ones go to drink some beer at night in the tabern or simply to sleep. Some of hese people will give you quests (there are many, like 130 or so), like kill some wolves, find a specific item and other quests much more complex, the game is very varied in this term, no problem with that. The leveling up siystem is very rewarding, you start slowly, but with the passing of time, you will see your character getting more and more powerful, you will pass from having serious problems with a single orc, to beat several with little effort, between these two action you will spend many hours, but belive me, is very rewarding. Every level, you get 10 learning points that you can spend in your basic stats, improving your skills or learning new ones, the system is very realistic, because instead of increasing the skills with the UI, you must search a specific character that can teach you to improve the skill you want, for example, you ask a blacksmith to teach you to forge your own weapons. The skill system doesn't have many complications, from the typicals like one-handed weapons, two handed, bow or crossbow, to others that you must learn like sneak, pickpocket, pick locks, create runes, alchemy, forge weapons or taking trophies from dead monsters. In terms of looting, weapons are numerous, you have swords of all kind, axes, hammers, bows and crossbows (some of them with magic properties), not so much with the armors, although I like that there are many, this is a realistic detail, the armors are difficult to get, definetly, you will play many hours with the same armor. The rest are rings, belts and amulets, typical looting, but there are some cool items that lets you do some useful things, like steel bars to forge swords in real time (I mean, you need to put that bar in fire with the corresponding animation, nothing UI based), pick axes to get minerals, guitars (nothing useful but funny), food that you can cook and more that I can't remember right now. The bad thing is the inventory, is very chaotic, the items are sorted by the own criteria of the game. The graphics are outdated now, but very solid, blocky characters, good textures (there is a HD texture pack) and a very good orography, sometimes you will see some glitches here and there, like rocks and trees not properly located, minimum problems, the truth is that the game is very polished, there are very few bugs, and you can solve them with a community patch, I finished the game with 65 hours and i haven't found any bug. The sound is very good, little to say here, plays his role perfectly (I found very funny the grunt from the lizards), but the really good part is the music, with beautiful ambient pieces, especially those related to the expansion zone. In definetly, if you like RPGs in his adventure form, without complex rules and stats, this is your game. The pros: - The world, very well detailed. - The NPCs. - Excelent difficulty curve, very rewarding. - Solid graphic engine and very polished game. - Again, the million of details. The cons: - Maybe too difficult at first. - Awfull controls. - You can't keep playing after the main quest. - Impractical inventory.