Chronicles of Myrtana is the best gothic game ever made. Ofc other are awesome too but the level of details is higher than original gothic. Gothic 1-3 were my childhood. I used to go to my friend to play gothic 2 at night. We were like 8-9 at that time. We both had potato pc, we were noobs but we have fallen in love. After 20 years for me Chronicles is like the extraction of what we had fallen in love (with some small upgrades). As a Pole I am so gratefull to the team working for past 10 years to give us a FREE game (they still polish the game) of such high level of dedication for our passion. I cant find good words to explain how proud I am.
The Return of The ̶K̶i̶n̶g̶ Absolute Madman Going back to Gothic I+II during the quarantine days & being fully immersed with the proper spiritual successor Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos was the first time that I've genuinely enjoyed playing games since 2015/16. Nostalgia (for simpler times) ps Cheers from the Netherlands!
I thought that i would have a hard time getting into the mod. But it was so like the old Gothic that it instantly transported me to the old days of the first two games.I simply couldn't put it away. Btw. great country :)
What this guy said, ten times over. Gaming took one good turn for the better with Kingdom Come : Deliverance and the Witcher games emulating successfully some fragments of a Gothic experience, then only their quest marker system got implemented by normie devs and everything went to shit from there on. Thank goodness for gems like Archolos. Cheers from Serbia.
Spoilers for the end. One thing I loved was the subversion of the super weapon that could defeat the big bad. When u hear of the Peacemaker u imagine it serves the same purpose as Uriziel in Gothic 1, but u soon learn that not only does it cause more problems than it fixes but that the sword isn’t even the weapon of Adanos, just a powerful magical sword that only Ulryk’s bloodline can use. It also serves to make Kessel’s fate much more tragic.
Yes, true. I neglected to talk about that at the end, i didn't write it down at that time and it slipped my mind (i'm a bit bummed out about that). It's funny how each of the people involved jumped to the conclusion that the artefact had to be the sword. As they were almost all warriors or fighters, the fact that it could be different never even crossed their mind. Only a water mage had the insight to look deeper into it. Ps. See you've played Sonora. Great game.
It's incredible how much depth this game manages to hide in the woodwork that went completely over my head during the first playthrough. Wish there was more content like yours about the more nuanced workings of it.
@@ltgchris693 well you can meet a certain someone from marvins home in ch3 and he tells you about that murder case regarding your father. also in a way his uncle's speech about marvins father (being the best in everything) is a nice foreshadowing why Jorn dies if you take your time that is... and then of course marvin's inner darkness (the violent choices he can make).
As a old, German Gothic fan I think there's no other game series that brings Polish, German & even Russian gamers together like Gothic. I talked with Polish friends about Gothic for hours. How we all loved the first two games and some of the amazing mods (like Archolos) and how we hated almost all that came after, always hoping for PB to return to their roots. In many aspects I feel Archolos is better than the first two games, but they will still hold a eternal first place in my gamer memory.
Myślę, że większość z nas ma podobne przemyślenia :D It's fascinating how Gothic became a unifying platform for many European nations, especially those from Central Europe. To this day, I still remember how impatient I was to play Night of the Raven, so I got my brother to buy it in Germany and played it in that language for the first time. Even in this comment section, there's a broad representation from across the European continent.
i am not sure if anyone wrote that already but if you rush into city skipping all the other quests it is POSIBLE to actualy save marvin brother , ending marvin adventure at act 3 also, there is 5 magic circles , and archolos makes mage actualy pleasant to play as you can get a set of rings and neckles that each gives you % mana regen and even more if you colect all of it (also t 4 and 5 magic circle give mana regen)
I mentioned saving Jorn in the video. Are there really 5 magic circles? I was under the impression that there were only 4, which is the maximum Marvin can learn. Unless I missed something. Regarding the mage set, it's a very fun way to play, although I feel it becomes available a bit too late in the game.
You can be a hero or you can achive what Marvin wants. Save the world or save one man @@ltgchris693. A broader experience at the expense (and antithesis) to a limited but more personal related success. But in the end, both outcome enhance the immersion towards Marvins as a character.
I just found your channel & I'm thoroughly obsessed. Long form videos are my hyper fixation (& has been for a few years now) so when I find a new channel? It's like Christmas 😅 You are really talented, entertaining and enjoyable to watch/listen to. I look forward to watching your channel continue to grow bc you deserve it ❤
I think that both of them are a possibility. Although Fallout is likely, truth be told both of them are. For now it will be the commandos series, when it comes to RPG's i think Torment will be on the roster somewhere this year.
*So from what I could see, the story and many characters are much better writen then in the original Gothic 1* (Archolos is far more interlinked until the end) *and Gothic II* (G2 took minimalistic approach to mainstory and only some explicitly- and implicitly-multilayered Characters, but Archolos had EXPLICITLY multilayered quest and characters as a base concept). *The developers of Archolos had the advantage of hindsight and were priviliged to implement a lot of inspiration from other RPG´s* (The Witcher 1, 2, 3; Dark Souls for Boss fights, Dragon Age Origins). What a bitter ironie, that the sword of Addanos, the God of Balance, ultimately breaks the stalemate between both rivaling factions and enables chaos and death. I think, by creating a "Artifact of Adanos" the developers fundamentally contradict and subvert the idea of Addanos. They took to much liberty with that one imO. The abundance of unique assets (Armors, Weapons, the frozen Govenor, Monsters) makes this addon also exceptional. The german voice-actors are by far not as good as in the polish version.
I do not agree about the artefact part.As it would seem that the real artefact are the scales that they brought back from Vardhal, not the sword. I rather prefer to think that the sword was a powerful artefact notconnected to Adanos that much which happens to have an ice effect on it. It's just the case that, everyone around, wanted the artefact to be a sword, as almost all of the people that came in contact with it were fighters, out for revenge. It was a matter of course for a fighter that the artefact has to be a weapon. Rather than the more logical answer of it being the scales, as Adanos is the god of balance.
Marvin and Kessel found scales together with the sword in Vardhal. Later on in the monastery the Water Mages summarized, that the scales are the real artifact of Adanos not the sword.
So the full story about the artifact is (according to Ingolf) - the Wolf Son's had 2 artifact's in their posession: an old scale that can show the true worth of items, and the ice sword. The first chronicles of Archolos said "Rodowe Ostrze i Rozjemca" - Ancestral Sword and Rozjemca (it's a name, so no translation for it). But one of the later translations got rid of the word "i" which means "and" in Polish, falsily merging the sword and the scale into the same thing.
I was waiting for someone to cover this game. Thank you! :) (i was thinking about doing it myself, but I lacked the time, also my channel is not about game reviews). I am planning one (about Gothic 1) but from a game design perspective, which is a bit different. Subscribed!
my favourite aspect of this was how they used the old gothic engine and generaly kept to the same formula but expanded on it heavily i think i found it just a couple of days after it released and the game was a blast to play from start to finish , its basicaly gothic 2 on steroids and i loved the little nods to gothic 1 , for example like that 1 kid that always climbs up on some trees around some big farm , the kid get sent to the colony and is the same guy who built his hut in the wrong area so it has two doors (i forgot his name but you know him if you play gothic 1)
Great video essay. And great mod/game. I've spent 100 hours on Archolos and I've loved every minute. You're absolutely right about heavy atmosphere. I do not agree on the ending though - it was weak. We should land in the colony for something we did in the game. Also from the beginning it was teased that Marvin killed his father - maybe this would be a good reason (and great reveal) to arrest him. This whole "oh, people were just jelous so sent him to colony" felt rushed and lazy.
Hmmm, i do agree that that would be probably better, although i still would like something that we as the player did, that landed him in trouble. But i still think that this outcome for Marvin was a given. Taking into account how the whole of Archolos was treating him up until the end.
Nice long form review of one of my all time favorite mods, didn't think i would see a review like this about the game in english. Didn't know that the creepy guy with a dagger was actually an enemy within the game because i didn't encounter em and the other human figure at the endgame in my 111 hour game time
Well, english is the language that most people know, so i figured that is the best way to reach a broader audience. Yeah the guy is there, although it is a random encounter, as i also didn't find him on my first playthrough. And if you wear the "blessing of Innos" or "grace of Innos" (i don't know how it is translated) you won't find him, because the ring blocks such "evil" things from happening.
It's an incredible game, I played it 2 times now. At the release, and after a year. I think I will return to it when The Mod of Decade edition is released. Your commitment into showing us perks, quirks, and like my fellow commenter said - the depth of this game is outstanding. I have enjoyed it for the whole video, but is very long material, when 2.0 is released, please create 20-30 minutes material titled "Why this MOD receives MOD OF DECADE title", it will better hit algorithm. Your narrative is great, fight man. You deserve it and good luck mate 🇵🇱
Thanks. And out of curiosity, why do you think that it would be better for the algorithm? Because I definitely want to take a look at it once it's out.
