@@rudolfgernd8760 one for each mine, one for the ork graveyard, one for the temple, did I miss any? Doing it from the top of my head haven't played gothic in a long while.
What I really loved about Gothic and what very few RPG's do is that it ties in progression to the world and story in such an organic way. The way you join up a camp and learn their styles etc. You start to identify a certain way. It's so rare to see that these days.
@@DMartinovNot just that. How NPC's act with you. For example when you first arrive to the old camp NPC's just acts like you are not even a human being. Even the new camp with lefty. You bring water to the rice field workers or get beaten up. And as you progress they just start respecting you. Gate guard to the inner yard,bloodwynd,Jackal even congratulates to you when you reach the Guard rank. This game achieved that a lot of modern games lack. Making its world just like its alive and actually making sense. Not even a single question like "How these people survive without any food source",but "Ohh sect camp sells swampweed and buys resources with that money"
What makes this game such an unforgetable experience is that it's just so real. For example: There is a moment, when you enter a camp for the first few times, where someone approaches you and asks if you dont wanna pay him some protection money, since your new. If you decide to say no, almost a week later, a guy in a hurry asks you for help. Well, he lures you to a group of guys and says that you should rather have paid that protection money with a nice reminder message. That moment and many more of those sort just arent in rpg's anymore, a truely awesome experience. And since im german, i just gotta say it, the dialogues are just legendary, they're written in a true natural way, as if we are just talking in a rough tone, but perfect for the setting. Truly a masterpiece from my childhood ^^
I think one of my favorite mechanics is how respawns work. Instead of creatures respawning over a period of time, it instead adds new creatures every chapter. So you can theoretically clear the entire world of creatures in chapter 1 and then run around in a monster free world until you trigger chapter 2... And then in chapter 2, clear out all the new monsters and run around in a monster free world until chapter 3, etc, etc. This also means that there actually is a set max amount of XP that could possibly be attained in the game as once you've reached the last chapter, if you've done all the quests and killed all the creatures and NPC's you could, there's nothing more you could do in the game to earn more xp. Pretty sure there are people who have figured out the max amount of xp you can get in this game but I'm not one of them.
I've only played the German original, I don't know how good the translated versions are. But in German, this games dialogue is iconic and unparalleled. The characters just feel real, there is no construction.
When I was 15 or 16 (2003 or 2004) a friend burned me a CD with Gothic. Before that I mostly played sports games, Point and Click Adventures and Action Titles (GTA III). This game truly changed my perception of Video games as a medium. I never thought that you could even program something as complex as this. Being able to speak to every person, go wherever you like, truly interact with the world. It was soooo much ahead of its time. To this day there is no game quite like it (and its sequel). Risen 1 is the closest. I didn't enjoy Elex at all, it was such a chore to progress. What makes me really sad is that the vast majority of RPG studios don't even attempt to create something like Gothic. You get to know the Colony so intimatelly, are able to find navigate without even using the map within a very short amount of time. While most RPGs tell you to go there kill X go back get reward. Equip boring item Number 375 because it does 0,7 percent more damage. Sell bunsh of shit you collected... REPEAT OVER AND OVER AND OVER!
I want to add, that even though I had an illegal copy of Gothic, I bought this game 4 times in my life. I own it both on GOG and Steam, I own a box with G1+G2+G3+Addons, and I own another copy of G1 because the CD that came with the box stopped working at some point. (not to mention all the other PB games I bought, even though nothing came close to G1 and G2)
The reason companies don't make such games anymore is because gaming isn't a niche hobby anymore, and with that the lowest common denominator is what's the target audience. Simply look at difference in design between Morrowind and Oblivion... And since Oblivion sold better than Morrowind... We got Skyrim, an even more dumbed down experience.
