While this is officially a mod to Gothic 2, it is really a new, polished game. Archolos uses the resources and engine of Gothic 2, the lore and certain game mechanics of the Gothic universe, but that's about it. The game has its own world, which is rich in variety, spacious and definitely worth exploring. What's more, the game spawns animals and items as the player progresses, which makes re-visiting areas interesting and rewarding. The same goes with quests. More quests pop up as the player progresses. Quests are... Superb. Few RPGs have such fine and original quests. Side quests go way beyond go-and-fetch. In a quest, you become a tutor of a wild and inept teenager. In another, you need to find the scattered pages of a lost diary of a dead magician. The mod developers just did better job than most studios out there. I only wish these guys make another mod.
The game is somewhat simple and easy to win even on higher difficulties. Conquer / found a few cities early in the game, speed up first 5-6 quests, and then you will have enough money to hire troops and win around. Despite that, the game has quite of a charm. Magic creatures, Gods, magic items are in here. Random maps gives high replay value, and you need to carefully choose your enemies.
I got overly excited learning that Julian Gollop is working on a new title and was quick to support the development. I patiently lived with the bugs in the first versions and played the core game and next two DLCs. I must praise the game about the new Balistics / Aim system. You fire a volley of bullets and only these that hit count. You can aim at different body parts of the enemy and do tactical damage to win. For example, you can disable the weapon holding limb and rend the enemy (less) harmless. This must become standard in the genre. Unfortunately, that is basically all the good in the game. The whole game has the feeling of being bland and shallow. It looks more like a prototype than a finished game. Maps are repetitive and lack variety. The deja vu feel is very quick to follow. There are too many hardcoded maps for story missions which take replay value away - the same map, with exacly the same enemies. Attacks on the Phoenix Point bases happen too often and the map is always the same. Human enemies don't drop weapons, you cannot get and research / use them, which is plainly unrealistic. Enemies scale very fast from easy to impossibly hard. They get bumped on armor to ridiculously high levels that no armor piercing weapons help. There is armor-shredding, only that you cannot survive to use it. Mind control in Sirenas is overpowered. When you face two Sirens with Mind Control and ridiculously high armor that it takes two sniper shots from your most powerful sniper gun to just disable this ability of theirs, you know it is just too much. The research tree of Phoenix Point is too short. Your only chance is to steal from other fractions or join a fraction and progress on their tree. Better, recruit soldiers from other fractions, strip them of their weapons / armor and research them! There is a large variety of weapons and most of them are... Useless. Whatever you do, enemies will get armor bumps and there is little you can do about it.
A late buyer, I was somewhat pessimistic because of all the reviews I read. Now, 20 hours into the game, I can say this is a very decent heir to the Gothic series. The world is so typical for the Gothic games, old Gothic players will immediately feel at home. Default controls are very similar, too. The game is very hard in the beginning. Very hard. You will die often, very often, unless you avoid basically everything and everyone. The world is hostile and very dangerous. Fight is not much different than other Gothic games, only enemies are overly stronger. You need to just keep a low profile, sneak and run away from fights. Start with the go-and-fetch quests to gain some experience, money and access to better weapons and armor. Try to get a companion, that helps a lot. Be patient, don't rush into the game and the wilderness. Pick your fights carefully. Learn to dodge attacks. Quests often have multiple resolutions and it is not clear what action will bring you what. You need to decide for yourself and then get what you deserved. Some quest options require certain skills, so do not rush to solve all quests before you shape your character the way you like it. The fractions are interesting, each with their own weapons and perks. They are realistic in terms that all of them have their serious drawbacks and you always need to make a compromise when you join one, which you must in order to progress. Story is mediocre, nothing impressive. The game also features the dumbing-down instructions and hints, so typical of modern games. Fortunately, you can turn-off markers on your map to make the game slightly more interesting.
This game is so bad, I would even give it no stars if it were possible. The shortest way to describe this game is: think of a huge, complex Excel spreasheet, full of data. You touch a value here, and a value there gets changed, and soon the first value you changed has gone back to its original value without any warning for you. Sheer boredom and waste of time.
The world of Gothic 3 is huge, and diverse. I still remember the thrills I got when my hero laid his foot in the desert of Varant, and in the snow hills of Nordmar. World is crafted brilliantly, and vistas are breath-taking. Music is superb and adds to the atmosphere of the game. The story of the game is intriguing, and the many possible endings make the game worth replaying. The best aspect of the story is that there is no good and bad side. You start on the side of the rebels against the orcs, only to discover slowly that rebels are not as good as they look, that they pillage peasants, and orcs do not treat humans badly after all. The Hashishin are only intrested in money and slaves. Xardas have plans of his own, Water wizards are back with other ideas for what is good. All these leave the player to carefully think which side to join. This game must be played with the Community Patch installed. I raise my hat to the CP team, and they have my utmost respect for the marvelous job they did, and the many hours they sacrifised. The CP turns Gothic 3 into a brilliant RPG.
