Gothic 2 Gold Edition

...and more I got! With a bigger world that's even more fleshed out than the previous game. There were one or two points that made me roll my eyes, including some horribly scripted bosses (which even the developers regretted in hindsight), but those aside, this one was just as worth experiencing as the first.

Best RPG ever created

Gothic 2 could be a great game. It also needs a metric f-ton of patches to propery run and that's a goose chase around some shady internet sites. It's basically more Gothic, both in good and bad. The good is that it still has incredible world building, atmosphere and overall good quest design, as well as a world to explore IF you bother looking beyond the horrible combat system and grind associated with it. Stuff is hidden, unmarked, so good luck remembering where the trainer for your sneak skill was located. Better look still to grind out the necessary levels to level the skills. Combat is jank and unfun. Combat against a single enemy is doable. Against two? Better save before because they'll swarm you and crit you to death before you can say cheese. It's also harder to single out enemies to fight them one on one because alarming one will usually aggro the whole group. Takes forever to get out of the early levels because the game is designed in a way to make your chosen one be a wimp. It's a harsh trial and error game, which is where safe scumming was invented. Keep that in mind if you get the game running at all.

10/10 quest design and level design

And rightfully so! 1. Gameplay 9/10: Movement: Freedom of vertical traversal was quite amazing even in Gothic 1. It's simply more refined here. This coupled with excellent world and level design forms highly satisfying exploration. Combat: Bit faster, still awkward at start but quite fun when you loose your diapers. Ranged combat is ass though xD Progression: Is in it's own class. I would say only magic is handled worse than in Gothic 1. UI: Huge improvement thanks to grid based equipment window. I would love for more games to use it as an example of functional ui which doesn't take the player "out of the experience". 2. Visual 8/10 Fidelity: It's getting a bit old and hard to run on modern systems. Look for GD3D11 to make both of those points better while still keeping the feel. Location Design: It might not look amazing, but the fact you can climb almost anything helps a lot. Character Design: As "normal" as it seems it's weirdly memorable for some reason. Animation: Characters daily schedule, different activities, regular work are all brought to life with decent animation. At release it was great and still holds up just enough to sell this fantasy. 3. Sound 10/10 Music: Grounded, fitting, always keeping you in the zone. Speech: Depends on language version. Polish one is absolutely iconic. Effects: It's not exactly high quality, but distinctiveness of certain effects coupled with serviceable sound processing will save your neck few times. Environment: Great variability fitting the zone really helps form believable atmosphere. 4. Story 7/10 Plot: Serviceable, nothing deep. Writing: Polish translation is a hallmark of fun writing with authentic feel. It always keeps you in the world. It has plenty of humor which never veers into parody and keeps it serious when necessary. 5. Other 10/10 Performance: Potato will do. Fun: Might be rough at start, but distinct atmosphere, unique writing, and incredibly immersive design leaves you wondering why modern games struggle with what this game did 20 years ago. Modding: Plenty of visual updates out there of various quality. As for QoL look for Resource Manager/Union and have fun finding whatever is useful. SUMMARY: No matter how many games I try none do for me what Gothic 2 did. Some are good enough to sell their own fantasy but they never create this complete package with living, breathing world, fun characters, distinct writing, freedom of traversal and fantastic level design. I'm still waiting for someone to take a good swing at this game and oddly enough only "Risen" got close.