Gothic 2 can be a very frustrating game, both in terms of difficulty and controlling your character. I rarely found a middle ground where the fight could have gone either way; I either won easily or was defeated easily. There's no shortage of monsters either, just head off the path a few feet and you'll find more than you can handle. Heck, even staying on the path will tell you when you've gone too far for your level. Unfortunately, that distance isn't too far at the start of the game since just getting from Xardas' tower down the path to Khorinis can prove challenging. While gaining levels seemed to help a little, given the low frequency of level-ups they don't make the huge difference they should. You'll want to avoid drawing the attention of groups of monsters as well, as any time I encountered 3 or more opponents I was quickly back at the loading screen. While I'm all for games being challenging and don't want the thing to be too easy, I felt that I was loading saved games with a greater frequency in this game than I should have.​