@@ltgchris693 I mean, your pronunciation is good, and your storytelling is on good level. You will definitely attract people from abroad to your channel. In this particular video the problem is that you're not using English subtitles whth I would greatly anticipate although I understand them completely. What I find in similar small channels (not necessarily Gothic related, but I like Gothic channels, especially not in Polish as I have enough of them here) is they couldn't catch a grip without saying the story. Long gameplays, deep analysys. I find it interesting watching this particular game as like explaining places in playthroughs, I didn't explore this mod so deeply - that why it was fun to watch for me. But people are getting less attention span, and people like narrative, catchy titles and great thumbnails. I mean, I just watch a lot of UA-cam and didn't stumble upon a channel where hour deep gameplays work anymore outside of person interest. Like I said before, your storytelling is good, just try make shorter videos with catchy content. Also, you have included here SO MUCH material for shorts, you can easily bump your UA-cam stats by doing short from the movies you have created. A lot you can do with this mod, but also with other games presented on this channel. You know men, attention span is decreasing, people like storytelling about games. I mean, I wish you luck from the bottom of my heart, but the reality is it is very hard to invest 1h in into watching it without certain hype, it's better to watch them separately like a stories, then shorter videos, and them person is skinking. As you see, I don't use youtube and last public video I have uploaded in 2012 so you can skip my advice, or you can make content that people can watch on tv, during quick lanch :) Brand is everything my friend, look of the face is also highly appreciated on youtube, and in this days you can cover your face in some really fancy thingy, the imagination is your barrier! Good luck mate, I though about this particular problem for a long time, I have also thought about making this channel, but making videos based on playing games is not my thing, and it never be, I like playing games in a certain way :)
Every time anyone ask me: What game would you like to forget everything about a play it again, my answer was always gothic. And in a way, this is exacly what this "mod" meant for me. Once again i could spend 10s of hours roaming and exploring new land and enjoy new stories. I return back in time when i was a kid, when everything was more simple and all i cared was getting home from school, so i can play gothic again. Quality of this mod is insane to the point where if you told me its official game, i would have no doubt at all. I love everything about this game. Only con i have is not be able to join Water mages. Even tho im not polish, as a czech i could understand good part of voice acting and know how freaking good it is. This is definetly one of the best mods ever created for any game. Out of my head i can only think of Enderal which is on the same level of insanity. This mod is exacly what we needed in this time of trash, half broken game releases. This project shows how great stories we can create when we create it out of love for this media. Im super grateful for anyone how worked on this project and hope they will stay in this industry in years to come.
They will probably stay in the industry. But we will likely not see such a mod from them ever again,maybe someone else will step up. Although i understand hat Gothic is notoriously difficult to mod.
The mod was so good I felt obligated to donate them money. It's insane that a project this large is free, it must've cost them quite a bit of cash and time to make it happen.
One game I will recommend is Drakan: Order of the Flame. It feels similar to Gothic, but with much better controls. Imagine Lara croft but with magic and you get to fly a dragon that controls similar to an airplane and helicopter at the same time. Downside is that its not on Steam and it's kind of hard to get since there has never been a PC port, even the PS2 only sequel. The franchise is in copyright hell and it seems that Sony owns it now and isnt doing anything to the games.
You play it in polish, you say you understand voice acting (in polish) which means you are either polish or insane xD . Great review of awesome game. Thank you.
I'm from Czechia and when I was younger I watched a lot of Wagon streams (bcs i really liked gothic and there really isn't that many czech streamers that stream the game that much) and when this mode came out I noticed that I really can underestand a lot of the Polish stuff, because majority of the words are really similar in both languages.
even comparing it to AAA crap is a disgrace, it's like black and white, the great and the horrible, at one spectrum you have the best game possible made non-profit by fans, which deserves to be a guinness record in itself, a game with decades worth of replayability and possibly its own modding community in the future, all of that for FREE. at the other spectrum you have these moloch corporations that specialize in wasting money and making horrible stuff even more horrible. being professional at worsening things that are already bad is probably the only real skill their teams possess. any comparison feels unfair
Archolos is easily one of these mods that calling a mod just... doesnt do it justice. Its a full new game that can stand on its own and even surpass the games its based on at times.
Very well said, the game was amazing and should be incorporated into the Gothic Universe pack. 😁 A lot of work was put into this video and it shows, great job, I enjoyed it a lot.
Yeah, that whole orc siege around the castle thing wasn't handled very well in G2. I too wish that by clearing out the orcs both from around the castle and from the pass, I could've allowed the Paladins to actually escape the valley and set up fortifications at the pass to keep the Orcs from reaching Khorinis proper.
18:25 if i remember correctly after you go to city, you can go straight away to the place where your brother is held, if you remember location right. Script should start working when you enter the city for first time. I may be wrong however, never tried that, but i saw others do it
@@ltgchris693 it was long ago, i will look into it after job. All it was show its that he go straight to that warehouse and proceed to do usual. When i find vid i post here
ua-cam.com/video/Pxtu9SmaFd4/v-deo.html Alright, you can trigger a script, however, aperantly crashes it when you do so. I didnt check myself because im away from my computer so i cant verify if Crash is all the times
@@ProdukcjaFilmowaNo3d It would seem, that he has the quests that pertain to Volker, so either he is using cheats, or is farther along the main story then just arriving in the city.
i got into gothic maybe 1-2 years ago starting with 1 then 2 base then notr and then archolos, each better and better then the last, i bought and tried gothic 3 but couldnt put more then an hour into it, archolos is basically gothic 3 for me xD
i had so much fun with Returning. i had even more fun with Odyssey, to the point it made me want it to be extended with 2.0, 3.0 expansions indefinitely. but Chronicles of Myrtana was just so good, that i don't even want this, i wish they could start working on Chronicles of Myrtana 2 asap
This is probably what most people think who played this story. To bad that this and maybe the Enhanced Edition, is all we will get. But still, i am very grateful for this grand game they have made.
@@ltgchris693 not really. i think i'll gather a team to add new content to Odyssei 2.0, so maybe something similar could be done to Archolos 2. At last, it's fans who gather to make such things come true and i think that raising 1 million USD would be enough of a motivation, and another 1 million during the project
@@Xardasflynn657 Yeah, maybe. But from what i remember they did it entirely non profit. Except the video department, that they did accept donations for. Don't get me wrong. I would love Archolos 2 or for someone to finish the History of Khorinis.
@@ltgchris693 history of Khorinis is unfortunately dead, Chronicles killed it. I'm polish so i can explain it to you- they used to be a single team, then the split happened due to internal conflicts and different visions. It was a race to who will make it first, but not only Chronicles are already 3 years ahead, most likely they will be 8 years ahead when the other one comes out. History Of Khorinis uses the same map, and they can''t outdo the RPG mod of a decade, so it makes no sense to waste another 5 years working for free just to make a significantly worse version of the same world. Their only chance is to make a map anew, but it will take another 5-7 years so no point in waiting for that, because Chronicles of Myrtana 2.0 and Archolos 2 will be out at this point. They are done and nothing could be done to save the project, Chronicles were just unbeatable and they know they are at horrific disadvantage So yeah, i'd love to see Archolos 2.0 and maybe 3.0, like real DLC level stuff, or just Archolos 2 since it does it's job as a standalone game, taking place either during the first formative years of a colony (taking over the colony and advancing to become a Scar), or a pre-prequel about Marvin's life on Londram, his childhood and events that happened there, or maybe even Scars escape from the colony 10 years later and going to the continent, which would give the opportunity of Showing the continent properly, with places like western Varant (canyons), northern Varant (swamps), Northern Nordmar (Orcish homeland), Western Nordmar (Isengard, the land of glaciers and crevasses, where 1 of the 4 Beliar Temples reside), Myrtana Highlands where the Unknown Lands Lie and perhaps giant steppes further towards the unknown lands, which is 6 new lands, and maybe 7 with a surprise land on the north-west part of the continent, giving 10 instead of 3 lands and making the continent 3 times as big, making it feel like a real continent sorrounded with oceans. You could finally have an orc-homeland, the wanderers and Adanos believers homeland, the more barren and wild part of Myrtana, a homeland for Lizard People, a homeland for Dragons and Demons and maybe a nomadic step of with a new races, wild and dangerous. You could always add access to all 4 Beliar Temples, situated in the far north volcanic mountain-steppes, the barren part of Orcish Land and somewhere in the far western Varant. Possibilities are endless, and Odyssei 2.0 already showed that it is possible and it's extremely cool to extend the world not by 50%, but by 300%, if done properly. A mod like Odyssei 2.0 with quality of Chronicles of Myrtana is worth any amount of donations, and i'm sure they will make the right decision depending on their time and financial budget. It's really fun when you've just hit level 150 after 200-300 hours with 6.000.000 xp, and are still progressing the story and upgrading your character. We really need to see more of this universum, and the fans are our only hope- imagine what could they do with millions instead budget equal to 0
I know the story, i too am polish :) I still don't see such a mod being made, although i wholeheartedly wish that it will. The Gothic world has still way more to offer. All these things you wrote about in the last paragraph i would love to see. Especially after what Gothic 3 did with that, which is to mean, not a whole lot.
