Gothic Playable Teaser
TL;DR
! Gothic is a timeless classic that managed to be serious competition for Morrowind, the Elder Scrolls game of its time. Offering a compelling and vastly branching storyline that encourages multiple replays, interesting characters, intricate crafting systems, multiple specialized classes and a semi-open world, it captivated millions for many years. Sadly the graphics and the controls didn’t age all that well, so THQ Nordic, who now own the rights and apparently dearly love the franchise, are trying to revive the game.
– Real player with 11.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Gothic Atmospheric Games.
This isn’t the Gothic you remember, and it’s not the Gothic you deserve.
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This is a tech demo asking for player feedback so they can decide whether to bother making a full game. Neat idea? Somewhat, but it feels half hearted.
Rather than trying to be like the original Gothic, instead it’s a blend of Witcher with Skyrim and fails at being any of the three. You’ll find poorly implemented ideas from all of them borrowed openly and then draped over with janky combat and long drawn out unskippable cutscenes.
– Real player with 7.9 hrs in game
Risen 3 - Titan Lords
Risen 3 is a third person open world action roleplaying game made by Piranha Bytes, the team that gave us the Gothic games and of course the first two Risen games. It’s hard to talk about Risen 3 without referring to the previous games, which I’ll call ‘PB games’ for short.
To summarize: Risen 3 is definitely a step up from Risen 2 but all in all, it is probably still a game that only fans of PB games will love and a game that only fans of the genre may learn to like.
To talk about this game more in-depth, I’ll take the list I used for my reviews of ‘Risen’ and ‘Risen 2’.
– Real player with 94.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Gothic Open World Games.
This is a long review, so just read the bottom paragraph for a simple summary of my thoughts.
It surprises me that the general consensus for this game is worse than Risen 2: Dark Waters. To be fair, if you hated Risen 2, there likely are not enough redeeming factors about the end of the trilogy to be worth your while. But nevertheless, some substantial improvements to the overall experience have made this a promising step in the right direction for Piranha Bytes as a developer.
Risen 2: Dark Waters was ultimately a failure as an open world, engrossing RPG. It was extremely shallow, overall having one of their smallest and most lackluster world designs to date, with most of the islands consisting of winding pathways with few interesting landmarks leading between major locations. These locations were greatly devoid of life, as the characters were as dull and two-dimensional as wooden boards. The combat wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen in a game, but it took forever to get the necessary skills to stay on top of combat, and by then you just got used to button mashing between prayers. Beyond combat, half the skills in the game were worthless or used in only scripted situations that were easy enough to do without.
– Real player with 84.7 hrs in game
Risen
Annoying, old-fashioned and inconvenient
Graphics
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Detailed landscapes, always something new to notice
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Nice lighting that adds atmosphere
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Characters barely move their body and are very stiff
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Faces are barely animated
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Low resolution textures
Sound
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Brilliant background sound
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German voice acting very good but only average English voice acting
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Sound makes game come alive whether it is animal growling from meters away before you see them, nearby waterfalls or the chitchat of NPCs
– Real player with 93.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Gothic Open World Games.
There seem to be a lot of people reviewing Risen who are somewhere around 10-15 years old, because despite the game being only 9 years old, many have this weird impression that the game is old, dated, the graphics are ugly, and these players keep imposing retroactive standards on the game that have only really popped up in RPG gaming over the last few years. This suggests the reviewers are new to RPGs, new to gaming, and that their concepts of what an RPG should entail is informed more by the AAA games of the last 5 years than the bulk of RPG gaming history. Don’t let bad reviews deter you; Risen is a fantastic game.
– Real player with 62.5 hrs in game
ArcaniA: Fall of Setarrif
Fall of Setarrif is probably the most sorry excuse of an addon I personally have laid eyes upon. No wait, the sorriest is actually Forsaken Gods for Gothic 3, but this comes in very close.
