Gothic 3: Is it any good?

[Murk]

given how easy it is to die in it, I think the resulting trial and error would have created insanely more butthurt than the current method has

 

[Felix]

They shoud've used some subtle hints instead of those in your face texts, like a line from npc or from books.

 

[Murk]

Similar to how Sarah explained how to cook meat and shit?

I donno, I have no expectations of anything interesting from end-games tbh. Even with The Witcher or Arcanum it was more of a "i guess i'll finish it" type of deal. The real enjoyment is from the middle of the game where you get freedom and power but not enough to bore yourself.

 

[Twinkle]

I guess I'm one of very few people who didn't mind Risen's final boss fight.

Hell of a lot better than G2's final boss fight.

I dislike Risen's bossfight for a simple reason - it ignores all the prior character development, forces you to use specific armor/weapon set and only a single winning tactic. It felt like a minigame.

A lack of stupid, boring final boss monster was one of the few things that G3 did right.

 

[Murk]

Spoiler

You're right, but what did you want? to be able to lob fireballs or arrows at an entity that has enough power even in its weakened state to literally stave off a world-shattering force from an entire island?

the most depressing thing in G2 was when I came across teh chosen of beliar and killed him by shooting arrows at him with less difficulty than I had the first time I fought an adult wolf.

I realize it nullifies your past decisions but the boss fight was of such cataclysmic proportions that it required the use of a single tool forged specifically to put titans in their place and not the cumulative efforts of a "really strong guy".

And the puzzle-fight was at least something different than "dodge, block hit hit hit, block dodge hit hit hit". As much as I loved Risen's melee combat it would be pretty fuggin' stupid if you used the same tactics on a basic human that you did on a fire titan. Though it did kind of break down into a "hit with hammer" moment at the end. whackatitan in a sense, heh.

edited for ADD 'tards who can't avoid reading info

 

[Jaesun]

there IS the spoiler and /spoiler tags Mikayel.

Makes it a bit easier for people that don't want to accidentally read an outright spoiler.

 

[Murk]

Yeah but it is annoying to highlight and read the entire part in the spoiler tag. BUT FINE WHATEVER YOU NEWAGE FAGS WHO CANT EVEN CONSCIOUSLY AVOID STUFF YOU DONT WANT TO READ

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

The end fight only took 5 minutes whereas the shitty 3rd and 4th chapters took up nearly half the game, that's what really brought it down.

Endings seem to be rushed afterthoughts in these games but they seem to be forgetting that it's the ending that will set the tone for a player's lasting impression of a game.

 

[Murk]

Hardly, the meat of the game (chapters 1 and 2) are what create a lasting impression. The ending is seriously the last 10 minutes of the game.

There was a decline in quality in the last two chapters due to a lack of non-dungeon quests but eh, such is life and all games. When given the chance people get and finish all the quests they can. PB should have made some new ones come up, and they did, but not enough.

I think they should have introduced some new NPCs and some minor faction-rivalry again, perhaps even some smaller groups that aren't in the order/bandit dichotomy.

The dungeons were fun if you ask me, good combo of combat, puzzle, and exploration.

 

[Kraszu]

Hardly, the meat of the game (chapters 1 and 2) are what create a lasting impression. The ending is seriously the last 10 minutes of the game.

There was a decline in quality in the last two chapters due to a lack of non-dungeon quests but eh, such is life and all games. When given the chance people get and finish all the quests they can. PB should have made some new ones come up, and they did, but not enough.

I think they should have introduced some new NPCs and some minor faction-rivalry again, perhaps even some smaller groups that aren't in the order/bandit dichotomy.

They should also reduce the dungeon crawling lenght, damn 5 temples, that felt repetitive, and to get to one you had to go through packs of lizards.

I disagree that the final fight nullify your progress, you still need to get there. People make too much fuss about it. Boss fights always suck anyway.

 

[Murk]

Yeah, pretty much. Nullifies is the wrong word but its the sentiment people have shared in the past when complaining.

I didn't mind the temples. I could see room for improvement but a dungeon's a dungeon and they kept throwing interesting stuff at you throughout it so it never got tedious for me.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

After sinking 24 hours into Risen I'm almost at Level 17, still in Chapter 1 and have just got out of Harbour Town, and all signs pointing to me siding with the Don. I've spent a godawful lot of time just cruising the countryside killing everything in sight. So far only Ashbeasts and Ogres are beyond my capabilities, and for some reason my chances of killing a Ghoul are only 50/50. More than one Ghoul is suicide.

My biggest gripe with the game is how I've broken the order of quests several times now. For example there's a quest where I'm to smite 6 Undead Lords and get their rings, which I guess is supposing to lead me to a ÜberUndead Lord, except I've already killed him and nicked his shield, even though I still haven't found the last Undead Lord. Harbour Town was also full of similar cases.

 

[ortucis]

Gothic 3 was my first Gothic game. I kept ignoring it for Oblivion up until I couldn't sit through another re-install and replay of Oblivion (I finished it once, replayed like 40 times, got bored, uninstalled half-way through always).