Archolos feels frustrating for not having a magician path possibility. When I found out there was a whole Adanos monastery I decided to be a water mage, only to find out there were only 2 guilds, both not very interesting.
I disagree that the available guilds are uninteresting, they both have their highlights, although the city watch is a bit more engaging. As to the mage path, magic is still available. And i rather they released the mod without the mage, rather than not release it with it.
@@ltgchris693 So do I. I am glad they did, it's still better than all Risen games for sure. But I got frustrated by the missed potential. Magic is weird, with no system and some itens to scale damage.
@@profhenriqueTrue, anything for a mage is hard to come by. Although it is promising that they intend to remedy that in the enhanced edition. The only way to scale damage that i know of is drinking the perma-potions, +5 to damage if i remember correctly.
Regarding the swamp: this never happened for me. Maybe not enough time passed? But I have been there only once anyway. And I didn't really explore the swamp, so maybe there's a hidden trigger that I missed? Overall, I agree. This mod is better than all Gothic games imho. I really enjoyed it. The only playstyle that's not enjoyable is Mage. Basically no equipment for Mages, no Mage faction to join and the Magic Circles are really hard to learn. I wanted my next run to be a Mage run. But on 2nd thought I think it might be better to become Warrior with some additional magic as a fallback option instead of a ranged weapon (so basically Paladin style). While I like that the game finally allows you a decent Hunter build/playstyle, it doesn't support Mages at all (mostly). Also, in the end the story became a bit messy and I didn't fully understand why some people acted how they did. Maybe I missed some bits of lore in the books? But other than that, it is a phenomenal mod. I was not scared by the part of the swamp that lead to the Pirate base. But I was unbelievably scared by the Sewers. I only went there when I had to and when I was really strong. So in order to get the best possible ending you can only do the main quests (or is there a guide what quests you are allowed to do in order to get this ending)? Are you even strong enough to do the Minecrawler mine then? As far as I remember it was quite hard, especially the royal Minecrawlers were a pain. However. While I think it is a clever idea, I still have mixed feelings about it. Knowing that, it basically means you feel guilty when you don't want to skip large parts of the game and party of the amazing story - going against all intuition. Marvin is Scar? Really? I never got this connection, maybe because I didn't realize that the other guy he gets imprisoned with is Gomez (for some reason, I thought that it is Diego). But I agree, I love the ending too, even when it really touched me emotionally. Or maybe exactly because of it. But this is a bit shocking. I mean, we don't know much about Scar. But from what we see they don't seem to be the same character regarding their personality. I think this game would really benefit from a sequel that explains how they rose to power and why Marvin became that unrelatable jerk.
I too don't really know what the trigger is. Perhaps simply, the passage of time. There is some equipment for mages. Although the one that gives passive mana regen is a must for a mage, but no robes and no weapons. I myself like the method of learning magic circles, it was tons of fun, finding the required tomes. It is viable to play as a pure magic character, i did a run once, but it turned out to by way too easy. With the swamps i meant, that rather than fear it was the feeling of impending danger that was omnipresent. Sadly there will be no sequel to this mod, or any other follow up for that matter.I am just glad that the enhanced edition will come out.
@@ltgchris693 I know that there is some equipment for Mages. But neither robes nor staffs. For me, this feels very "un-mage". Also I think that you get access to the relevant circles too late (unless you know exactly how to get the books fast and might exploit here or there) and neither of the faction really supports being a mage. So while it is technically possible to play a pure mage, I still think that the game doesn't really want you to do it. For the sake of immersion I prefer to play as - in-universe - logically as possible, so playing full mage feels "wrong" to me. Maybe I'll do it once we get the enhanced edition. I assumed that there will be no sequel. That's why I said the lore would benefit from it. There is still a lot of story potential. At one point I might also try a "speedrun" for the good ending.
@@Bundeskaiser Very true on the equipment front. It isn't so much that they don't want you to play as a mage, (because the developers find it immensely fun when players get creative with their builds), but rather the fact that they had to cut the mage path.As it would take way too much time to add, and would jeopardize the release of the mod. So they did the one sensible thing and opted only for two guilds. I imagine that it was difficult for them to do so. As even for them a mage path was probably an integral part of the Gothic experience.
Played and finished as a pure mage. 40% of all game content towards end was pain. Once 4 circle snd found rune waterfirst I think (AoE) made game unbelievably easy to play and was walk in a park. The most annoying thing : you use 1 or 2 spells for rest of a game, if u need to fight someone melee u are RIP. there's good staves. To grt early access to good one you need to bring to museum 50 i think or 100 old coind then u get access to msgicsl goods and u can buy very decent staff
The heavy feeling doesn't "build up", it pretty much punches you in the face right at the beginning. I don't like it, and it definitely is NOT the "gothic feel". Gothic was grim but always light hearted, Archolos is just depressing.
@@contecrusoe I don't like making speculations about the remake, but I do have hope for it. So far I've gotten the feeling that their attempt to recreate the feeling of the original is genuine and I'm cautiously optimistic that at least they probably won't completely butcher it.
I disagree. I had way too much fun with the game at any given time for the heavy feeling to sink in right away. In my case, it took some time for it to fully sink in.
i agree with you about the ending it fits we see through out the game how the ppl of the island hate the fact that myrtana invaded them so marvin becoming that big would turn ppl against him they don't want another stranger above them possibly ruling them as for the fain part you said it's a reference to divine divinity do you mean the part where 2 skeletons question their existence then just die ? about Yorn since it has been almost a year since i played this masterpiece the reason he had ties with the water mages was because of a neckless of his mother or something right ? she was a water mage if i remember correctly
Yes the ending was for me a nearly perfect fit. I mean Divine Divinity 2, where you can play as Fane, a walking, talking skeleton. I believe that there is nothing in the game of his mother being a water mage (it would be strange for her to be one, in such a patriarchal society as in Gothic,as i recall there are no women mages anywhere). No i think that Jorn was just recruited on Londram by the chapter of the Ring that resides there. So he actually didn't have any ties with the mages of Archolos.
Then there is a possible in-Game reason for Marvins drastic developement? The Potion from Bodowin potentially enabled Marvin to become stronger beyond his limits? Maybe he became a Mutant of sorts? Or is taking the potion purely optional (or can be postboned to a very late point in the game) ?
No, humans naturaly become that strong this fast when they actually try in Gothic world, makes sense when their natural enemy are orcs who are killing machines who can tear Shadobeasts with ease, and Marvin might simply be a prodigy
I really disagree with the ending. Yes, the theme of the game is much darker, much less forgiving and brutal. But in the same time - this completelly ignore the player and what he does. I played the game twice. Ones my Marvin was a greedy dick, former member of the Araxos (kicked out by Lorenzo) that ignore everything that coudn't give him a profit. Rich prick who killed Volker, left half of the city tu burn and steered all sort of trouble. The ending was very fitting for him. Other one however was almost a noble paladin. Member of the city watch, befriended by most of the guards, right hand of a Roderick. With good relations with both fire and water mages, coutless lives saved by him (in the final battle and on other ocasions), that fulfill his duty to the last dot. Being sentenced to colony was not just unfair or suprising - it felt dumb.
I don't see the ending as a direct consequence of what Marvin did, but rather as a result of the position he built for himself in the city and the obvious envy it produced. So regardless of what he actually did, there were people-important people-who wanted him gone, and the ending represents that. Yes, you could say that it ignores player freedom and choices to an extent, but it fits well within the story. There are not always just rewards for good deeds.
@@ltgchris693 Problem is - what "important people"? Game just spawn some random "important people" who were never there to hate Marvin for the sake of it. Completely stripping any power from the actual important peoples, like Roderyk and fire mages.
I think that they meant all the people in the old city, as all of them are important to some extent. Over time, resentment could build up, and most of the people who could vouch for Marvin were either unavailable or discredited in some way.
