Forest Dweller
Smoking Dicks
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2008
- Messages
- 12,216
Just finished it, and yes, it really is. But of course I'm going to back that up, so let's get to it!
First off, the only other real contender for best Gothic game is Gothic 2, so that's the one I'll be comparing it to. Gothic 1 was a prototype and inferior in every way to Gothic 2, and Gothic 3 was...shit. They tried to do more with it, but what we ended up getting was a game that was broken in almost every area. So Gothic 2 was without a doubt the best out of those three. But now Risen has come along, with many improvements. And while there are still some things that Gothic 2 did better, ultimately I don't think it gives it the edge over Risen's improvements.
So I'll take each element in turn.
Factions. While Risen only has two, they are done in more detail. For one thing, the first chapter has mutually exclusive stuff to do based on each faction, rather than allowing you to do everything and then pick a faction. You can't do both the monastery quests and the bandit camp quests. Also allowing the possibility of you being impressed into one of the factions is a nice touch and took some balls. Though I can't really speak for the Inquisition path since I was a Don's man all the way. In addition, there is one later change on the gameworld you get to make based on your faction allegience (the fate of Harbor town) with very visible changes (though I suppose not too much in actual gameplay terms). Still, Gothic 2 didn't have anything like that. Also depending on how you handle one of the quests you may end up with a bitch at the end. And the factions seemed to have more moral ambiguity this time around.
Story. Not much to say here, but I liked the story better. A little more engaging, and a somewhat interesting twist towards the end. At least they didn't start out with a necromancer telling you you need to go defeat the dragons, and that you've forgotten shit.
Writing. I definitely detected an improvement here as well. Adding the word "fuck" really helped things a lot. But in all seriousness, the writing was better. The other Gothics could get pretty tongue-in-cheek at times, while this one was more serious. There weren't any cheesy lines this time around. The voice acting was also markedly better. And the main character doesn't sound like a tard.
Combat. Oh god the fucking combat! How could they go from something so shitty in the first three games to something so good? At least for melee combat I am sure of this; never played as a flaming faggot. Anyway, this is definitely the biggest improvement, and a vital one too. Gothic games have a lot of combat, and they all turn into combat slogs in the end. Having good combat in Risen means that the ending combat section of the game is still moderately fun as opposed to "oh god please let this game end."
So what was so great about it? Well, basically the fact that there's a lot more that you can do. There are ten levels to each weapon skill, and each one gives you something that is important. There are your basic combos, but after that there are lateral blows, and charge-up attacks, and parries and counter-parries, and then more elaborate combos. In addition timing is very important in chaining combos; do it right and they'll be faster, but it's quite tricky. All of these things make combat interesting and more dynamic, meaning it rarely gets boring. In fact I'd say it's the best melee combat in an ARPG that I've encountered. In addition the enemies aren't retarded, and the humanoid ones have all these skills too and will use them on you. They will block, parry, and counter-attack frequently. And finally that retarded stunlock is gone! I can't begin to describe how much of a relief that is. In addition multiple enemies will always try to flank you and work well together, meaning you have to constantly keep repositioning yourself to keep them in front.
And no trash mobs! Yeah, I'm referring to the hordes and hordes of enemies that the previous Gothic games liked to throw at you in the final stages. That's pretty much gone. It's definitely quality over quantity here. In fact fighting more than three or four of the lizardmen enemies (which are your late game badasses) is pretty rare. So there's less of them, but as I said above, these guys are of the strictly non-fucking around variety. Much more enjoyable this way. There are a few instances where you do fight larger numbers, but in those cases you have a companion(s). It's really like night and day.
Difficulty. So, I played the game on Hard, and that seemed like a pretty ideal level of challenge. If you're expecting the game to be as brutal as Gothic 2 NotR you'll probably be disapointed, but you're still in for a challenge if you play on Hard. (It's certainly harder than Gothic 3, and I'd say probably Gothic 1 as well.) In all honesty I thought NotR was too hard in some places. They took it a little too far. But what was worst was that it was uneven. It was undeniably brutal in the beginning, and then it gradually got easier, and then at the end it flipped a switch and became so ridiculous that I had to use cheats. By contrast, the challenge in Risen was fair and steady throughout. The new enemies were paced well and seemed like each was placed specifically to force me to work on my new combat skills. The only exception is the final boss, which was too easy.
Traps. Not really a huge deal, but they certainly made dungeons more interesting. Particularly in those final five in the fourth chapter. Also it's nice to see that hidden switches aren't automatically selectable. Taking a cue from Bloodlines on that I'd wager.
Pickpocketing. Another minor thing but done with style. Rather than giving you a random item, you instead get to look at their inventory with a timer, and pick one item. You only get to do this once for each person. What's cool is that for each person you have a unique line of dialogue that goes with it in order to "distract" them. Some are quite humorous. For instance there are several times that you ask for a joke, and then take the item as they start telling it, only to say "yeah I've heard that one." Also pickpocketing is a viable way for getting some quest items.
