Probably it's my fault but i expected something totally different. I didn't play the previous games of the serie, so considering many (misleading and fanboyish) reviews here I expected an open world action game with a lot of freedom and exploration, a sort of ''GTA: Gotham City''. On the contrary what i found is a super linear beat'em up in which you continuously beat super stupid morons with a combat system so unrealistic that compared to this game even Skyrim could be used as a simulator for the Army. The city is beautiful and intriguing, but absolutely empty: no NPC (only stupid cops kidnapped by stupid bandits) no shops, no environmental interactions, no looting, no exploration, no vehicles, no emergent gameplay, nothing. The scheme is always the same: you receive a mission, you go on the field, you proceed through a mainly linear path beating everything, you reach and defeat a boss. End of the mission, we can return to the base. Sometimes you can find secret passages or areas, but they don't change the main structure, which is linear and old. You can roam through the city if you like, but you'll find nothing interesting, so it doesn't make any sense. The side missions are grindy and boring, more or less similar to the stupidest missions of the Minutemen in Fallout4. I gave two stars only because the graphics are good and the setting is interesting, the rest of the game is garbage, really depressing.
I played this game for the first time on Steam and then here on Gog. The normal game is good, but nothing special: it's an average action with some Rpg elements, a decent gunplay, a mediocre plot and some annoying bugs (among these,the loading times are probably the worst). I can define it as a mixture between Oblivion and Stalker, so nothing more than a ''3 stars'' for me. If you want a real challenge you must play the survival mode, it's really well done and realistic. You need to take care of food, water, sleep, sicknesses ecc. The enemies are much more lethal, you cannot quicksave or manually save and you genuinely feel as a poor piece of thrash who must save himself everyday rather than trying to solve the misteries of the Commonwealth. It means that you don't have the objective to save your son no more: first of all you need to survive, and this isn't easy at all because the map is full of enemies which can oneshot you from distance with nuclear rocket launchers, invisible mines which can tear you apart in a nanosecond and infections which can kill you in a few hours if you don't have the proper medicines. In particular Far Harbor is a nightmare: very engaging with terrible enemies, you often lose yourself in the fog and even finding a place to sleep for the night is challenging. Beside these things, you need to know that there's not the ''TES-style'' autolevel of the enemies: for example, you are a third level boy walking happy in the countryside listening to your favourite radio and suddenly a f***ing deathclaw/giant radscorpion/yao Guai comes out from the terrain and kills you with a single blow. I strongly recommend to try this mode, it's really worth your time, trust me.
In my reviews I always try to be kind and not too harsh, because i am aware that behind every game there are hard work and endeavour...but sadly i must admit that this game is beyond salvation. It's one of the very few games i played in my life (and i play on pc since 1999, i'm not a noob) in which i can't find one single positive aspect, and this is frankly embarrassing. The plot is insignificant and totally linear: 6 different characters, ok, but all of them are the generic guy-who-must-save-the world-but-doesn't know-how, already seen in hundreds of games; the fights are boring, repetitive and with no tactics at all: i didn't expect Dark Souls but a little of strategy at least, and nothing, it's more elementary than Diablo2. The graphics were mediocre even in 2009 and now are unacceptable: i don't speak only about resolution, i mean by a realistic point of view...man, the colours are really awful, the desert is lemon yellow, the trees are almost blue, the grass seems teal etc. The map is huge, true, but absolutely boring, empty and full of invisible walls, totally unrealistic. There's not a real night and day circle, the people are always at the same place at every hour, to gave you an idea it's worst than Morrowind (which was released 8 years before). But the terrible thing is the camera: folks, it's by far the worst camera i've ever seen in more than 100 rpg/arpg i've played in my life. It starts at the feet of the player (and you can't see a f***ing thing) and if you scroll it goes suddenly towards the sky, and you can't see anything at all. No kidding, it gives you headache and seasickness. I heard that some mods can (at least partially) solve those problems: well i hope so, because in this condition it's simply unplayable. My advice? Don't buy it.
