Has anyone played any of the Gothic games? I was thinking about buying 1-4 off of Steam and was wondering what others thought about the series, and if they are any good?

Also, are there any other medieval/fantasy open world games? TES and Gothic are the only two I know of.

Gothic 1 and 2 are pretty good, never played the others. Though they are not open-world in the same sense of TES, they still follow a semi-linear story and chapter format with a definite endgame.

I think the first Gothic is awesome, the second Gothic is very good too. The third Gothic is worse and I never bothered to play the fourth.

The studio behind Gothic 1-3 later made a game called Risen, which is very similiar to the first two Gothic games.

And twice as [censored].

That incredibly obvious bit of sarcasm that was not intended in any way whatsoever to portray my opinion on a game I clearly do not dislike at all aside (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efbW9-VwtN8&t=5m25s), I really liked Gothic 1 and 2 when they were new. Good games, though very buggy and, IMO, haven't aged all that well. I tried playing 2 recently and couldn't get very far before losing interest. :shrug:

only 1 and 2 are good the rest is junk

Gothic 1 and 2 are excellent games and highly recommended. Just be warned that it takes a little while to get used to the controls, especially in Gothic 1 (although once you do they actually feel quite natural). Gothic 3, while not a bad game, tried to be a bit too ambitious, and as a result lost a lot of the focus that was present in Gothic 1&2 and ends up getting somewhat tedious partway through. As for Forsaken Gods (Gothic 3 expansion) and Gothic 4... well, we don't really talk about those. And has been mentioned, Risen is very similar in feel to the first two Gothic games (unsurprising, as it's made by the same studio that made them), and is also highly recommended.

I'll sing the same song: Gothic and Gothic 2 (with its addon) are among the finest open world games. G3 was too ambitious and is lacking a soul, and the less said about that horrible abomination that Jowood decided to use as their lifeboat, which utterly failed, the better.

Just something that nobody who loves the game will tell you, the combat in 1 and 2 is very difficult. Maybe I just svck but that kept me from really enjoying the games. The expansion for G2 makes it way harder with no option to turn down the difficulty also, but adds a lot to the game.

If that's difficult for you, never try Demon's Souls, God of War or Devil May Cry. ^_^

Gothic 3 is pretty, though, and my PC can run it. :sadvaultboy:




P.S. So, if I beat Demon's Souls, would you say I could handle Gothic 1 and 2?

How well does Gothic 1 & 2 play on modern PCs? I know they are both older games, though I'm not familiar with how much older. Will they run just fine on Windows XP? any special patches/mods that would need to be downloaded(not just to ensure compatibility with windows, but to improve playability and what not)? I'll be buying a new game soon, and have been pondering buying Gothic 1&2 or Thief 1&2 for a while now. if i could get Pokemon black or white for under 20 bucks I'd go for them, but even on Ebay those damn things sell for 23-30 consistently, even gamestop wants 32 for a pre-owned copy ><

Yeah it was made when XP was in use. Compatibility isn't usually much of an issue unless you run Vista/7 or 64-bit XP. (aka a modern PC :tongue: )

I'd suggest Good Old Games for easy access, if you plan to upgrade in the future. The games do run fine on XP, and it would be strange if G2 as released after it wouldn't. ^_^
The only bigger mods you can find are separate adventures, so there's nothing you absolutely need.
But there's a certain person one from these boards might recognize, doing their thing: http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11732

I'd argue against that. The combat mechanics for G1 are not very fluid. I swear the enemies swing their swords/axes faster than my character can. Anyway, while the idea is interesting (left swing, right swing, forward thrust, block), I don't think it was implemented very well, both in terms of default key bindings and in terms of speed and fluidity. While Kratos is dancing a seamless ballet of carnage, the unnamed hero in Gothic 1 is like a poorly-articulated marionette puppeteered by someone with a palsy.

That's why I used God Mode in G1. The combat is still annoying and tedious, but invincibility takes out the frustration factor of reloading due to death.

Yeah I agree. The difficulty in Gothic 1/2 seems to be more about a strict pattern of attacking and dodging, where one wrong move could mean you're dead.

I got through Gothic 1 alright, but I couldn't even complete Gothic 2: NotR even after killing pretty much all the monsters I could find for EXP. (and I fully completed the expansion area too)

Yeah, I only made it through G2 properly by looking up information about how the levelling system worked and following some recommendations about how to use my points. I found the end of the game quite easy once I got myself the stats required for the high level gear for the path I was aiming toward, but the crazy-powerful sword from the expansion is the only reason I made it through the middle part of the game.

There's a difference between clunky combat (gothic) and fluid, but difficult combat (other games). I just found Gothic to be irritating.



Agreed completely, I need to try G1 in god mode to actually finish the story lol.

I haven't even tried the magic system in G1 or G2, does it stand up well or is it gimped?

I intensely dislike how they treated skills in G2, where the melee skills are hitched together and you can only improve one if you improve the other, too. I want to use 2h weapons, why are you making me level up 1h weapons?! Or I only want crossbows, why must I waste points improving my bow skill? And NotR increases the skill and attribute costs. :meh: I have a mod that's supposed to reduce the costs, but I haven't tried it yet to see if it'll screw up my game (it's a non-english mod). And on that note: AAAAAAAARG. I find the lack of mods (that are language dependent for one reason or another) for the English version of the game to be very frustrating - most notably the mechanics/gameplay balancing mods. I still can't quite figure out how the game even runs mods. At least the Hellgate community made an editor with a GUI.