Game Length and Structure. So, Risen is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 focused on faction quests, Chapter 2 on exploration, and Chapters 3 and 4 on combat. The same three phases of any Gothic game (except 3). My game time was just over forty hours, with about 20 on the first chapter, 10 on the second, and 10 on the third and fourth. But since the combat was so much better, as I said earlier, those final 10 weren't that bad. And Chapter 3 was interesting at least because you were working with a squad of characters working their way into a mountain fortress, leaving the group on solo missions and rejoining for larger battles. Really the only parts that can be considered pure "combat grinds" are those temples with the armor pieces in Chapter 4; and I said earlier, the traps as well as the fact that they are sort of puzzle dungeons make them more interesting. Considering the other Gothic games, the endgame of Risen could have been a LOT worse. The bottom line is: Risen (and this is a first for the Gothic series) did not overstay its welcome. Forty hours seems pretty ideal. Maybe fifty could work if they make it interesting enough for Risen 2, but certainly not Gothic 2's bloated sixty-hour stretch.
What Gothic 2 did better. Yeah, so there are a few areas where Gothic 2 was superior. In general quest design was better and a little more heavy in multiple solutions (for example getting into Khorinis). Quests with multiple outcomes also were a little more complex and ambiguous than the binary "for the Don/for the Inquisition" options in Risen. There was less hand-holding (Risen doesn't have much but there is some). And also Gothic 2 just has some "moments" that rise above anything in Risen. Chapter 2 where you have to circumvent all those orc patrols, avoiding combat entirely. The Thieves Guild in Khorinis and the steps you have to take to get to them. That entire Water Mage plotline. The stealing quests you get from Diego once he gets in the town. Following the trail of that one guy from the monastery all over the map. Gothic 2 definitely had its high points.
But overall it was an uneven experience. And by the end I was just so glad it was over. If there were more of those high points and less of the lows, I'd rate it higher. As it is, it's a fairly tough decision. The fact is Risen is a simpler game; it has less quests, a smaller map, and doesn't try to do as much. But what it DOES try to do it does well. It may not have the highs of Gothic 2, but it doesn't have the lows either, and is a solid experience throughout. And the combat...sorry but the combat is too important. The improvement is so drastic, it's almost like it was made by a different team. You can tell they really focused on that for this installment.
tl,dr: Gothic 2 had high points that surpassed Risen, but it was a very uneven experience which turned to shit in the end. Risen on the other hand was a solid and enjoyable game throughout, making it ultimately the best Gothic game.
First off, the only other real contender for best Gothic game is Gothic 2, so that's the one I'll be comparing it to. Gothic 1 was a prototype and inferior in every way to Gothic 2, and Gothic 3 was...shit. They tried to do more with it, but what we ended up getting was a game that was broken in almost every area. So Gothic 2 was without a doubt the best out of those three. But now Risen has come along, with many improvements. And while there are still some things that Gothic 2 did better, ultimately I don't think it gives it the edge over Risen's improvements.
So I'll take each element in turn.
Factions. While Risen only has two, they are done in more detail. For one thing, the first chapter has mutually exclusive stuff to do based on each faction, rather than allowing you to do everything and then pick a faction. You can't do both the monastery quests and the bandit camp quests. Also allowing the possibility of you being impressed into one of the factions is a nice touch and took some balls. Though I can't really speak for the Inquisition path since I was a Don's man all the way. In addition, there is one later change on the gameworld you get to make based on your faction allegience (the fate of Harbor town) with very visible changes (though I suppose not too much in actual gameplay terms). Still, Gothic 2 didn't have anything like that. Also depending on how you handle one of the quests you may end up with a bitch at the end. And the factions seemed to have more moral ambiguity this time around.
Story. Not much to say here, but I liked the story better. A little more engaging, and a somewhat interesting twist towards the end. At least they didn't start out with a necromancer telling you you need to go defeat the dragons, and that you've forgotten shit.
Writing. I definitely detected an improvement here as well. Adding the word "fuck" really helped things a lot. But in all seriousness, the writing was better. The other Gothics could get pretty tongue-in-cheek at times, while this one was more serious. There weren't any cheesy lines this time around. The voice acting was also markedly better. And the main character doesn't sound like a tard.
Combat. Oh god the fucking combat! How could they go from something so shitty in the first three games to something so good? At least for melee combat I am sure of this; never played as a flaming faggot. Anyway, this is definitely the biggest improvement, and a vital one too. Gothic games have a lot of combat, and they all turn into combat slogs in the end. Having good combat in Risen means that the ending combat section of the game is still moderately fun as opposed to "oh god please let this game end."
