Just completed
Gothic and thought I'd jot down some of my impressions.
I originally got the game as a gift from my gaming buddy back in the days. I tried it, but didn't like the forced 3rd person view and the UI, so I only played about 15 minutes. Back then I had more of a life, and in addition much of my gaming time was spent on PB(E)M games, plus it was right in the middle of the best era of PC gaming, so it was easy to discard Gothic.
But when I started playing games chronologically Gothic was one of the games I was most looking forward to giving another chance.
Playing chronologically it's the best looking game I've played so far, thanks to the SystemPack which I had to install to at all be able to play the game (boxed version, not GOG). SP allows 1980x1080 while the original was 1024x786 IIRC.
Especially dark areas, swamps and the night time looks very nice indeed.
I think Gothic must have been a strong influence on Morrowind, or what do you guys think?
The graphics are similar, there's the open world, the mines, the Barrier/Ghostfence.
It was really too bad Morrowind did not copy the behaviour of NPCs (or wildlife for that matter), though, and ended up with encyclopedias standing around all day instead. That's where I think Gothic really excels compared to other games. The NPC schedules are not nearly as ambitious as those of Oblivion, but they work, and combined with all the different animations, it greatly adds to the atmosphere of the game. I really loved the gathering around the bonfire at night in the Old Camp when one of the diggers would start playing the guitar. Or how they would draw weapon if entering their huts.
But I must say after listening to the endless inane chatter of the same three lines, I really don't see why the NPC dialogue in Oblivion is so problematic. At least in Oblivion it can be entertaining; in Gothic it's just gets annoying after a while.
Also, for all the talk of dumbing down weapon skills in Oblivion, it still has more skills than Gothic.
Technically Gothic is superior to the TES games, although of course the TES games are bigger and with more content.
Consider just such a mundane thing as rain. This would not be possible in Morrowind, for example:
Instead it would have rained through the overhang, and once inside a hut the rain outside would magically stop.
Gothic reminds me somewhat of Evil Islands too, which is the previous "new" CRPG on my play list that I really enjoyed.
Both have open world, you start as a weakling and have to choose your early battles carefully, and you are constantly searching for new weapons with which to beat much more powerful enemies walking around in armour you can still only dream of. And you end part one with very unimpressive gear.
But I think Gothic's Chapter 1 was rather boring and lasted too long, but I guess that was partly due to me postponing joining a faction as long as possible. So too much time spent pussyfooting around when you can hardly kill anything, and it took a while getting to know all the NPCs.
It was only in Chapter 2 the game really grabbed me, and then things really snowballed when I got better gear.
In Chapter 3 it was like the game kind of changed nature, from an open world "simulator" to a railroaded story game, and there was no longer any choices&consequences or role playing, the game offering little dialogue choices. What if I wanted that Orc Amulet for myself, for example, instead of giving it to the last Fire Mage?
The game also became more buggy. Apparantly you are supposed to get back to Old Camp during the chapter the Old Mine collapses to trigger the guards outside the barricaded gates. Using the Teleport to Fire Mages spell in the two last chapters the cutscene doesn't make much sense, and when you free Stone the smith he doesn't go to his smithy as he's supposed to.
The final battle was also confusing. Are the novices supposed to just sit there, for example?
So, a good game that could have been great if the beginning was not so slow, and the story so railroaded (no C&C/role playing and leading to some weird situations) after Chapter 2.
The good:
Graphics, atmosphere, writing, NPC behaviour.
The so-so:
Exploration, since there's really not much to find. Not a single armour until suddenly Ponytail Dude says to Xardas that he needs to find a better armour. Didn't he learn from Chapter 1 that there are no armours to find?
Also, the game assumes you don't explore too widely, since you will be sent to those "unknown" parts later.
Good setting and initial story line, before it becomes too railroaded and goes into "The Chosen One" territory.
Rather crude skill system. I like that you get different animations from learning melee weapon skills, but overall a rather boring system which I'm sure will lead to most characters ending up the same. The Acrobatics skill was rather annoying; why not leap normally instead of tumbling around every time?
And no Swimming skill?
Simplistic combat. Except for some Golems only being affected by hammers, the only weapon types that have different effects are melee and missile. No crushing vs slashing or piercing for example. Also disappointed that the spinning around attack with two handers only affect one enemy. For once I'd like to see a Hero being able to mow down several weak enemies in one melee attack. I still only know of the old Gold Box games that does this.
The bad:
Very limited equipment. No helmets and shields, only armour, melee weapon, missiles weapon, one amulet and two rings. And most of the best equipment comes from shops and only becomes gradually available with each chapter.
Directional sounds for enemies seem to be absent. At least I had problems judging where enemies were located by sound.
So overall a strong
In the end I actually slightly prefer Evil Islands despite its lower production values. Gothic is really good in the (for me at least) non-essential areas (graphics, atmosphere, writing), while it is somewhat weaker in what really matters to me: game mechanics.