Anyways, Gothic 3 was awesome, loved it. Made me hate Oblivion and Bethesda even more for what they have put me through.

Also, I played G3 with official patches only, occasionally crashed but I never experienced most of the issues people bitched about (and most of what is fixed in unofficial patch, never bothered me). I am going to replay it someday with the community patch though.


PS: Risen, I enjoyed it but was dissapointing compred to G3. Not much exploration, lame-ass factions, giant fucking moths for enemies (oooo scaaary) and lizards.. fucking lizards who were going to take over teh world. Still, first chapter is still my favorite in it and the game is incredible stable even when maxed out, which proves without doubt that it was Jowood fucking up Gothic series (that and ArcAniAss).

Tried playing Gothic 2, but keeps giving me BSOD.

 

[dr. one]

I didn't mind the temples. I could see room for improvement but a dungeon's a dungeon and they kept throwing interesting stuff at you throughout it so it never got tedious for me.

problem of Risen´s dungeons is twofold:
a) lack of variety
mostly same environment, recycled puzzles, low enemy variety, no backstory, no multiple paths. their number just wasn´t justified imo, fewer, but more distinct/elaborated would work better.
b) pacing
most of them were cramped one after another, they should´ve been more spread out throughout the game.
this could be largely redeemed if the last two chapters were filled with new story/quest material (both optional and mandatory) instead of just filler combat.

i really hope PB will proportionate various game elements more evenly for Risen 2.

also, the platform- y final battle is only half of game´s ending problem, the other being it´s simply anticlimatic story-wise.

 

[Twinkle]

i really hope PB will proportionate various game elements more evenly for Risen 2.

Yeah. Chapters 1 and 2 are all about free-roaming/questing, Chapters 3 and 4 are pure dungeon crawls. While Risen's temples are easily among the best dungeons I've seen in 3D aRPG too much is just too much.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

After sinking 24 hours into Risen I'm almost at Level 17, still in Chapter 1 and have just got out of Harbour Town, and all signs pointing to me siding with the Don. I've spent a godawful lot of time just cruising the countryside killing everything in sight. So far only Ashbeasts and Ogres are beyond my capabilities, and for some reason my chances of killing a Ghoul are only 50/50. More than one Ghoul is suicide.

My biggest gripe with the game is how I've broken the order of quests several times now. For example there's a quest where I'm to smite 6 Undead Lords and get their rings, which I guess is supposing to lead me to a ÜberUndead Lord, except I've already killed him and nicked his shield, even though I still haven't found the last Undead Lord. Harbour Town was also full of similar cases.

The game usually takes this into account. The few times I did quests 'out of sync' and talked to people about it, there were options to tell them, with natural responses. Go talk to the guy in the forest who gave you the undead lord quest. It isn't ground breaking, but it tends to let you know that there isn't really a hard linear line to follow.

 

[Murk]

My biggest gripe with the game is how I've broken the order of quests several times now. For example there's a quest where I'm to smite 6 Undead Lords and get their rings, which I guess is supposing to lead me to a ÜberUndead Lord, except I've already killed him and nicked his shield, even though I still haven't found the last Undead Lord. Harbour Town was also full of similar cases.

Actually there's no order for the Undead Lords. I usually kill Patroscon first and you can report it to the guy (I forget his name, one of Tilda's sons) and he goes on about how the voices still haven't stopped and you have to help him by killing the others. Or you can do it the other way around. There's no actual order to it.

I have found some cases though where I did accidentally ruin a quest by getting ahead of myself, though I think it just resulted in me losing 50xp or 100xp for not doing it step-by-step at worst.

 

[torpid]

Yeah Risen rocked, and I enjoyed the dungeons since they were interesting and the fighting was fun. Still, a bit disappointing when compared to the early game.

Does Gothic 3 have interesting quests and some faction politicking or is it a lot of kill/fetch?

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Yeah Risen rocked, and I enjoyed the dungeons since they were interesting and the fighting was fun. Still, a bit disappointing when compared to the early game.

Does Gothic 3 have interesting quests and some faction politicking or is it a lot of kill/fetch?

There are some interesting quests, and faction politics as well. Overall, the game really would be very good apart from the abysmal bugs and even worse combat engine.

Just go for it. It surely cannot be worse than most of the rubbish on the market today.

As for Risen, it is on par with Gothic 1 for me. It doesn't quite reach Gothic 2, which I enjoyed immensely. Yes yes, "Gothic 1 had best atmosphere!! Gothic 2/Risen endings sucked!!". Look, I couldn't care less about silly things; the endings happened, and the atmosphere does not equal the excellent spacing of content and combat that G2 had. At least to me. Risen suffered mainly from the Gothic 1 'Huge Chunk' of content in the starting chapters, followed by a somewhat linear dungeon crawl (without enough different combat challenges) in the last couple.

Still highly recommended, because even towards the end, the combat is still good.

 

[torpid]

All right, I'll give it a shot