The game is really good, I even think its better than Gothic 2, which is the holiest title from the series which everyone seems to worship. Gothic has always been about exploration of its massive sprawling game-world, with the story, dialog and quests having always been something I would never considered to be remarkable among the series. Yet these are the exact things criticized in Gothic 3, with little to no consideration giving to this games superior and massive world-design. I find this to be somewhat silly. The world of Gothic 3 is quite literally among the best of all RPGs. However the areas which you start in are not too impressive. I suppose this can be discouraging to perfectionists. You must venture out further into the world to truly appreciate it. The landscape is phenomenal, and always offers something new to discover. I would even consider the overall experience to be better than Skyrim. Yet coincidentally, both Gothic 3 and Skyrim share many similarities. Most of which were original to Gothic 3. For example, Gothic 3 was the first 3D-RPG you could hunt wild animals such as deer, it was also the first to offer arbitrary interactions with certain objects in the world which would allow you to chop wood, or rotate a roasting pig over the flame, or sweep a floor, or mine ore from a cave. This game also seems to be the first RPG with crafting stations you could interact with. Really quite remarkable to think all these things were done 5 years before the release of Skyrim. Yet many seem to forget this. The criticism for this game is certainly legitimate. The quests seem to be a just little more generic than its predecessors but nothing is a deal breaker for me. The actual game-world more than compensates for this. I believe many people are overacting here. There are of course other things which seem to be designed poorly. The character models and animations in particular are also quite ugly. But again I am personally not too discouraged by this
You can decapitate ghosts with a 2h Battle Axe. I dont know about you, but ripping the head off a ghost is oddly unique and satisfying. Any mod which lets you configure the frequency of decapitations also removes the restrictions on ghost decapitations, by the way.