So what was so great about it? Well, basically the fact that there's a lot more that you can do. There are ten levels to each weapon skill, and each one gives you something that is important. There are your basic combos, but after that there are lateral blows, and charge-up attacks, and parries and counter-parries, and then more elaborate combos. In addition timing is very important in chaining combos; do it right and they'll be faster, but it's quite tricky. All of these things make combat interesting and more dynamic, meaning it rarely gets boring. In fact I'd say it's the best melee combat in an ARPG that I've encountered. In addition the enemies aren't retarded, and the humanoid ones have all these skills too and will use them on you. They will block, parry, and counter-attack frequently. And finally that retarded stunlock is gone! I can't begin to describe how much of a relief that is. In addition multiple enemies will always try to flank you and work well together, meaning you have to constantly keep repositioning yourself to keep them in front.
And no trash mobs! Yeah, I'm referring to the hordes and hordes of enemies that the previous Gothic games liked to throw at you in the final stages. That's pretty much gone. It's definitely quality over quantity here. In fact fighting more than three or four of the lizardmen enemies (which are your late game badasses) is pretty rare. So there's less of them, but as I said above, these guys are of the strictly non-fucking around variety. Much more enjoyable this way. There are a few instances where you do fight larger numbers, but in those cases you have a companion(s). It's really like night and day.
Difficulty. So, I played the game on Hard, and that seemed like a pretty ideal level of challenge. If you're expecting the game to be as brutal as Gothic 2 NotR you'll probably be disapointed, but you're still in for a challenge if you play on Hard. (It's certainly harder than Gothic 3, and I'd say probably Gothic 1 as well.) In all honesty I thought NotR was too hard in some places. They took it a little too far. But what was worst was that it was uneven. It was undeniably brutal in the beginning, and then it gradually got easier, and then at the end it flipped a switch and became so ridiculous that I had to use cheats. By contrast, the challenge in Risen was fair and steady throughout. The new enemies were paced well and seemed like each was placed specifically to force me to work on my new combat skills. The only exception is the final boss, which was too easy.
Traps. Not really a huge deal, but they certainly made dungeons more interesting. Particularly in those final five in the fourth chapter. Also it's nice to see that hidden switches aren't automatically selectable. Taking a cue from Bloodlines on that I'd wager.
Pickpocketing. Another minor thing but done with style. Rather than giving you a random item, you instead get to look at their inventory with a timer, and pick one item. You only get to do this once for each person. What's cool is that for each person you have a unique line of dialogue that goes with it in order to "distract" them. Some are quite humorous. For instance there are several times that you ask for a joke, and then take the item as they start telling it, only to say "yeah I've heard that one." Also pickpocketing is a viable way for getting some quest items.
Game Length and Structure. So, Risen is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 focused on faction quests, Chapter 2 on exploration, and Chapters 3 and 4 on combat. The same three phases of any Gothic game (except 3). My game time was just over forty hours, with about 20 on the first chapter, 10 on the second, and 10 on the third and fourth. But since the combat was so much better, as I said earlier, those final 10 weren't that bad. And Chapter 3 was interesting at least because you were working with a squad of characters working their way into a mountain fortress, leaving the group on solo missions and rejoining for larger battles. Really the only parts that can be considered pure "combat grinds" are those temples with the armor pieces in Chapter 4; and I said earlier, the traps as well as the fact that they are sort of puzzle dungeons make them more interesting. Considering the other Gothic games, the endgame of Risen could have been a LOT worse. The bottom line is: Risen (and this is a first for the Gothic series) did not overstay its welcome. Forty hours seems pretty ideal. Maybe fifty could work if they make it interesting enough for Risen 2, but certainly not Gothic 2's bloated sixty-hour stretch.
What Gothic 2 did better. Yeah, so there are a few areas where Gothic 2 was superior. In general quest design was better and a little more heavy in multiple solutions (for example getting into Khorinis). Quests with multiple outcomes also were a little more complex and ambiguous than the binary "for the Don/for the Inquisition" options in Risen. There was less hand-holding (Risen doesn't have much but there is some). And also Gothic 2 just has some "moments" that rise above anything in Risen. Chapter 2 where you have to circumvent all those orc patrols, avoiding combat entirely. The Thieves Guild in Khorinis and the steps you have to take to get to them. That entire Water Mage plotline. The stealing quests you get from Diego once he gets in the town. Following the trail of that one guy from the monastery all over the map. Gothic 2 definitely had its high points.
But overall it was an uneven experience. And by the end I was just so glad it was over. If there were more of those high points and less of the lows, I'd rate it higher. As it is, it's a fairly tough decision. The fact is Risen is a simpler game; it has less quests, a smaller map, and doesn't try to do as much. But what it DOES try to do it does well. It may not have the highs of Gothic 2, but it doesn't have the lows either, and is a solid experience throughout. And the combat...sorry but the combat is too important. The improvement is so drastic, it's almost like it was made by a different team. You can tell they really focused on that for this installment.
tl,dr: Gothic 2 had high points that surpassed Risen, but it was a very uneven experience which turned to shit in the end. Risen on the other hand was a solid and enjoyable game throughout, making it ultimately the best Gothic game.