I recently replayed G1 & G2 before diving into this game last week (finally). I'm sadly a bit disappointed with its performance. Without DX11 its not smooth at all especially in Archolos. DX11 definitely helps but its still not perfect. The engine is simply buckling under the ambition of the modders. I want to call this my favorite "entry" in the series but its just not a very good experience. Fingers crossed that the "Mod of the Decade Edition" improves this.
I finished archolos game 2 times not that long ago. For me personally the game is very very good, but I could not say is perfect. There were things that were not good. For example if you play as a mage there's very little of choice for spells, support from NPC'S on such path, no robes etc. Circle 4 is max and although maxed up mage you are very op it lacks content and u prolly always use 1-2 spells for rest of the game. 2. Scripted deaths is no no for me. I had to load saves that were far back just because scripted deaths. For example if by entrance to pirate camp you say different thing or if you loot corpses in house on a cliff where Cassel is. There's noone around but you keep dying just because it is scripted. If they will introduce hardcore mode with perma death this thing only will make me no longer play this game. Because if you make this thing there must be a feeling you can preditc what might happen, your skill makes you to beat a game, not u die because of glitch of scripted outcome which you were not aware of or it happened because of poor technical issues ( like you jump to a clif u get below textures and die :D)... 3. Araxos guild I think would need some revamp because they have next to no quests and it doesn't give you any immersive feeling if you belong even to a guild. For city guards it was well done it felt finished, while Araxos gives you a feeling that it wasn't finished, was rushed and approved. Now you play and only few npc on specific quests recognise you belong to their guild, no friendlier interractions with runners or guild members even if you raise in ranks nothing changes. Ofc I would rate archolos 8/10 definately worth to play snd people eho never tried it, but loves gothic it is a must to play :). It made some things that gothic 2 missed out : Scroll-making, revamp of learning skills from books, more options to make gold by bringing trophies etc. Stats from consuming foods and cooking. What I liked the most was cooking where you can get perma stat from some foods. Because you plsy gothic u get like str thieving build. U mske all str potions theres no King sorrels snd u hsve 20+ goblin berries and u got only 1 option eat them raw. While in archolos you csn invest some cook 10 dishes with +3 dex increase and make +30 dex instead of 20 by eating raw plants. Archolos made it just perfect. Also it feels like Archolos was designed for a players that go 1 hand fighting. How defences of monsters works, how they hit you how animstions works. Because gameplay itself was very smooth very Gothic feel when I played 1 hand. 2 hand has clunky mechanics, reach means very little animations are slower it deadlocks moving combo very often.
I don't begrudge them for not including the path of the mage in game. As i much more prefere to have such a gem as Archolos without a mage, rather than not have it with it. As a mod team they had to divide and conquer, which is actually difficult to do. Most modders want to include as much stuff as they can, which most often leads to an half baked product, if it gets released at all. I don't have any problem with Araxos,as they are an enjoyable guild, although i will freely admit that the city watch is a way more interesting one. The crafting is great in this game and cooking is just top notch. Yeh the permanent consumables are a godsend, a fine addition. I do not agree that it's designed to be for a 1-H character, the 2-H style works very well too, and any faults with the fighting system go towards the base mechanics anyway. For me personally, reach was mighty important, when i had a better but shorter weapon (while using 1-H) i always didn't use it, i found that i get hit way more when my reach is short, so i stopped using weapons that are as short as a dagger.
The "find Jorn" storyline is beyond stupid. The guy is supposedly dying from a bloodfly sting and overall his 'kidnapping' makes ZERO sense. Why the hell would anyone go through that trouble? Where's the payoff for the kidnappers? It does its job but it also strains the suspension of disbelief to its breaking point.
That is actually one of the more fun elements. He was basically kidnapped and ultimately died only because he was part of the Water Ring, even though he knew nothing about Archolos politics. Volker was slighted in some way by the Water Ring or Water Mages, and he set out to root out the entire organization. It can be said that Jorn was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
@@ltgchris693 But it doesn't work as a motivation because of the false urgency. Remember that he was supposed to be dying of bloodfly venom; logically he would've been dead before Marvin could even get inside the damn city to start looking for him from the poison alone. Also if the goal was to kill him then a dagger in the neck would've done the job quite a bit easier than some elaborate kidnapping plan.
@@khatack There are probably some slow-acting poisons out there that will kill you in a matter of days or weeks rather than outright. So that is somewhat plausible. The one thing that one could poke holes into is the fact that the timer is quest-based, not day-based when it comes to the illness. It would seem that you can spend a year in the game as long as you do the right quests, and Jorn won't die. They didn't want to kill him... well, not outright. He was to be interrogated to give up other members of the ring, and if memory serves me right, there is even a note from his interrogation somewhere in the warehouse where you find him, or in Volker's home.
@@ltgchris693 would've worked a lot better if the whole "Jorn poisoned" storyline was removed. False urgency is the very basic mistake I see way too often in open world games.
Agreed, it would probably work better if Jorn was killed in Silbach and the rest of the game was spent finding his killers. There is still a drive for the main story, but not an urgent one.
@@lilsos6892 not really. archolos improved many technical aspects of the game to a point that wasnt even thought possible (nor needed) 22 years ago, and it's a huge part of why it's even comparable to the gothic II notr; it has greater storytelling, greater graphics, greater music, greater questlines, greater almost everything. but at the same time, all these things make it a worthy successor, an equally great game at best, but definitely just because something appears to be better in every single aspect, ultimately you can't directly compare these 2 games because they are 20 years apart. it would just be unfair to pick the ugliest modern game and say it has way better graphics than gothic, right? for that same exact reason, you cannot really count most of the technical upgrades to hold them against gothic II. you are left with things like storytelling, music and worldbuilding, which are all at least as good as the base game, many better- this is why i would say both games are technically pretty much equal- Archolos, G2notr and G1. Nostalgia still makes me love gothic II more, but nostalgia is irrelevant in this analysis. overall, Chronicles did what no other mod in history was able to and it deserves to be honoured in every possible way, no mod will accomplish this feat again, ever. this is the crown jewel of the entire history of modding communities in the past decades
I absolutely HATE house managing mechanics. I'm not playing games in order to pretend that I'm an interior decorator. Dollhouses are girls toys and have no place in real games. Let the chicks play sims, and keep this inane shit away from real games. both groups are happier that way. If there is to be player housing, at least let it be already furnished instead of another clunky minigame that brings you completely out of the experience instantly.
Looks like a decent mod to me but 100% nothing that can beat gothic 1 or 2. Absence of proper mage guilds/builds alone makes it worse imo. If u don't like it u don't have to join them but not having them in the first place is objectively worse
Not really. It was either to cut the guild or not to relese the mod. I know what i would choose. Plus, the content that is in game, trumps the lack of a mage guild.
Oh yeah I can def understand where they are coming from and don't want to diminish neither the quality nor the effort of the mod/creators. This is definitely something born out of love for gothic franchise and nothing wich is for sure appreciated in this day and age.Like u said the creators deserve all the praise in the world
Chronicles of Myrtana is the best gothic game ever made. Ofc other are awesome too but the level of details is higher than original gothic.
Gothic 1-3 were my childhood. I used to go to my friend to play gothic 2 at night. We were like 8-9 at that time.
We both had potato pc, we were noobs but we have fallen in love.
After 20 years for me Chronicles is like the extraction of what we had fallen in love (with some small upgrades).
As a Pole I am so gratefull to the team working for past 10 years to give us a FREE game (they still polish the game) of such high level of dedication for our passion.
I cant find good words to explain how proud I am.
You and me both :)
The Return of The ̶K̶i̶n̶g̶ Absolute Madman
Going back to Gothic I+II during the quarantine days & being fully immersed with the proper spiritual successor Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos was the first time that I've genuinely enjoyed playing games since 2015/16. Nostalgia (for simpler times)
ps Cheers from the Netherlands!
I thought that i would have a hard time getting into the mod. But it was so like the old Gothic that it instantly transported me to the old days of the first two games.I simply couldn't put it away.
Btw. great country :)
What this guy said, ten times over. Gaming took one good turn for the better with Kingdom Come : Deliverance and the Witcher games emulating successfully some fragments of a Gothic experience, then only their quest marker system got implemented by normie devs and everything went to shit from there on. Thank goodness for gems like Archolos.
Cheers from Serbia.
Spoilers for the end.
One thing I loved was the subversion of the super weapon that could defeat the big bad. When u hear of the Peacemaker u imagine it serves the same purpose as Uriziel in Gothic 1, but u soon learn that not only does it cause more problems than it fixes but that the sword isn’t even the weapon of Adanos, just a powerful magical sword that only Ulryk’s bloodline can use.
It also serves to make Kessel’s fate much more tragic.
