Let's be frank, Gothic 1&2 didn't really hold up too well in visual and gameplay department. The atmosphere, music, level design and such... now those is irreplaceable. I played the second Gothic1 back in 2003 I think (+couple more times later on), and so I tend to grade it according to it's time of release rather than holding it up to modern day standards. Both first and second game (anything after doesn't exist for me... inner peace) created distinct world which feels like living, breathing place and it's absolutely enchanting. I'd attribute it to characters, the world itself, level design and UI, all of which attemt to keep you inside it's setting and put as few walls between player and nameless character as possible. Gothic unlike Elder Scrolls and similar titles of it's time focuses on smaller, yet more active cast of characters. It makes them much more memorable. Most of all, they act less like fantasy characters as many of us grew used to. You could really see most of them living somewhere in our world. The whole experience feels far more grounded in reality and yet silly all the same. For some reason humor never is out of place. The open world feels organic. It's never huge for the sake of being huge. It's actually fairly small if you go through it in the stright line. Gothic goes for quality instead of quantity, making the areas incredibly dense. Some regions of the world are separated by the plot progression, but what you encounter the most is very smart monster placement which make your life harder (yet not impossible) with numbers or strength. And if you can overcome it... designers never fail to reward you. ... And yet the combat is terrible xD It's like tab targeting inside action, but the first locks you in action and action doesn't really work if you don't lock your target by performing action or... it's so weird to explain and unintuitive to play. Never stopped me though :D
Let's be frank, Gothic 1&2 didn't really hold up too well in visual and gameplay department. The atmosphere, music, level design and such... now those is irreplaceable. I played the second Gothic back in 2006 I think (+couple more times later on), and so I tend to grade it according to it's time of release rather than holding it up to modern day standards. Both first and second game (anything after doesn't exist for me... inner peace) created distinct world which feels like living, breathing place and it's absolutely enchanting. I'd attribute it to characters, the world itself, level design and UI, all of which attemt to keep you inside it's setting and put as few walls between player and nameless character as possible. The main plot is servicable really, visuals... meh. Remember, this was after Morrowind. Gothic unlike Elder Scrolls and similar titles focuses on smaller, yet more active cast of characters. It makes them much more memorable. Most of all, they act less like fantasy characters as many of us grew used to. You could really see most of them living somewhere in our world. The whole experience feels far more grounded in reality and yet silly all the same. For some reason humor never is out of place. The open world feels organic. It's never huge for the sake of being huge. It's actually fairly small if you go through it in the stright line. Gothic goes for quality instead of quantity, making the areas incredibly dense. Some regions of the world are separated by the plot progression, but what you encounter the most is very smart monster placement which make your life harder (yet not impossible) with numbers or strength. And if you can overcome it... designers never fail to reward you. ... And yet the combat is terrible xD It's like tab targeting inside action, but the first locks you in action and action doesn't really work if you don't lock your target by performing action or... it's so weird to explain and unintuitive to play. Never stopped me though :D
I really liked DoS1 and somehow can't keep playing the sequel. I approached the game so many times, I lost the count and gave it more than a fair shake. So what happened? The good: Visually the game is leagues above the first title. Sadly it's also much more damanding on your hardware. Many simple effects and animations are overblown and that's design decision I'm not fond of personally, but many might find appealing. Music got much more budget and you can hear it. It's definitely on the lighthearted which is fine. The quality and variety is just right and never made me feel like switching it to my personal playlist. Mod Support. The ease of installing and using many useful mods is heartwarming. Sadly 95% of those mods are just some mechanical and QoL improvements. The bad: DoS2 is trying to be far more of a P&P simulation rather than cRPG. It's not only in the mechanics, but something as essential for an RPG, as writing. It's written for co-op, with singleplayer being clear afterthought. It's not a your personal journey, but rather a tale of a group of pre-written characters with a player being just an outsider pushing the pawns. For example the way that dialog is written clearly separates character's vision from player's perspective, leaving you nearly numb to the any plot occurrence. If you choose to create a custom char, you basically don't exist within the plot. The impact of your choices during and after character creation mirrors that sentiment. The "origin characters" strip NPCs of unique feel and their own will. They always seem like another skin to wear, rather then people you want to know. The combat also suffered big change with lazy armor system designed to simplify difficulty scaling process. It encourages the player to choose either physical or magic damage and go 100% into it for entire party instead of using creativity to achieve CC and surprise advantage. Fundamentally DoS2 feels just wrong and goes down the way I can't follow or support.
Lost the disks, it's actually hard to find nowadays. Big thanks to GoG team. It's slightly hard to run properly on modern systems as well. Look for "DisciplesGL_1.90" or "Disciples Wrapper v1.90" on moddb. It's simple fix with that. With that the game has ton of fun to offer in pretty compact package. The only shame is that there aren't many custom maps to download for it. At least good ones. You are better off staying with what's in the package. On sale for 5 buck and below it's a steal.
Writing 7/10 Setting: painfully generick, lacks any charm Main plot: slow start with great landing Side Quests: Good for one playthrough Expansions: White march 1 is meh but 2 is best part of the whole game NPC: Are very well written, I wish those in my party had more impact on the story though Visual 8/10 Graphics: very good Locations: art direction is above average Characters: minimum required effort Animation: Actually nice Sound 6/10 Music: Lacking in character but hits home at crucial moments Speech: It's very good when it's present. Enviroment: My ears didn't bleed Gameplay 4/10 Combat: Feels old, which might be good Outside of combat: you feel it's made for combat UI: It's alright, but character sheet is a mess To summarize the game feels like less inspired, more constrained Baldur's Gate wannabe. It lacks imagination and the charm of old school rpgs. Combat or gameplay and roleplaying feel comepletly separated where they shouldn't be. There is just too many limitations thrown on little old me who just wants to play the way that Obsidian didn't intend me to play. The thing that hurts it the most in my opinion is this horribly generic setting. I believe much could be solved with change of this part. That's one of the reasons why Tyranny that followed works so well, even though it suffers similar constraints.
The title just doesn't work properly and I tried to fix it... even though I shouldn't be required to do it. I'm affected with frame drop issue even though I have strong rig. I can't force myself to play because it makes me physically ill, so 1/10 from me.
I want to play this game more, yet I can't find any reason to do so :| 1. Writing 2/10 Setting: Generic as hell Main Plot: ...there is a plot? Side quests: exp farm. NPC: Cringy as hell, best avoided. 2. Visual 4/10 Graphical fidelity: Actually all right Animation: Really good in combat Locations: Empty, bland, lack of imagination in design 2. Sound 2/10 Music: abscent for 95% of the game, prepare your playlist Speech: when people grunt it's all right, but when they actually try, you want to make them stop. Enviroment and other: About right. Gameplay 10/10 Combat: It's glorious Outside of combat: you will want to be back in combat UI: I need more hotkeys Other... 8/10 Stability: best port I've played so far. Fun: Had to mod one or two things Value: subjective In summary, I had great time with the game due to amazing combat system, but the untapped potential of the whole title leaves me frustrated. Gameplay carries it hard, but it's not enough in my book. Although if this game had co-op... yeah that would be a perfect fit. Many people love Dragon's Dogma and I can see why.