@@The_Yukki I really don't accept that as an answer. I don't expect companies like EA or Bethesda to put 100 Million $ into such a game. That would be unreasonable. But look at isometric RPGs (I know they aren't really isometric). For years people said that there isn't a market for such games. But then Obsidian made Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny. Granted, those games were likely not succesful enough to make them a lot of money and it's not unlikely that they won't make games like that again (after the MS aquisition). But there are games like Divinity Original Sin (a HUGE success), ATOM RPG, Underrail, Wasteland, Pathfinder,... by smaller studios (or in the case of Larian smaller at the time of release, now they are quite big). If you had asked anybody within the industry ten years ago, they would've given you the exact answer you've given me. I personally didn't like either Morrowind or Oblivion very much. While I find the former to be better, there are huge barriers, that make the game hard to get into. (Just understanding all the systems they built is hard enough. Having to deal with the weird dialogue system was just painful for me.) I don't think the same can be said about an experience like Gothic at all. I see no reason why smaller studios couldn't make a game like that and make a reasonable profit. I think the problem is, that there aren't any examples of games like that being successful or even made at all. Some people would point to Elex, to show that there are games like that and that they don't sell that well. But I don't really think Elex is very much like Gothic at all. So many small changes in their design that add up to a game that is fundamentally different. For me the first few hours felt at least somewhat like Gothic, but at some point it just frustrated me. In Elex there are too little worthwhile items to find in the world, making exploring just boring. Quests you're given early on can't reasonbly be completed until you're at least mid game (I tried to complete one quest at least 5 times only to be shot). Gothic had quite hard Quests at the beginning of the game too, but there were extremely powerful scolls you could find, and leveling up had a much greater impact (again making exploration rewarding). So when you got stuck, you could just explore and kill some creatures, maybe you even find something useful that helps you in completing the quest. When I got stuck in Elex I tried multiple quests until I found the right ones to get XP, only to find out, that I was barely any stronger. Enemies don't really give you much XP in Elex. 5 XP for an enemy that can kill you early on. I'm not quite sure, but I seem to remember, that the "weaker" ones (even they can kill you early on, if you run into two or if you are distracted) didn't give any XP. Is that a joke? That's just a design that destroys imersion, given that the world is much bigger, there is a lot more walking involved. And the teleporters are often very hard to find especially if you are like me and don't like to look up their location. Which I begrudgingly had to do at some point because I was tired of walking. Sometimes, I was quite near the teleporters before, but they were behind some building or otherwise off the path. It seems to me that even the company that made those games doesn't understand what made them good. But I'm sure if someone made a game that played and felt like Gothic, it would be a success. Not so much that the big studios would take notice. But enough for other smaller studios to give it a try. Just like it was with isometric RPGs.
@@dagerry I bought Kingdom Come a while back but I still haven't played it. I know it's rather stupid to buy a game and then not play it for years, because prices are much lower now. I think the reason I haven't played it, is that I know that this game asks for comitment and time. It sounded very intriguing, but with so many releases and so little time I prioritised different games. Maybe I should give it a try. I'm surprised it sold so well.
My older bro gave me my own copy for my 12th birthday. After waiting 7 years, I immediately fell in love with the game. The graphics, the controlls, the bugs, nothing stopped me from having the time of my life 16 years after the game's release.
Just hearing the music from this game immediately transports me to this world that I experienced almost 20 years ago. Incredibly immersive game. Also never understood why everyone seems to dislike the voice acting. I think it's absolutely amazing.
@MortismalGaming I was a little afraid of this review, because I was sure you will give it your due dilligence, but now I can sleep in peace, you've played it, you've enjoyed it, and your conclusions are 99% spot-on, and this from a 20 years Gothic 1 die-hard fan!
Man, this makes me wanna replay the old Gothic games again! Few games have made me feel so immersed as these, especially with the power progression and diagetic leveling system, combined with a just right size of an open world that doesn´t get old and stale through the game. I played through to Gothic 3 which I dropped after several hours when I realized it just had a bunch of "MMO style" side quest and a crap story progression, but I am now playing Risen and am pleasantly surprised that they went back to their roots with that game as well! Looking forward to Elex as well. I highly recommend you play through Gothic 2 too after this to see the progression of their style towards games like Elex!
I highly recommend you play some mods for gothic 2. there are some pieces that feel like playing gothic 2 for the first time again, e.g. Archolos, Dirty Swamp, Legend of Ahssun...
Two things that shouldn't be left unmentioned: 1. The map. It's diegetic, if you will. No markers, no nothing. Not even a map before you buy it. But because the design of the map is so incredibly distinct, you will find your way around it easily. 2. Difficulty. The camps are essentially your choice in difficulty (with the Old Camp being "easy mode"). This is even more pronounced in G2 and an interesting design choice. I'm not 100% for it, because sometimes you prefer roleplaying over choosing the right difficulty setting, but it's creative.
Funny, I remember how Gothic and TES were considered rivals in the days of Morrowind. Then Oblivion and Gothic 3 came out and everyone was like "huh..?" because they both felt like a step in the wrong direction.
@@morkgin2459Oblivion's RPG systems were horribly designed. Scaling was badly designed, which meant that, unless you were extremely deliberate about your gameplay, you'd lose power relative to the enemy as you leveled up. Also, abandoning the rather unique aesthetics of Morrowind in favor of a much more generic fantasy land was an issue for some players. Oblivion wasn't bad, but its flaws were really noticeable.