Yes, true. I neglected to talk about that at the end, i didn't write it down at that time and it slipped my mind (i'm a bit bummed out about that).
It's funny how each of the people involved jumped to the conclusion that the artefact had to be the sword. As they were almost all warriors or fighters, the fact that it could be different never even crossed their mind. Only a water mage had the insight to look deeper into it.
Ps. See you've played Sonora. Great game.
It's incredible how much depth this game manages to hide in the woodwork that went completely over my head during the first playthrough. Wish there was more content like yours about the more nuanced workings of it.
I'm sure i missed a ton of stuff that is still in the game, expetialy the references.
@@ltgchris693 well you can meet a certain someone from marvins home in ch3 and he tells you about that murder case regarding your father. also in a way his uncle's speech about marvins father (being the best in everything) is a nice foreshadowing why Jorn dies if you take your time that is... and then of course marvin's inner darkness (the violent choices he can make).
As a old, German Gothic fan I think there's no other game series that brings Polish, German & even Russian gamers together like Gothic. I talked with Polish friends about Gothic for hours. How we all loved the first two games and some of the amazing mods (like Archolos) and how we hated almost all that came after, always hoping for PB to return to their roots. In many aspects I feel Archolos is better than the first two games, but they will still hold a eternal first place in my gamer memory.
Вы правы! Все любят Готику! :) There's something about Gothic that brings us (Eastern) Europeans together..
Myślę, że większość z nas ma podobne przemyślenia :D
It's fascinating how Gothic became a unifying platform for many European nations, especially those from Central Europe. To this day, I still remember how impatient I was to play Night of the Raven, so I got my brother to buy it in Germany and played it in that language for the first time.
Even in this comment section, there's a broad representation from across the European continent.
i am not sure if anyone wrote that already but if you rush into city skipping all the other quests it is POSIBLE to actualy save marvin brother , ending marvin adventure at act 3
also, there is 5 magic circles , and archolos makes mage actualy pleasant to play as you can get a set of rings and neckles that each gives you % mana regen and even more if you colect all of it (also t 4 and 5 magic circle give mana regen)
I mentioned saving Jorn in the video.
Are there really 5 magic circles? I was under the impression that there were only 4, which is the maximum Marvin can learn. Unless I missed something.
Regarding the mage set, it's a very fun way to play, although I feel it becomes available a bit too late in the game.
So by fully engaging/ not engaging in the search of Jorn, Archolos creates it´s own litte "Spec Ops: The Line" momentum.
Pretty much, yeah.
You can be a hero or you can achive what Marvin wants. Save the world or save one man @@ltgchris693. A broader experience at the expense (and antithesis) to a limited but more personal related success. But in the end, both outcome enhance the immersion towards Marvins as a character.
I just found your channel & I'm thoroughly obsessed. Long form videos are my hyper fixation (& has been for a few years now) so when I find a new channel? It's like Christmas 😅
You are really talented, entertaining and enjoyable to watch/listen to.
I look forward to watching your channel continue to grow bc you deserve it ❤
Thank you very much :)
@@ltgchris693 no problem, thank _you_ for your amazing content.
You wouldn't ever consider making Skyrim or fallout videos, would you? 👀
I think that both of them are a possibility. Although Fallout is likely, truth be told both of them are. For now it will be the commandos series, when it comes to RPG's i think Torment will be on the roster somewhere this year.
Thanks for this video, great plot summary and game review
Thank you for watching
*So from what I could see, the story and many characters are much better writen then in the original Gothic 1* (Archolos is far more interlinked until the end) *and Gothic II* (G2 took minimalistic approach to mainstory and only some explicitly- and implicitly-multilayered Characters, but Archolos had EXPLICITLY multilayered quest and characters as a base concept).
*The developers of Archolos had the advantage of hindsight and were priviliged to implement a lot of inspiration from other RPG´s* (The Witcher 1, 2, 3; Dark Souls for Boss fights, Dragon Age Origins). What a bitter ironie, that the sword of Addanos, the God of Balance, ultimately breaks the stalemate between both rivaling factions and enables chaos and death. I think, by creating a "Artifact of Adanos" the developers fundamentally contradict and subvert the idea of Addanos. They took to much liberty with that one imO. The abundance of unique assets (Armors, Weapons, the frozen Govenor, Monsters) makes this addon also exceptional. The german voice-actors are by far not as good as in the polish version.
I do not agree about the artefact part.As it would seem that the real artefact are the scales that they brought back from Vardhal, not the sword. I rather prefer to think that the sword was a powerful artefact notconnected to Adanos that much which happens to have an ice effect on it.
It's just the case that, everyone around, wanted the artefact to be a sword, as almost all of the people that came in contact with it were fighters, out for revenge. It was a matter of course for a fighter that the artefact has to be a weapon. Rather than the more logical answer of it being the scales, as Adanos is the god of balance.
What are the "scales from Vardhal"@@ltgchris693 ?
Marvin and Kessel found scales together with the sword in Vardhal. Later on in the monastery the Water Mages summarized, that the scales are the real artifact of Adanos not the sword.
So the full story about the artifact is (according to Ingolf) - the Wolf Son's had 2 artifact's in their posession: an old scale that can show the true worth of items, and the ice sword. The first chronicles of Archolos said "Rodowe Ostrze i Rozjemca" - Ancestral Sword and Rozjemca (it's a name, so no translation for it). But one of the later translations got rid of the word "i" which means "and" in Polish, falsily merging the sword and the scale into the same thing.
@@ASpecialGuest So a translation error. Whoever found the Chronicles must have used chat gpd for translating and transcribing
Man, this is the single best vid about Archolos I've seen so far on youtube, great work! You earned yourself a new sub, keep up the great work! :)
Why, thank you :)
I was waiting for someone to cover this game. Thank you! :) (i was thinking about doing it myself, but I lacked the time, also my channel is not about game reviews). I am planning one (about Gothic 1) but from a game design perspective, which is a bit different. Subscribed!
my favourite aspect of this was how they used the old gothic engine and generaly kept to the same formula but expanded on it heavily i think i found it just a couple of days after it released and the game was a blast to play from start to finish , its basicaly gothic 2 on steroids and i loved the little nods to gothic 1 , for example like that 1 kid that always climbs up on some trees around some big farm , the kid get sent to the colony and is the same guy who built his hut in the wrong area so it has two doors (i forgot his name but you know him if you play gothic 1)
Great video essay. And great mod/game.
I've spent 100 hours on Archolos and I've loved every minute. You're absolutely right about heavy atmosphere.
I do not agree on the ending though - it was weak. We should land in the colony for something we did in the game. Also from the beginning it was teased that Marvin killed his father - maybe this would be a good reason (and great reveal) to arrest him. This whole "oh, people were just jelous so sent him to colony" felt rushed and lazy.
Hmmm, i do agree that that would be probably better, although i still would like something that we as the player did, that landed him in trouble. But i still think that this outcome for Marvin was a given. Taking into account how the whole of Archolos was treating him up until the end.
I really enjoyed this video. Thanks brother!
Nice long form review of one of my all time favorite mods, didn't think i would see a review like this about the game in english.
Didn't know that the creepy guy with a dagger was actually an enemy within the game because i didn't encounter em and the other human figure at the endgame in my 111 hour game time
Well, english is the language that most people know, so i figured that is the best way to reach a broader audience.
Yeah the guy is there, although it is a random encounter, as i also didn't find him on my first playthrough.
And if you wear the "blessing of Innos" or "grace of Innos" (i don't know how it is translated) you won't find him, because the ring blocks such "evil" things from happening.
Very good content,brother.Keep it up.
Actually i am working on just that :)
Wow. Didn´t see that coming. Never played but am eager to hear your Review!
If you like Gothic, this is a "must have", and it's free.
It's an incredible game, I played it 2 times now. At the release, and after a year. I think I will return to it when The Mod of Decade edition is released.
Your commitment into showing us perks, quirks, and like my fellow commenter said - the depth of this game is outstanding. I have enjoyed it for the whole video, but is very long material, when 2.0 is released, please create 20-30 minutes material titled "Why this MOD receives MOD OF DECADE title", it will better hit algorithm. Your narrative is great, fight man. You deserve it and good luck mate 🇵🇱
Thanks.
And out of curiosity, why do you think that it would be better for the algorithm? Because I definitely want to take a look at it once it's out.
