Naudrion: Fall of The Empire
Very fun game. Exploration galore. Big world. Needs better quest notes. Needs more detail in buildings. (reminds me of Gorgon decor). Leveling is nice, but didn’t notice much progression with power on spells. Ice magic was okay, but a sword seemed more efficient. Need to have increased damage as you level or as you add mana…or just some progression spells. Love the skill books that can be bought since I like to craft too. Crafting seems not in. Couldn’t make an ingot, or make leather. Didn’t seen any Alchemy recipes or cooking etc. Runes sometimes didn’t work, found that dropping them and picking up helped.
– Real player with 25.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Gothic Open World Games.
Naudrion: Fall of The Empire is an excellent dark fantasy with an open, seamless world, with multiple crafting and interesting tasks.
I like this game that it was created by one person and is constantly updated, it is very cool on the part of the developer that he did not just put the game out and forget but continues to develop it!
– Real player with 8.4 hrs in game
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 RPG 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 RPG 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
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
Vamp Night
It’s an interesting idea. Sort of a stripped down Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. There aren’t many quests and little interaction/dialogue with the NPCs. The developer is adding new content and improving the game, so it’s a work in progress. You basically wander the city sandbox and try to balance feeding and avoiding sunrise as well as hunters while picking up money. You can also acquire a haven and decorate it.
The game is a little dark and it can be a little difficult to see in some areas (even with the games brightness turned all the way up). The hunters literally come out of nowhere, but it keeps you on your toes. You can’t fight them melee, but you can shoot them (and anyone else who attacks you) using a gun you pick up.
– Real player with 26.4 hrs in game
The best Steam vampire simulator!
– Real player with 8.3 hrs in game
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
Oh Rats! No I’m serious actually…and bats as well. Just like a bat out of hell Dracula has furry friends in both low and high places. Awaken from an extremely long eternal night and find some nice necks to chomp on. Whip your blood back and forth (Whip it real good). Explore Dracula’s back to the future adventure. Talk about a miserable pile of secrets. You are the prince of darkness! The dragon Dracul! What a terrible night to have a curse.
This is the direct sequel to Lords of Shadow 1, which was one of my favorite Castlevania games. It feels like you are playing a medieval version of God of War. If you liked the GBA/DS SoTN style Metroidvania ones you might not enjoy this one.
– Real player with 62.1 hrs in game
I think I need to add this to the “games that most people hated which I actually enjoyed” list. Admittedly, I’m biased because I really dig Castlevania, enjoyed the first Lords of Shadow and Mirror of Fate, and am a sucker for the idea of playing as Dracula himself. But even at its most frustrating moments, Lords of Shadow 2 isn’t nearly as bad as Edge Magazine (which gave it a 4/10) or any of the other mainstream reviews would have you believe.
Bloodsucking awesome stuff:
- I feel like combat’s speedier and more responsive than it was in the first Lords of Shadow, and there’s less reliance on quicktime events. This might have to do with the fact that I’m just more experienced with the combat system after playing through the first game and Mirror of Fate, but I had a lot of fun beating up some of the bosses, which leads me to the next point…
– Real player with 42.0 hrs in game
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
ArcaniA
I have a mixed feelings about this game. Certainly its Gothic game only by its name (sure there are monsters which look like exactly from Gothic series and they are named the same like the infamous meatbug for an example).
There is not skill system like they have in example Gothic 1 and 2. When you advance level you get 3 points where you can put into your so called skills such as Mettle, Discipline or Vigour skill lines. Each of these raise your stats in a different ways. Example if you put skill points into Precision skill line you raise your ranged power and mana by 1% every point you add (and when you put enough points into the skill lines you receive abilities such as steady hand which smoothers your aiming so it does not shake so much).
– Real player with 64.7 hrs in game
I waited I do not know how many years before playing Arcania. I remember I bought Arcania in the collector’s edition box, but I have never had a powerful enough PC to play it.
Finally, I was able to play it and finish it and I can say that Arcania is one of the worst sequels for a game ever. It is not just a saying, I really mean that. The whole story about the old hero, now possessed by a demon, and the new hero is just the transposition of the “bad” PiranhaBytes that did not join project Arcania and the new developers’ team. New hero, I have bad news for you: you suck.
– Real player with 54.3 hrs in game
Gothic® 3
Gothic 3, in its current form, is the definition of a mixed bag. While the release version was pushed out long before it was ready, the community managed to finish the job, in what I would call an unprecendented effort. The end result is great in some aspects and painfully lacking in others. Overall a decent package, but not for everyone.
First off: any of the following statements are based on the community-patched build, which is not included in Steam by default. In order to enjoy this game, I strongly recommend downloading the Community Patch 1.75 and the Humanforce Quest Pack 4. Without these, you will have a significantly worse time.
– Real player with 332.8 hrs in game
“Gothic 3 scored only 8/10 because producer JoWood ‘rushed out’ production…” that’s a funny complaint because an 8/10 from any major critic is a heavenly blessing upon a game like Gothic 3. Nobody who plays any of the Gothic or Risen games is ever on the fence about them; you either love them or wish that you could set the developer on fire.
Allow me to explain:
I love Gothic 3. I come back to it over and over even though by now the graphics are seriously dated (I had originally reviewed the game many years ago and called it beautiful) and I have discovered pretty much everything in the world that there is to discover. There are hours upon hours of quests and content in the game to keep you busy and most of them are pretty easy to figure out. Rarely do you have to trek across an entire continent (like in some other open world RPG’s out there) in order to pick up item x and then walk all the way back to drop it off. It happens… but it’s rare.
– Real player with 167.9 hrs in game
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2
Its Soul Reaver lite
While not a bad game, its definitely not as good as it’s predecessor in a lot of respects.
The Good:
Superb voice acting, nice story, the puzzles are more complex and involved yet overall pretty good and offer a bit more clues to solve them, which is a marked improvement to the previous game.
The Not-so-good:
-The combat - In comparison to SR1 it feels distant, with little weight or consequence behind your punches, making it rather unsatisfying.
Furthermore, by the endgame, when fighting 4+ opponents, they will ALL attack at the same time, and while realistic and “challenging” it really comes out as cheap, specially when
! some of those enemies would naturally attack each other, but as soon as they detect you, ALL of them go for your ass instead. . Your Soul Reaver blade can be used from the start of the game and is a bit OP, that however is countered by a bar which fills the more you use the blade and kill with it, and once filled takes away some of your health, thus forcing you to mix its use with regular weapons, which at least brings some depth to an otherwise humdrum combat system. Speaking of the blade, it can be infused throughout the story with different elements (light, dark, wind & fire) but disappointingly only come into play in puzzles; yet another sign that the combat is undercooked at best.
– Real player with 20.1 hrs in game
I was finally able to get the game working courtesy of this excellent patch right here .
“But suppose your throw a coin enough times – suppose one day it lands on its edge.”
The opening to Soul Reaver is seared into my memory.
No matter how many times I watch the introductory cutscene, the booming synth pulls me right back into the Gothic tableau of the Legacy of Kain universe, as if I were discovering it anew. With slick narrative efficiency, it sets in motion a tale of vengeance that spills out across time, daring its protagonists to challenge the apparent indomitability of fate.
– Real player with 17.4 hrs in game