I played Morrowind back in 2002 (my first open world rpg) and then a year later, I played Gothic. Even now, nearing 30, I still come back to Gothic. I wish that people can get through the old looking graphics and gameplay on focus on whats important. And as Mortismal said, it's the worldbuilding. If you start to play this game and really give it a little bit of time, at one point you will be awed. You will understand exactly why this game was special back in the early 2000's and why some of us play it to this day. The character progression was really well made for the time and it still feels great even today. One thing tho, there are couple of mods that people can use to make the graphics and gameplay a little bit better but even the vanilla version is a beauty on it's own. A couple of months ago, I played Gothic 2 and for the first time I did use a mod for the game called L'hiver, which I loved (even tho it makes the game 3 times harder). Cheers !
100% agree with this review. The Gothic games are incredibly good but you do have to put some effort in the get off the ground with them otherwise they are very unforgiving. However that effort will be repaid hand over fist if you succeed. The power curve is very steep as Mort says and it is incredibly fun to use that power later game to rip to shreds stuff you were previously terrified of. An all time classic every serious cRPG fan should try at least once. Gothic 2 is arguably even better. Gothic 3 is a bit different and has, IIRC, one or two quite serious issues including find item puzzles involving exhaustive random search across huge areas which is the opposite of fun really. You get the same kind of find puzzles in Gothic 1 & 2 but the Gothic 3 world is so much bigger, that's the problem. Less is sometimes more.
The problem was, it was "designed" to be played without a mouse in the first place. Legendary game, i am from germany and in the german version you do have a little concert in the old camp of the band "in extremo" check it out on youtube!
Man the in extremo concert, or rather lack there of is only bad thing about Polish Version of the game, but afaik it was down to either some copyright, or the fact that it'd be weird to have all dialogues in Polish but then outta nowhere a song in german playing.
I wanted to add a few thing in how Gothic was ahead of it time. This is a first game where npc react to the player. -If you unsheathe a weapon , most npc will get nervous and take out weapons and tell you to sheathe your... and if you won't they will eventually attack you -If you walk into npc home uninvited they will try to chase you out -All npc have routines , they will go to their work in the morning , go to tavern in the evening and then go sleep at night and it was all in 2001 , morrowind a year later had npc that could at most look in your direction when u came close
@@kbityy It's not misunderstood, it's simply unfinished. Its world is filled with copypasted MMO side quests that no fan patch can fix. It is still a pretty good game though, with an impressive for its time, no loading screens open world and beautiful music. But it's a very disappointing Gothic follow up.
I was a huge fan of Gothic 1. Back in 2002 or 03... it just completely blew my mind with all of those possibilities available to play with. That's going to be always my number 1 game, I guess, since, never again I had experienced anything like it gave me back those days.
I remember watching my older cousin playing Gothic, Fallout 2, and the first Witcher, I love to see a point of view who never played it as a kid :D Thanks
Possibly some people were asking for a review of "Gothic" because a remake of "Gothic" is "coming soon" (as are "Wayward Realms" and "Skye"). The specification "Coming Soon" means to me that we might see it in the next three years. If you look it up you'll find there's a demo available.
I say this with love, but I think your review videos are getting significantly better over time. If this "retrospective style" is the reason for the shift in quality, then I'm all for it. Personally, what I'm looking for from a review (esp when deciding whether to buy a game) is not just a list of the game's features, or a detailed breakdown of the game's combat or other systems. These are just factual information, and things I can find out for myself by looking at the game's Steam page or developer website. What I want is to hear more of the reviewer's opinions: what they think are the positives and negatives of a game, what makes the game appealing, etc. These are the things that will help me decide whether I will enjoy a game or not. If a game isn't even worth playing, then a review telling me about the details of the combat system is not useful information to me.
Beautiful review! As a hardcore fan it melts my heart to see you showing appreciaton for the game like that lol. The thing about the weed is that the german term "Kraut" is the literal translation of weed (like in the garden) but does not have the slang connotation to amrihuana it has in english. Obviously that translation didn't turn out as well^^
Nobody is mentioning Archolos, amazing mode, made by a Polish team a year ago, and available in Steam for free. It's a full new story in a Gothic world, on old engine, it fills amazing, I felt like a child again. Highly recommend.
This game was enormously popular here in Slovakia back then. I ppayed it in my early teens and it was a mind blowing experience. You talking about the power curve sparked so many fond memories. I remember being truly afraid of the forest around the swamp camp, or the orc controlled area. And by the and of the game you are indestructible. The best thing is that in high tier armor, arrows just bounce off of you.