@@ltgchris693 I mean, your pronunciation is good, and your storytelling is on good level. You will definitely attract people from abroad to your channel. In this particular video the problem is that you're not using English subtitles whth I would greatly anticipate although I understand them completely. What I find in similar small channels (not necessarily Gothic related, but I like Gothic channels, especially not in Polish as I have enough of them here) is they couldn't catch a grip without saying the story. Long gameplays, deep analysys. I find it interesting watching this particular game as like explaining places in playthroughs, I didn't explore this mod so deeply - that why it was fun to watch for me. But people are getting less attention span, and people like narrative, catchy titles and great thumbnails. I mean, I just watch a lot of UA-cam and didn't stumble upon a channel where hour deep gameplays work anymore outside of person interest. Like I said before, your storytelling is good, just try make shorter videos with catchy content. Also, you have included here SO MUCH material for shorts, you can easily bump your UA-cam stats by doing short from the movies you have created. A lot you can do with this mod, but also with other games presented on this channel. You know men, attention span is decreasing, people like storytelling about games. I mean, I wish you luck from the bottom of my heart, but the reality is it is very hard to invest 1h in into watching it without certain hype, it's better to watch them separately like a stories, then shorter videos, and them person is skinking. As you see, I don't use youtube and last public video I have uploaded in 2012 so you can skip my advice, or you can make content that people can watch on tv, during quick lanch :) Brand is everything my friend, look of the face is also highly appreciated on youtube, and in this days you can cover your face in some really fancy thingy, the imagination is your barrier! Good luck mate, I though about this particular problem for a long time, I have also thought about making this channel, but making videos based on playing games is not my thing, and it never be, I like playing games in a certain way :)
Promo, promo, and more promo man
That's the point: I don't really know how to promote my channel. But thanks for the tips; I will think about them.
Nice and coherent video! I started watching it, stopped, finished the mod and then finished the video to not get spoiled lol.
That was the right call, they did a pretty decent job with the story, it is well worth exploring on your own.
Every time anyone ask me: What game would you like to forget everything about a play it again, my answer was always gothic. And in a way, this is exacly what this "mod" meant for me.
Once again i could spend 10s of hours roaming and exploring new land and enjoy new stories. I return back in time when i was a kid, when everything was more simple and all i cared was getting home from school, so i can play gothic again. Quality of this mod is insane to the point where if you told me its official game, i would have no doubt at all. I love everything about this game. Only con i have is not be able to join Water mages. Even tho im not polish, as a czech i could understand good part of voice acting and know how freaking good it is. This is definetly one of the best mods ever created for any game. Out of my head i can only think of Enderal which is on the same level of insanity. This mod is exacly what we needed in this time of trash, half broken game releases. This project shows how great stories we can create when we create it out of love for this media. Im super grateful for anyone how worked on this project and hope they will stay in this industry in years to come.
They will probably stay in the industry. But we will likely not see such a mod from them ever again,maybe someone else will step up. Although i understand hat Gothic is notoriously difficult to mod.
The mod was so good I felt obligated to donate them money. It's insane that a project this large is free, it must've cost them quite a bit of cash and time to make it happen.
One game I will recommend is Drakan: Order of the Flame. It feels similar to Gothic, but with much better controls. Imagine Lara croft but with magic and you get to fly a dragon that controls similar to an airplane and helicopter at the same time. Downside is that its not on Steam and it's kind of hard to get since there has never been a PC port, even the PS2 only sequel. The franchise is in copyright hell and it seems that Sony owns it now and isnt doing anything to the games.
You play it in polish, you say you understand voice acting (in polish) which means you are either polish or insane xD . Great review of awesome game. Thank you.
Quite true :)
I'm from Czechia and when I was younger I watched a lot of Wagon streams (bcs i really liked gothic and there really isn't that many czech streamers that stream the game that much) and when this mode came out I noticed that I really can underestand a lot of the Polish stuff, because majority of the words are really similar in both languages.
this Mod is a Masterpiece it's better than actual AAA games
I second that.
even comparing it to AAA crap is a disgrace, it's like black and white, the great and the horrible, at one spectrum you have the best game possible made non-profit by fans, which deserves to be a guinness record in itself, a game with decades worth of replayability and possibly its own modding community in the future, all of that for FREE. at the other spectrum you have these moloch corporations that specialize in wasting money and making horrible stuff even more horrible. being professional at worsening things that are already bad is probably the only real skill their teams possess. any comparison feels unfair
Archolos is easily one of these mods that calling a mod just... doesnt do it justice. Its a full new game that can stand on its own and even surpass the games its based on at times.
So very true. It has way more quality content then even the first to Gothic games.
Very well said, the game was amazing and should be incorporated into the Gothic Universe pack. 😁 A lot of work was put into this video and it shows, great job, I enjoyed it a lot.
Yeah, that whole orc siege around the castle thing wasn't handled very well in G2. I too wish that by clearing out the orcs both from around the castle and from the pass, I could've allowed the Paladins to actually escape the valley and set up fortifications at the pass to keep the Orcs from reaching Khorinis proper.
18:25 if i remember correctly after you go to city, you can go straight away to the place where your brother is held, if you remember location right. Script should start working when you enter the city for first time. I may be wrong however, never tried that, but i saw others do it
Do you have a video of that? Because i don't know what the triggers are.
@@ltgchris693 it was long ago, i will look into it after job. All it was show its that he go straight to that warehouse and proceed to do usual. When i find vid i post here
ua-cam.com/video/Pxtu9SmaFd4/v-deo.html
Alright, you can trigger a script, however, aperantly crashes it when you do so. I didnt check myself because im away from my computer so i cant verify if Crash is all the times
@@ProdukcjaFilmowaNo3d It would seem, that he has the quests that pertain to Volker, so either he is using cheats, or is farther along the main story then just arriving in the city.
i got into gothic maybe 1-2 years ago starting with 1 then 2 base then notr and then archolos, each better and better then the last, i bought and tried gothic 3 but couldnt put more then an hour into it, archolos is basically gothic 3 for me xD
It's nice to see that new people still find this game, it's well worth it.
And i totally get what you mean about gothic 3.
i had so much fun with Returning. i had even more fun with Odyssey, to the point it made me want it to be extended with 2.0, 3.0 expansions indefinitely. but Chronicles of Myrtana was just so good, that i don't even want this, i wish they could start working on Chronicles of Myrtana 2 asap
This is probably what most people think who played this story. To bad that this and maybe the Enhanced Edition, is all we will get.
But still, i am very grateful for this grand game they have made.
@@ltgchris693 not really. i think i'll gather a team to add new content to Odyssei 2.0, so maybe something similar could be done to Archolos 2. At last, it's fans who gather to make such things come true
and i think that raising 1 million USD would be enough of a motivation, and another 1 million during the project
@@Xardasflynn657 Yeah, maybe. But from what i remember they did it entirely non profit. Except the video department, that they did accept donations for.
Don't get me wrong. I would love Archolos 2 or for someone to finish the History of Khorinis.
@@ltgchris693 history of Khorinis is unfortunately dead, Chronicles killed it. I'm polish so i can explain it to you- they used to be a single team, then the split happened due to internal conflicts and different visions. It was a race to who will make it first, but not only Chronicles are already 3 years ahead, most likely they will be 8 years ahead when the other one comes out. History Of Khorinis uses the same map, and they can''t outdo the RPG mod of a decade, so it makes no sense to waste another 5 years working for free just to make a significantly worse version of the same world. Their only chance is to make a map anew, but it will take another 5-7 years so no point in waiting for that, because Chronicles of Myrtana 2.0 and Archolos 2 will be out at this point. They are done and nothing could be done to save the project, Chronicles were just unbeatable and they know they are at horrific disadvantage
So yeah, i'd love to see Archolos 2.0 and maybe 3.0, like real DLC level stuff, or just Archolos 2 since it does it's job as a standalone game, taking place either during the first formative years of a colony (taking over the colony and advancing to become a Scar), or a pre-prequel about Marvin's life on Londram, his childhood and events that happened there, or maybe even Scars escape from the colony 10 years later and going to the continent, which would give the opportunity of Showing the continent properly, with places like western Varant (canyons), northern Varant (swamps), Northern Nordmar (Orcish homeland), Western Nordmar (Isengard, the land of glaciers and crevasses, where 1 of the 4 Beliar Temples reside), Myrtana Highlands where the Unknown Lands Lie and perhaps giant steppes further towards the unknown lands, which is 6 new lands, and maybe 7 with a surprise land on the north-west part of the continent, giving 10 instead of 3 lands and making the continent 3 times as big, making it feel like a real continent sorrounded with oceans. You could finally have an orc-homeland, the wanderers and Adanos believers homeland, the more barren and wild part of Myrtana, a homeland for Lizard People, a homeland for Dragons and Demons and maybe a nomadic step of with a new races, wild and dangerous.
