Janky, unfinished, unresponsive and annoying - what comes to mind when I think of Gothic 3. I love G1 and 2, but part 3 is like this weird mix of awful (and I mean really, REALLY awful) combat and meaningless neverending fetch quests. I guess it's playable now with the community patches, but how people can enjoy this - now that's a mystery to me. On the plus side - the world is nice to look at, especially for 2006. Also the soundtrack is great (but it's Kai Rosenkranz so it's a given). Play Gothic 1 or 2 instead.
First off the disclaimer: I'm giving this 5 stars based on the game with the community patch installed. YOU ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY SHOULD DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE COMMUNITY PATCH TO PLAY THIS GAME!
With that out of the way let's get down to business. Gothic 3 was a really, really ambitious game that was completely flayed by the media, and rightfully so, when it was first released. The game was practically unplayable upon its initial release. The game was in a state nowhere near anything resembling a game worthy of release. I couldn't even call it BETA, it was barely in an ALPHA state at that point. After well over a year's worth of official patches the game became more or less playable and complete, but many smaller bugs remained and the game still had serious balancing issues. This is where the community stepped in and saved the day. The community patches up to and including 1.73 addressed most of the remaining bugs as well as balancing issues finally making this into the game it should have been in the first place. The community then took it one step further with the 1.74 patch which upgraded the graphics. making the game more on par with Risen as far as looks go (Risen uses the same engine).
While the game was initially an unmitigated disaster, the fully patched game is actually really great. This is by far the biggest game Piranha Bytes had ever developed or have since. The open world for you to roam is MASSIVE and includes 3 distinct countries, each with it's own distinct climate and architecture. Like previous Gothic games there are plenty of choices to make that affect the outcome of the game, leading to one of several different endings. The biggest choice you face is whether to side with the rebels or the Orc supporters, but there are also other faction choices to make too. I won't get into it any deeper because I don't want to spoil anything.
Bottom line is that this is a game that is mostly remembered as garbage because of how broken it was at launch and that's unfortunate because in the end it turned out to be maybe the best game in the Gothic series, certainly the most ambitious.
First off, Gothic 3 is buggy as hell. The developers knew the game was not ready to be released but they were forced to release it by the publisher and after that they lost rights to the Gothic franchise too and Arcania: Gothic 4 (the piece of shit) was thrown to another development team. So there was little to no official support to deal with the numerous technical problems of the game. There was never anything wrong with the content of the game, only the technical side.
Fortunately, the community exists, and such a loved franchise with lots of passionate fans like myself, fixed a massive amount of technical problems over the years. Now the game is in the shape it deserved to be in in the first place.
This game needs to be played. Buy it, download the community patch (I believe it's in version 1.72 now) and enjoy it. Hardcore action RPG at its finest. It's a true Gothic game, despite many differences, but the soul of Gothic 1 and 2 is more than enough present here.
Final note: Don't play Gothic 3 Forsaken Gods. It is NOT by the original developers, and it sucks balls. Same with Arcania: Gothic 4.
If you want more Gothic after this, get Risen and join me in patiently waiting for Risen 2, the savior of RPGs.