The people in the outer ring of the Old Camp give you a lot of sh*t in the beginning. Near the end of the game I summoned an army of skeletons there to see what would happen. Fun times. Well, for me and maybe the skeletons.
@@kaltaron1284 I remember one time right before entering the final dungeon, I decided to try to kill everyone in the Old Camp. It wasn't even a challenge and I loved it. I remember I was wearing the best old camp armor and some kind of two handed sword at the time.
@@Throrface Yeah, in one of my playthroughs I pretty much killed everyone just to see how much stuff I would end up in my inventory with. Answer: A lot. Also in the second one (or was it the third one?) there was a cool chain of events where you could first join the Templars (? ). Then attack their leader and all his subordinates would attack him. But he's immortal because important quest NPC and killes them all in self defense. Then you run to the next guard, pay the fine for hitting someone and loot all the corpses. Next I went to the castle that was besieged by orcs. Betrayed them so I could kill everyone inside then slaughtered the orcs as well by luring them to an unreachable spot. Later in the story line the commander holds a speech that he will now take his troops to relieve that castle and I was just like "Dude, your perception of the situation is a bit off. What troops? Who in the castle? And against what orcs?" I think I later put him out of his sole misery in the castle.
I also like to mention the map, it is just... a map with some POI and not flooded with markers. When you accept a quest you have to listen to where you have to go. Can't wait for the review of Gothic 2, especially when you come back to Khorinis in the second part (if I remember correctly). It's like coming home. I really miss games like these.
Glad you really liked the game mate. I expect you will love Gothic 2 with its Addon. Its like the first Game but everything is improved. As a german i grew up with those games and they are still one of my favourite RPGs of all time. I always will have a soft spot for Piranha Byte Games because of these Games and especially Gothic 2.
A true masterpiece, I really cannot think of any title worth a remaster more which I'm very excited about! The day-night cycle of the NPC's, wildlife AI with real food chain mechanics, it's mind-boggling this was made in 2001. You're in for a real treat with Gothic 2, I'm anxiously waiting your review :)
I remember when a friend bought Gothic II back in 2005 or so, the controls were so weird originally but you're absolutely correct that it starts to feel really natural after a while. It's really pretty cool.
Thanks for the info about the Union workshop mod. This sort of info is why I always, like ALWAYS, check with you first when I'm looking up info on any game, especially older ones. You've taught me about so many games. I am grateful for you and your channel. Thank you.
Things about the world, immersion and atmosphere, that set gothic apart even from more recent rpgs - day/night cycle and how the world is actually reacting to it, is better than in most more recent open worlds - npcs actually seem to live in the world, go about their business and not just wait for the player - even more than in skyrim, or other open worlds. - lots of animals don't attack right away, the ones that do are predators - the predators also attack weaker animals - a map is an actual map - no quest icons anywhere in the world and it is an absolute joy to explore the world on your own - No stupid enemy-Lvl-scaling that break immersion - I can't kill a dragon on lvl 1 and then get killed by a Guard on lvl 20 - and I don't just encounter weak enemies at the start of the game, for no reason. That the Game is not waiting on my progression makes it feel even more like the world is not just evolving around the player...
Nice to see an angle from smb who never played Gothic series, but like you said, its much less common in US than it was viral in EU. Good review. When you will be going for Gothic II, remember that there is A Night of the Raven dlc (not sure if you can play regular game without dlc now though) and its basically adding new parts of the map/ side quests/ NPCs/ items/ factions etc on top of regular GII story, so Id say there is no reason to play it without it. Its like expanding everything, but you can also just do your regular GII story and completely abandon DLC additions. PS. Rooting for Archolos mod review in the future, since it was made by professional studios/ orchestra/ VAs . You will probably like the improvement of some stuff you've disliked in G1
My first real RPG - the first game I bought on Amazon too. This game is what made me love RPGs and play so many thereafter. Game is clunky as hell nowadays, but really a fun game. I think the story does also have a nice plot twist which at the time was very unexpected for me. Also, you can smoke weed in a game :D
I hear a lot of people saying the DX11 mod is very buggy. It works on some pc configs and others, not. Just depends on your setup. If it works for you, then install some texture mods and your all set.