You could always add access to all 4 Beliar Temples, situated in the far north volcanic mountain-steppes, the barren part of Orcish Land and somewhere in the far western Varant. Possibilities are endless, and Odyssei 2.0 already showed that it is possible and it's extremely cool to extend the world not by 50%, but by 300%, if done properly. A mod like Odyssei 2.0 with quality of Chronicles of Myrtana is worth any amount of donations, and i'm sure they will make the right decision depending on their time and financial budget. It's really fun when you've just hit level 150 after 200-300 hours with 6.000.000 xp, and are still progressing the story and upgrading your character. We really need to see more of this universum, and the fans are our only hope- imagine what could they do with millions instead budget equal to 0
I know the story, i too am polish :)
I still don't see such a mod being made, although i wholeheartedly wish that it will. The Gothic world has still way more to offer. All these things you wrote about in the last paragraph i would love to see. Especially after what Gothic 3 did with that, which is to mean, not a whole lot.
Archolos feels frustrating for not having a magician path possibility. When I found out there was a whole Adanos monastery I decided to be a water mage, only to find out there were only 2 guilds, both not very interesting.
I disagree that the available guilds are uninteresting, they both have their highlights, although the city watch is a bit more engaging.
As to the mage path, magic is still available. And i rather they released the mod without the mage, rather than not release it with it.
@@ltgchris693 So do I. I am glad they did, it's still better than all Risen games for sure. But I got frustrated by the missed potential. Magic is weird, with no system and some itens to scale damage.
@@profhenriqueTrue, anything for a mage is hard to come by. Although it is promising that they intend to remedy that in the enhanced edition.
The only way to scale damage that i know of is drinking the perma-potions, +5 to damage if i remember correctly.
Regarding the swamp: this never happened for me. Maybe not enough time passed? But I have been there only once anyway. And I didn't really explore the swamp, so maybe there's a hidden trigger that I missed?
Overall, I agree. This mod is better than all Gothic games imho. I really enjoyed it. The only playstyle that's not enjoyable is Mage. Basically no equipment for Mages, no Mage faction to join and the Magic Circles are really hard to learn. I wanted my next run to be a Mage run. But on 2nd thought I think it might be better to become Warrior with some additional magic as a fallback option instead of a ranged weapon (so basically Paladin style). While I like that the game finally allows you a decent Hunter build/playstyle, it doesn't support Mages at all (mostly).
Also, in the end the story became a bit messy and I didn't fully understand why some people acted how they did. Maybe I missed some bits of lore in the books?
But other than that, it is a phenomenal mod.
I was not scared by the part of the swamp that lead to the Pirate base.
But I was unbelievably scared by the Sewers. I only went there when I had to and when I was really strong.
So in order to get the best possible ending you can only do the main quests (or is there a guide what quests you are allowed to do in order to get this ending)? Are you even strong enough to do the Minecrawler mine then? As far as I remember it was quite hard, especially the royal Minecrawlers were a pain. However. While I think it is a clever idea, I still have mixed feelings about it. Knowing that, it basically means you feel guilty when you don't want to skip large parts of the game and party of the amazing story - going against all intuition.
Marvin is Scar? Really? I never got this connection, maybe because I didn't realize that the other guy he gets imprisoned with is Gomez (for some reason, I thought that it is Diego). But I agree, I love the ending too, even when it really touched me emotionally. Or maybe exactly because of it. But this is a bit shocking. I mean, we don't know much about Scar. But from what we see they don't seem to be the same character regarding their personality. I think this game would really benefit from a sequel that explains how they rose to power and why Marvin became that unrelatable jerk.
I too don't really know what the trigger is. Perhaps simply, the passage of time.
There is some equipment for mages. Although the one that gives passive mana regen is a must for a mage, but no robes and no weapons. I myself like the method of learning magic circles, it was tons of fun, finding the required tomes. It is viable to play as a pure magic character, i did a run once, but it turned out to by way too easy.
With the swamps i meant, that rather than fear it was the feeling of impending danger that was omnipresent.
Sadly there will be no sequel to this mod, or any other follow up for that matter.I am just glad that the enhanced edition will come out.
@@ltgchris693 I know that there is some equipment for Mages. But neither robes nor staffs. For me, this feels very "un-mage". Also I think that you get access to the relevant circles too late (unless you know exactly how to get the books fast and might exploit here or there) and neither of the faction really supports being a mage. So while it is technically possible to play a pure mage, I still think that the game doesn't really want you to do it. For the sake of immersion I prefer to play as - in-universe - logically as possible, so playing full mage feels "wrong" to me. Maybe I'll do it once we get the enhanced edition.
I assumed that there will be no sequel. That's why I said the lore would benefit from it. There is still a lot of story potential.
At one point I might also try a "speedrun" for the good ending.
@@Bundeskaiser Very true on the equipment front.
It isn't so much that they don't want you to play as a mage, (because the developers find it immensely fun when players get creative with their builds), but rather the fact that they had to cut the mage path.As it would take way too much time to add,
and would jeopardize the release of the mod. So they did the one sensible thing
and opted only for two guilds.
I imagine that it was difficult for them to do so. As even for them a mage path was probably an integral part of the Gothic experience.
Played and finished as a pure mage. 40% of all game content towards end was pain. Once 4 circle snd found rune waterfirst I think (AoE) made game unbelievably easy to play and was walk in a park. The most annoying thing : you use 1 or 2 spells for rest of a game, if u need to fight someone melee u are RIP. there's good staves. To grt early access to good one you need to bring to museum 50 i think or 100 old coind then u get access to msgicsl goods and u can buy very decent staff
The heavy feeling doesn't "build up", it pretty much punches you in the face right at the beginning. I don't like it, and it definitely is NOT the "gothic feel". Gothic was grim but always light hearted, Archolos is just depressing.
I had the same feeling. Especially the end was way too grim.
It is something that I think they will also not understand in the remake
@@contecrusoe I don't like making speculations about the remake, but I do have hope for it. So far I've gotten the feeling that their attempt to recreate the feeling of the original is genuine and I'm cautiously optimistic that at least they probably won't completely butcher it.
I disagree. I had way too much fun with the game at any given time for the heavy feeling to sink in right away.
In my case, it took some time for it to fully sink in.
@@ltgchris693 You must've been ravenous for Gothic then.
@@khatack The funny thing is, I didn’t even realize it until I was about 1-2 hours into Archolos. After that, I was completely hooked
i agree with you about the ending it fits we see through out the game how the ppl of the island hate the fact that myrtana invaded them so marvin becoming that big would turn ppl against him they don't want another stranger above them possibly ruling them
as for the fain part you said it's a reference to divine divinity do you mean the part where 2 skeletons question their existence then just die ?
about Yorn since it has been almost a year since i played this masterpiece the reason he had ties with the water mages was because of a neckless of his mother or something right ? she was a water mage if i remember correctly
Yes the ending was for me a nearly perfect fit.
I mean Divine Divinity 2, where you can play as Fane, a walking, talking skeleton.
I believe that there is nothing in the game of his mother being a water mage (it would be strange for her to be one, in such a patriarchal society as in Gothic,as i recall there are no women mages anywhere). No i think that Jorn was just recruited on Londram by the chapter of the Ring that resides there. So he actually didn't have any ties with the mages of Archolos.
the only word I learn about the voices: oh, cholera
Oh, damn ;)
Then there is a possible in-Game reason for Marvins drastic developement? The Potion from Bodowin potentially enabled Marvin to become stronger beyond his limits? Maybe he became a Mutant of sorts? Or is taking the potion purely optional (or can be postboned to a very late point in the game) ?
I think it is possible to decline taking the potion, it will probably cause the elixir for Born to be a bit more expensive.
No, humans naturaly become that strong this fast when they actually try in Gothic world, makes sense when their natural enemy are orcs who are killing machines who can tear Shadobeasts with ease, and Marvin might simply be a prodigy
@@CainDB That´s a good explanation.
I really disagree with the ending. Yes, the theme of the game is much darker, much less forgiving and brutal. But in the same time - this completelly ignore the player and what he does.
I played the game twice. Ones my Marvin was a greedy dick, former member of the Araxos (kicked out by Lorenzo) that ignore everything that coudn't give him a profit. Rich prick who killed Volker, left half of the city tu burn and steered all sort of trouble. The ending was very fitting for him.
Other one however was almost a noble paladin. Member of the city watch, befriended by most of the guards, right hand of a Roderick. With good relations with both fire and water mages, coutless lives saved by him (in the final battle and on other ocasions), that fulfill his duty to the last dot. Being sentenced to colony was not just unfair or suprising - it felt dumb.