The “addon” basically is nothing more than a 2-3hour premium priced actual ending to the absolute letdown of Arcania. While finishing the story for good, there is little to no content in this self proclaimed addon which has probably even less content than many DLC which are priced a third of the asking price. While I advise against getting Arcania in the first place, this addon should be avoided like the plague, not because it’s so terrible, it’s actually a bit better than most of Arcania, but the asking price and lack of content are outrageous. Being forced to buy this addon to be able to actually conclude the Arcania storyline is also a d*ck move from the old publisher Jowood. I don’t believe that THQ Nordic should be allowed making any profit off this either though, so do yourself a favour and steer around this.
– Real player with 31.4 hrs in game
In spite of my negative review for Arcania, my review for Arcania Fall of Setariff is positive (or at least positive enough).
My judgement probably depends on the fact that Arcania was such a huge disappointment that the small improvements that I was able to experience made this chapter partially enjoyable. Anyway…
PROs:
• At the beginning you can choose to export your old character from Arcania to this new chapter. Most of the items previously owned are available.
• The map was improved : you are still forced to follow the path without any chance of freedom during the gameplay, but, in a certain way, now this is less obvious. Furthermore, I like the fact that you need to challenge yourself with trapped/dangerous paths.
– Real player with 7.2 hrs in game
Dracula: A Gothic RPG
Dracula is back in this dark but cute RPG.
Collect souls for more powers, learn alchemy, and cast your dark magic in battle.
Black cats, werewolves, zombies; he’s buddies with all types of Halloween friendlies – and he’s going to go questing with them!
Story:
After thousands of years, Dracula has been summoned for a grand purpose by ghosts and dark magicians. They require his resurrection to fulfill the prophecy.
After he has awakened, he meets a quirky cast of characters that will get him in a lot of trouble and comical shenanigans.
Features:
👻 Party members include ghosts, zombies, and many types of Halloween friendlies.
🦠 Collect Souls to increase your power, or talk to the dead to learn their skills.
🎁 Collect items to decorate Dracula’s Mansion.
⚔️ Explore and adventure the world with some … rather unusual quests… as a dark hero.
📺 Classic role-playing style
Explore areas in classic JRPG style
~Victorian Forest~
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Future Updates:
⚗️ Craft items in the Underground Alchemy Lab.
📜 Randomized side-quests
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🍪 Come to the dark side. We have cookies.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1563670
Elderand
The game has a heavy focus on skill-based combat, which means reckless explorers will be punished time after time. Do not fear, as your timing and positioning will improve once you find your battle style.
Choose a look that suits you best with character customization options that allow for varying skin tones, hairstyles and colors.
Become the most powerful warrior by leveling up your character’s attack, magic, and other stats to take on the unforgiving beasts of the land.
Discover, buy, and collect a myriad of items, including unique relics, potions, weapons and shields. Bargain with shopkeepers to gather even more loot and upgrade your character.
Journey to distinct lands filled with ancient mysteries to unravel. Slay lethal creatures, find hidden passages, and befriend strangers from the Errant Breach to Omulore. While forging your path through the world, remember one thing, curiosity is your greatest ally.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1413660/Elderand/
Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods Enhanced Edition
Buy this only if you have a strong mind and a lot of willpower. The game itself still has a lot of bugs even on CRUCIAL QUESTS that the community Patch barely fix. I still had to use the console to do some stuff to end quests.
The lines and voice acting, while they put in a lot of time and work into them, some lines are much more complex than in the original game, most of them have no logic and the voice of the actors is sometimes muted (not to mention your voice isn’t the same as in the previous games, you’re more like an angry version of that guy).