First of all, we must admit that this game has many positive aspects: the graphics are very refined, the setting is captivating and the plot is deep and interesting. The main character is probably one of the funniest and most charismatic ever seen in a game. Problem is...all these things are overwhelmed by the insane level of frustration of the gameplay. Until the first boss the situation is difficult, but all considered acceptable: after that, the game quickly turns itself into a nightmare. You must deal with enormous levels which are literally full of enemies, guards, monsters, gigantic trolls, traps and frustrating platforming sections and you are almost unarmed, without a real armor and with a little equipment: so you must constantly proceed with trial and error, and this doesn't make much sense, honestly. Beside those problems many aspects are punitive beyond imagination: for example, you never have a map of the levels (even when you play in the native village of Styx, does it make sense? No, it doesn't); shops don't exist, you must always find the equipment by yourself and in some levels this is impossible; many enemies are totally invulnerable, and the ability system is quite useless. The only useful path is the alchemy, but if you can't buy the necessary ingredients when you need them alchemy is a scam. I arrived at the 8th level, then i gave up, it was too much for me. Spending more time watching at a reloading screen than playing it's not my idea of having fun, sorry. A pity, because this game has charisma, but the devs must consider that this is a game, not a f***ing job.
As many have said before me, this is almost a masterpiece, probably better than Skyrim itself. And this is astonishing if you consider that it's a free game The plot, the characters, the setting, everything is excellent. The world in particular is better than Skyrim because it has many kind of different environments, not only snow and ice. And the dungeons are much more realistic. The graphics are still ok and the soundtrack is really epic. I am not a native english speaker, so it's not simple for me to judge the dialogues, but they seem very good, even if you compare them to many AAA-products But the perfect game doesn't exist, and also Enderal has some problems. The worst are in my opinion the progression system and the final. For the progression system the devs have made a really strange choice: you don't have the traditional ability point system (such as Fallout3, Risen, Kotor etc.) and you dont' have the TES system of learning-by-doing. Instead of those, they gave you a strange system based on specific ability books, and if you want to improve your character you must buy and use them. But they are not always available in the markets (especially the magic ones) and they usually cost an outrageus amount of money. So the progression of the character results slow and unnatural, and this is really annoying, especially at the high levels. I have finished the game with a character who didn't have any ability beyond 75,and this doesn't make much sense,honestly And for the final...sadly, it's a final who doesn't finish anything. I don't want to make spoiler, but both the finals are pretty useless, and this gives you the impression to be a simple witness, not the true leader of the story. Nonetheless, my advice is to play this game without esitation: it's really great if you love RPG. It gave me over 100 hours of fun and i will surely replay it in the future with a different build. And in addition, it's free
I don't want to be rude,only fair in my review.I know this is a free game,but as a token of my respect to the Devs I have to judge it like normal games.Probably many gamers have been misled by nostalgia.And I am a huge fan of the Gothic games. This game has many strong points:the world is really beautiful,the exploration is deep,the town of Archolos is fascinating, and the plot is generally good. Some charactes are really charismatic(Big Ben, Lorenzo, Garos etc).The graphics are old, but it's not a problem,works fine for me.The combat system is the same as the old Gothics and this is positive.On the contrary,the game has many problems,and I am astonished because no one has underlined them. For example: 1)The amount of fetch quests especially in the first 2 chapters is unbearable.''Bring 5 pieces of meat to X''''Kill 6 boars and retrieve the pelts''etc. Literally DOZENS of them.And the amount of gold and XP you gain from them is abysmal.A total waste of time,and yet you MUST go because you desperately need gold and experience. 2)The looting(which was one of the pillars of the first Gothic)is a joke. Almost the 90% of the loot is junk:sell it to the merchants and you gain nothing.1 gold coin for a wolf pelt?It's less than the cost of the arrows you need to take him down, this is ridicolous. To rack up the gold for the abilities you are forced to do EVERY single quest,so we return to the point 1 3)The backtracking is atrocious.Especially in the quests in the town:''Speak with A in the old town then with B in the prison,come back to the centre to update the quest giver,then go to the harbour to find C who knows something but he doesn't,so you come back to the center blah blah''.I was exhausted, in many moments it's more a job than a game. These are the worst aspects,but i could enumerate other problems,including some freezing bugs.I respect this game,but don't consider it as a masterpiece because it's only a good game.I had some fun in playing it,but that's all.