I don't see the ending as a direct consequence of what Marvin did, but rather as a result of the position he built for himself in the city and the obvious envy it produced. So regardless of what he actually did, there were people-important people-who wanted him gone, and the ending represents that. Yes, you could say that it ignores player freedom and choices to an extent, but it fits well within the story. There are not always just rewards for good deeds.
@@ltgchris693 Problem is - what "important people"? Game just spawn some random "important people" who were never there to hate Marvin for the sake of it. Completely stripping any power from the actual important peoples, like Roderyk and fire mages.
I think that they meant all the people in the old city, as all of them are important to some extent. Over time, resentment could build up, and most of the people who could vouch for Marvin were either unavailable or discredited in some way.
⭐️
You need to increase the brightness a bit
I disagree 100% about the sleeper temple. I wouldn't have minded if it was even larger and spread out even more throughout the chapters.
I recently replayed G1 & G2 before diving into this game last week (finally). I'm sadly a bit disappointed with its performance. Without DX11 its not smooth at all especially in Archolos. DX11 definitely helps but its still not perfect. The engine is simply buckling under the ambition of the modders. I want to call this my favorite "entry" in the series but its just not a very good experience. Fingers crossed that the "Mod of the Decade Edition" improves this.
A bit weird, for me it was running smoothly all the way through.
interesting i found out about this game today ha
so Marvin is the nameless hero from Gothic 1 and 2?
No, the namless hero is a difrent character.
SPOILER!
Marvin is Scar from Gothic 1.
I finished archolos game 2 times not that long ago. For me personally the game is very very good, but I could not say is perfect. There were things that were not good. For example if you play as a mage there's very little of choice for spells, support from NPC'S on such path, no robes etc. Circle 4 is max and although maxed up mage you are very op it lacks content and u prolly always use 1-2 spells for rest of the game. 2. Scripted deaths is no no for me. I had to load saves that were far back just because scripted deaths. For example if by entrance to pirate camp you say different thing or if you loot corpses in house on a cliff where Cassel is. There's noone around but you keep dying just because it is scripted. If they will introduce hardcore mode with perma death this thing only will make me no longer play this game. Because if you make this thing there must be a feeling you can preditc what might happen, your skill makes you to beat a game, not u die because of glitch of scripted outcome which you were not aware of or it happened because of poor technical issues ( like you jump to a clif u get below textures and die :D)... 3. Araxos guild I think would need some revamp because they have next to no quests and it doesn't give you any immersive feeling if you belong even to a guild. For city guards it was well done it felt finished, while Araxos gives you a feeling that it wasn't finished, was rushed and approved. Now you play and only few npc on specific quests recognise you belong to their guild, no friendlier interractions with runners or guild members even if you raise in ranks nothing changes. Ofc I would rate archolos 8/10 definately worth to play snd people eho never tried it, but loves gothic it is a must to play :). It made some things that gothic 2 missed out : Scroll-making, revamp of learning skills from books, more options to make gold by bringing trophies etc. Stats from consuming foods and cooking. What I liked the most was cooking where you can get perma stat from some foods. Because you plsy gothic u get like str thieving build. U mske all str potions theres no King sorrels snd u hsve 20+ goblin berries and u got only 1 option eat them raw. While in archolos you csn invest some cook 10 dishes with +3 dex increase and make +30 dex instead of 20 by eating raw plants. Archolos made it just perfect. Also it feels like Archolos was designed for a players that go 1 hand fighting. How defences of monsters works, how they hit you how animstions works. Because gameplay itself was very smooth very Gothic feel when I played 1 hand. 2 hand has clunky mechanics, reach means very little animations are slower it deadlocks moving combo very often.
I don't begrudge them for not including the path of the mage in game. As i much more prefere to have such a gem as Archolos without a mage, rather than not have it with it. As a mod team they had to divide and conquer, which is actually difficult to do. Most modders want to include as much stuff as they can, which most often leads to an half baked product, if it gets released at all.
I don't have any problem with Araxos,as they are an enjoyable guild, although i will freely admit that the city watch is a way more interesting one.
The crafting is great in this game and cooking is just top notch. Yeh the permanent consumables are a godsend, a fine addition.
I do not agree that it's designed to be for a 1-H character, the 2-H style works very well too, and any faults with the fighting system go towards the base mechanics anyway. For me personally, reach was mighty important, when i had a better but shorter weapon (while using 1-H) i always didn't use it, i found that i get hit way more when my reach is short, so i stopped using weapons that are as short as a dagger.
Gottick
The "find Jorn" storyline is beyond stupid. The guy is supposedly dying from a bloodfly sting and overall his 'kidnapping' makes ZERO sense. Why the hell would anyone go through that trouble? Where's the payoff for the kidnappers? It does its job but it also strains the suspension of disbelief to its breaking point.
That is actually one of the more fun elements. He was basically kidnapped and ultimately died only because he was part of the Water Ring, even though he knew nothing about Archolos politics.
Volker was slighted in some way by the Water Ring or Water Mages, and he set out to root out the entire organization. It can be said that Jorn was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
@@ltgchris693 But it doesn't work as a motivation because of the false urgency. Remember that he was supposed to be dying of bloodfly venom; logically he would've been dead before Marvin could even get inside the damn city to start looking for him from the poison alone. Also if the goal was to kill him then a dagger in the neck would've done the job quite a bit easier than some elaborate kidnapping plan.
@@khatack
There are probably some slow-acting poisons out there that will kill you in a matter of days or weeks rather than outright. So that is somewhat plausible. The one thing that one could poke holes into is the fact that the timer is quest-based, not day-based when it comes to the illness. It would seem that you can spend a year in the game as long as you do the right quests, and Jorn won't die.
They didn't want to kill him... well, not outright. He was to be interrogated to give up other members of the ring, and if memory serves me right, there is even a note from his interrogation somewhere in the warehouse where you find him, or in Volker's home.
@@ltgchris693 would've worked a lot better if the whole "Jorn poisoned" storyline was removed. False urgency is the very basic mistake I see way too often in open world games.
Agreed, it would probably work better if Jorn was killed in Silbach and the rest of the game was spent finding his killers. There is still a drive for the main story, but not an urgent one.
Archolos made Gothic 2 unplayable for me
I understand how you feel :)
youre crazy, gothic 2 is still number 1, not even close. The mod is amazingly done but not enough to take the 1st spot.
@@velmanskiu kidding, right?
@@velmanski😂
@@lilsos6892 not really. archolos improved many technical aspects of the game to a point that wasnt even thought possible (nor needed) 22 years ago, and it's a huge part of why it's even comparable to the gothic II notr; it has greater storytelling, greater graphics, greater music, greater questlines, greater almost everything. but at the same time, all these things make it a worthy successor, an equally great game at best, but definitely just because something appears to be better in every single aspect, ultimately you can't directly compare these 2 games because they are 20 years apart. it would just be unfair to pick the ugliest modern game and say it has way better graphics than gothic, right? for that same exact reason, you cannot really count most of the technical upgrades to hold them against gothic II. you are left with things like storytelling, music and worldbuilding, which are all at least as good as the base game, many better- this is why i would say both games are technically pretty much equal- Archolos, G2notr and G1. Nostalgia still makes me love gothic II more, but nostalgia is irrelevant in this analysis. overall, Chronicles did what no other mod in history was able to and it deserves to be honoured in every possible way, no mod will accomplish this feat again, ever. this is the crown jewel of the entire history of modding communities in the past decades
I absolutely HATE house managing mechanics. I'm not playing games in order to pretend that I'm an interior decorator. Dollhouses are girls toys and have no place in real games. Let the chicks play sims, and keep this inane shit away from real games. both groups are happier that way. If there is to be player housing, at least let it be already furnished instead of another clunky minigame that brings you completely out of the experience instantly.
And that is fine. If you don't like it, you can skip it entirely. You don't have to bother with player housing at all in Archolos.
Looks like a decent mod to me but 100% nothing that can beat gothic 1 or 2. Absence of proper mage guilds/builds alone makes it worse imo. If u don't like it u don't have to join them but not having them in the first place is objectively worse
Not really. It was either to cut the guild or not to relese the mod. I know what i would choose. Plus, the content that is in game, trumps the lack of a mage guild.
Oh yeah I can def understand where they are coming from and don't want to diminish neither the quality nor the effort of the mod/creators. This is definitely something born out of love for gothic franchise and nothing wich is for sure appreciated in this day and age.Like u said the creators deserve all the praise in the world
You don't have to understand the language in order to appreciate quality voice acting. Why do you think everyone plays Sekiro in Japanese?
True, but it makes the experience that more engaging.
now if they could just make the game run at a framerate from this century I will be happy.
? My PC is from 2014 and even back then my Graphics Card wasn't the best on the market. I have constant 50-70 fps WITH Graphics Mods.