– Real player with 34.9 hrs in game
Gothic 3 Forsaken Gods is the first and only expansion we got for original Gothic 3 and… and it feels like the exact opposite of everything we wanted from Gothic expansion. Do you remember the Night of the Raven expansion for Gothic 2 and how amazing it was? Well this one is absolutely NOTHING like that. First off I would love to say - there are good parts in the expansion, problem is, everything that is good on this expansion was ported over from original Gothic 3 - the soundtrack, the open world ( well, one third of it that is since you play only in Myrtana), the skill system etc, while all that was added/changed/modified has only been significantly donwgraded. Trine studios managed to prove that they are nothing like Piranha Bytes even though they have been given 2 YEARS to make ONE expansion and took basically all of the assets from G3 so only thing they could do is make at least decent storyline, add couple of new and interesting mechanics that would revitalized the combat system and maybe add a location or two and it could have at least been half decent - but no they just decided to spit in every fans face and present us with completely stupid storyline that doesn´t make any sense just so they could follow up with their second disappointment - Arcania. I cant recommend buying this even if you are super hardcore Gothic fan - go and play Gothic 3 - its bigger, packed with more content (and a better one at that) and in general much more enjoyable. This is a nasty portrayal of what sheer concentrated treason and disappointment look like.
– Real player with 21.4 hrs in game
Gothic II: Gold Edition
The Gothic series and Gothic 2 (w/ addon) has a cult following in both Germany as well as Eastern Europe. Developed by a tiny indie studio it featured absolutely fantastic storytelling in a fantasy world without any of the usual high fantasy bullcrap. The entire Gothic series is low Fantasy, similar to the Witcher series, but not as grim. What makes Gothic 2 really shine, isn’t grittyness, but roughness. It is an unique RPG in the way that there is a difference between knocking someone out and actually killing them, meaning that bashing in a few heads is a viable strategy for many quests, without actually having to become a mass murderer. This allows for very intricate quest design and many memorable moments. It also spoils the inner child in me when I once again have the ability to verbally announce that the player character is going to plant his fist into the face of someone and most of the time, for good reason.
– Real player with 342.1 hrs in game
With most of the games what you see is what you get. But this isn’t the case. Gothic is a great game but Gothic 2 takes it on a whole new level. The amount of content, creativity and how much work the devs put into it is amazing. Another reminder that quality world building is important in games. Majority of devs don’t realize that having shit world design is a gamebreaker, so they just copy and paste same locations in a huge but empy world, make quests with obvious outcomes and no variety and dumb everything down. With this game though the bar was set so high that the devs from PB never managed to get close again. And likely they never will after Risen\Elex.
– Real player with 196.4 hrs in game
Rogue Lords
I really enjoyed Rogue Lords, and I decided to write this review as I have a slightly different take from the others I read.
It took me ~40 hours to finish all chapters, and I always played with the same team (the starters: Dracula “the Support”, the Headless Horseman “the Tank”, Bloody Mary “the DPS”). I think I had a total of two game overs, one at the second or third chapter, and one at the second-to-last (but see below).
I read several reviews mentioning that the game is hard and RNG can hit hard. I think they are not wrong, but I did not find it THAT hard: I think it’s more a matter of COMPLEXITY. Damage already starts in the double digits, and it is not unusual towards the end of the game to hit for 30-50 (multiple times). With 3 characters on your side and 1-3 characters on the other side, you can also have several status effects in play at the same time (probably the maximum I’ve seen is ~20). You accumulate this with relic effects and maybe even battle effects, and suddenly it becomes really easy to make a fatal mistake. I remember in one boss battle I accidentally made the Headless Horseman use an attack that steals HP and SP, while he was under the effect of a Zombie debuff (healing received becomes damage), so instead of healing him I made him Vulnerable with 0 HP and 0 SP. Fun times.
– Real player with 132.9 hrs in game
Note that while I am giving this a thumbs up, there are definite issues that sour the experience (that I will go into more detail over below). Honestly, this rating should be 3/5, 6/10, or a neutral but we don’t have those options.
Long story short:
Rogue Lords is a fun roguelike very much like Slay the Spire, but not being a rip off in the slightest. It has a unique cheating mechanic and is pretty difficult while also having balance issues and run destroying bug. The concept is unique, fresh, and fun, but the gameplay could use some retuning and class balancing.
– Real player with 116.7 hrs in game
Chaincards
Chaincards is a JRPG where you play as Chain, a young wizard whose goal is to find out his master’s magic notes to reveal the secrets behind his mysterious death. Search powerful spells exploring dungeons. Learn how to control them and unleash the power of magic cards to fight demons and evil magicians. Unveil the truth.