I leave this as a warning to players who might think that the first 2 games are good and thus the 3rd is also good.
Unfortunately it is not, the game development was rushed and the game was shipped in an unfinished state.
Even the community patches can't save the broken state this game is in at.
The only thing this game is good at is giving a good scenery and an amazing sound track.
If you are looking for a spiritual Gothic 3, try Risen instead.
This really should be one of the greatest RPGs ever made. The world is absolutely beautiful (better than anything in the Elder Scrolls series), the plot line is very immersive, and the faction idea brilliantly set up. It's a game you really want to finish and keep exploring,
But,
Believe what everybody says.
It is horrendously (for me personally, unacceptably) buggy.
It has THE worst map in any RPG game in history. Seriously, the map is useless. Which can make finding things you've already been to a dozen times still very difficult, even in the late game. The frustration caused by this is immense, and it's a baffling oversight by the game developers.
The combat mechanics are AWFUL. You'll still be swinging merrily at a creature nowhere near you while a creature quickly pegging down your life is ignored (despite best attempts to change the view to it).
This should be such an amazing game, but it's faults end up outweighing it's positives, especially as the game wears on and you just become exhausted on searching on forums for bug issues and how to find locations (seriously, nobody in this kingdom has come across the concept of marking something on your map?! Go and kill the monster outside the town? Fine. WHERE THE #$#* IS IT!).
Seriously, despite 3 stars, I would probably say don't bother, especially if like me you don't have a great deal of patience for blindingly obvious flaws in game design.
I never played this before the Community Patch, so it must have been a mess when it came out.
The graphics are nice, the world is big, there is freedom to roam and lots to explore...
The biggest flaw of the game is the story. It is not particularily bad, just...meh. There is far too little going on for a world this big.
The fantastic characters of the past two games are also not present here. Even known characters from the last two games are lifeless and generic here. Also, inconsistent and illogical. Whoever thought up the idea that the Water Mages should be nomadic Desert People should have their head examined.
The modern mouse control is maybe more modern, but the combat system is far more simplistic now. In Gothic one and two, your combat control skills actually mattered. Here, its just your characters attributes, and a clickfest.
Quests are also very generic. I spent hours ridding the Northern lands of Orc armies. Litereally hundreds of orcs in several camps. When talking to the questgiving barbarian chieftain afterwards, he said something like: "Hey, thanks mate" and gave me an armor and some gold. Epic!
It hurts me to say it, especially as a fan of the first two games, but Gothic 3 has little substance underneath its rather tempting exterior. The world PB crafted here is undeniably beautiful and epic in scope, featuring three distinct environmental regions, and with secrets seemingly around every corner, but all that promise withers very quickly.
The story starts off promisingly enough, picking up where the second game ended, but things take a sour turn almost immediately by introducing players to one of the worst combat systems ever featured in an action RPG. Gothic 1 and 2 were notorious for their clunky controls, but they were designed in such a way to make players feel like nobodies in a dangerous, foreign world, and ultimately it was a brilliant system that rewarded skill and patience. Gothic 3's combat is simply a stun-lock race, with weapons having little weight behind them when used.
Unlike previous games, the overworld of Gothic 3 is filled with tedious and unimaginative quests (many of which are basic fetch quests). The more interesting quests involve town liberation, but they too suffer from repetition and a feeling of grind as opposed to meaningful progression. This would have been more tolerable if PB delivered on the story and atmosphere... however, the simple truth is that Gothic 3 stumbles here too.
The music is beautiful, but it lacks the air of mystique and dread from the first two titles, and the voice acting, while competent enough, lacks... character? The Nameless Hero especially sounds like a completely different character here, and many of the familiar faces also sound off. The storyline, meanwhile, is absent for much of the game.
I wanted to love Gothic 3. Unfortunately, after many frustrating hours I had come to the realization that this wasn't a true Gothic game, and even as its own game it falls flat much of the time. Even the Community Patch-which is an amazing effort- can't undo the bad writing, and poor game engine.
This game could have been a great game but as other reviews have said , game is buggy even when
patched lost count the number of times when the game froze and as for the story how many orcs
do i have to kill, lost count must have been 300 hundred plus and the ending is a let down, so only 3 stars the best gothic game is gothic 2 by far.
