Gothic 2 Gold Edition

This is one of those special games I like coming back to on regular basis. Not because it's perfect. It has its flawes. But because it has more good things than those bad. Like the great atmosphere, the perfect soundtrack or NPCs and creatures that react to what's going on around them. You draw your weapon around NPCs in a town, they tell to put it away or you will face the consequences. You walk into a house, the owner runs inside and tells you to get away (I can't recall many RPGs where you're not allowed to walk into a house and and take everything without any protest). You are attacked by a wild beast, nearby villagers will come to your aid. You can see wolves hunting other animals. Those are details that help you immerse yourself into this hostile world. The world isn't huge, but large enough to keep you busy and fun to explore. With addition of Jharkendar it's three times bigger than the world in the first game. Also it has less clunky controls and no ladders :) Overall, it's an improvement over the first game (but I still like that one too). Don't get me wrong, Gothic 2 isn't perfect, it has its problems. But for me personally it has enough good things to be worth coming back to.

Well. Where to begin? I'd say let's start with telling you how to patch the game - I personally just install all my stuff manually. You'll need SystemPack, PlayerKit and Gothic2Fix. (you can also use stuff like Spine and Union) If you wanna also have fancy lighting (and in my case also gain the ability to alt+tab), get Dx11 renderer - however, don't try to run it on something like Intel iGPU in case you wanna play with Dx11, as it will result into the game looking like a slideshow. Now that we have this aside, let's get to the game itself. I liked Gothic 1. The story was amazing, the atmosphere was as well, the music... everything was simply very good. Gothic 2 has all that - and more - it added alchemy, the faction you're in matters far more as you progress in the story than in previous title and it overall feels far more polished. Whether some of the stuff is better in G2 or G1 is a personal opinion, however. When it comes to atmosphere, Gothic 2 is a bit worse in that regard, at least in my opinion. Yet, the atmosphere is still very good, even when you're just walking around in a forest. The audio design there is simply top notch and gets complimented by the fantastic soundtrack by Kai Rosenkranz. Another thing I noticed is the fact that artstyle is very good, thus I didn't really pay any attention to the dated graphics. From armor to just a fern in the forest, everything looks pretty. The story also connects to the previous game very well and even though it might feel generic, I still like it. The worldbuilding in this game is also interesting - the world changes quite a bit with each chapter - you can get new side quests and there are new enemies. While in G1, what happened is only the main story progressed but nothing really changed in the world. The game isn't without flaws, though. It can be buggy at times and voice acting in the English version is terrible for the most part - best played with German or Polish voiceover. Conclusion - go and play it.

[If you are an RPG games fan and haven't played this game, please do yourself a favor and buy it and play this game. You will definitely be glad that you did] This is the first RPG game I played. I am glad that I started with this. This is still one of the best games I have ever played. I don't want to rank all the games I had played. I enjoyed all of them. But Gothic 2 will remain as one of my most favorite games of all time. The story is awesome, the combat is (very very) challenging, Free open RPG, three different paths each have their own play style providing replayability. The game doesn't have difficulty level (and is always at hard level) which will be a problem for casual players playing for the first time. If you survive the first few encounters and get used to it, it is actually enjoyable. There is so many awesome things about this game that I can't list all of them. Till now I have played this game four times (as a Paladin, as a Mercenary, as a Fire Mage, and as a Complete Archer Strat) and it was enjoyable every single time. After playing this game couple of times, I bought and played Gothic 1 (which is also a gem) and then played this game again couple of times.

Do not bother with negative reviews, they just do not like old games in general. Gothic has it's charm and issues (aren't all games like that nowadays?), it has incredible music, amazing story, multi-class/multi-guilds, weapon making, unique type of magic system (scrolls and runes) and much much more and keep in mind it is a game from 2005! Graphics are old, combat system is weird and clunky but millions of players loved it for immersive world, dialogues and main character. If you are still unsure if you should buy this game just wait for sale.

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 !