A glowing review. I'll be first to admit my younger self couldn't get into the game so many years ago because of the stiff controls. I did love the immersive atmosphere and the world building, it was and still is very consistent. Almost like the devs had a clear vision. ;) Your review has convinced me that one day I should give this game another try. Also very looking forward to hearing you talk about the other Gothic games and Risen. How both series peaked and stumbled in the end. I understand Gothic 3 is best played at least with the latest community patch/mod. Gothic 2 is in a much better state. I know your to-play list must be long, but I might know another CRPG that might fancy your interests. The game I'm referring to is called Albion, from Blue Byte. Released in 1995 it's very retro, but just like Gothic way ahead of its time and beloved by many. Strong world building, with an engine showing some surprisingly advanced graphical effects. I believe it's very playable on modern hardware, at least the GOG version.
Great review. Never got into Gothic or Gothic 2 when they were originally released, but your review makes me want to try them again. Another RPG from that time that you might like is Arx Fatalis, by the way.
In Arx Fatalis, you had to "draw" glyph/spell in the air, in front of you to cast. Mouse gestures to cast spells. Jowood published it. Very good game. I hated the controls, so I quit.
Good game with one of the best second installments of a series ever imo. I recently replayed it also with a controller (with custom layout on steam) and its a great experience. Was a bit tricky to setup but once its done youre in for a good time. Definitely recommended
Gothic 2 is in my top 3 games of all time. But when it comes to the open world its pretty much #1 and unparalleled for me. Even though i like the setting of the first game more. Also the immersion and atmosphere are just brilliant. I remember playing it as a kid back in the day and it was a big topic in school. And when Lefty told me to bring water to the farmers. I seriously thought people are just saying things for the sake of it. And later when a friend came visiting and we played the game, looking into my jornal he asked ''why arent you doing these?'. And i replied, 'wait, those are actual quests?'. I just didnt know games that had quests not revolving around fighting and / or killing things. Not even talking about quests that gave you actual choices that arent just dialogue options.
The world building is still amazing to this day. It was all handcrafted. Nothing was automatically generated and therefore felt bland like it is in many open world games today. Everywhere, there were small rewards for exploring. And also many of the side quests had possible different outcomes. You don't want to pay protection money? Yeah, the guys from the next quest will turn out to be hired thugs who punch the ore of you anyway. A quest to fetch lots of delicious food to some guards? Yeah, you reward is that you get laughed at for being so stupid to collect all this stuff. Gothic was glorious!
I fell in love with it back in 2007 when I found the trilogy on sale at Gamestop. The second was even better. And I have this unpopular opinion that, with the community fix pack, the third is pretty fantastic. And the scope of 3 is insane. I finished 2 in about 100 hours. By 130 hours into Gothic 3, I think I'd explored about 1/3 of the map. I couldn't even finish it. So ahead of its time. I love me some Elder Scrolls, but these games have always been the better open world RPGs IMO. Loved Risen too, but never played 2 or 3, or Elex. I gotta check all these games out.
Great review! I actually love the controls for mouse and keyboard for Gothic 2. I got really comfortable using the mouse to control the camera and look around quickly and fluidly. There's a way to play vanilla G2 without the expansion installed which changes a fair amount and makes it more challenging. For the sake of review, going through twice would be too much so might be wise to look up some "best practices" tips for NoTR as it's noticeably more difficult but not overwhelming so.
If you want to have a really complete perspective of the Gothic saga, you should play and review both Gothic 2 vanilla and with the add-on, they are quite different. The vanilla version is hard ti install but there are guides on internet. Also the mod Archolos. And you can ignore completely everithing that came after Gothic 3. Nice review btw.
A few days ago was the 20th anniversary of Gothic 2 and with that they added on steam the possibility to install the vanilla version. But apparently it's not really the vanilla, it's a mod that tries to replicate the experience but taking a bit too liberties. I don't know it personally but if you manage to find a way to play the real original version it would be better.
If you cant get enough of G1 and G2 by the end of this consider Chronicles of Myrtana. Its a stellar G2 total conversion mod that is on par with the first two games in every regard.
Wow, thanks for the heads up on that. I played through Gothic 2 4 times(4th for night of the raven) and I have to check this out soon(after I finish a couple games cause it will consume me). I just hope I can figure out how to add the mod on steam.
@@maz0t Oh Gothic 3, I put so much time into that when it first came out, killed every npc leveled up to godlike power, did every quest..got to the end and a bug prevented me from doing the ending I wanted. I did finish it doing a different ending(sorry memory is bad on how and what) and never went back. And that craptastic god forsaken ended up having a game breaking bug. Never went back to either.
@@jayhouston7054 It had some great ideas i think. The world itsself was great and the faction + magic systems were good. But the narrative and scaffolding the game was set upon just didnt hold it together. It helps a tiny bit with mods now but games like Elex has taken everything good from that game and made it better. Shame they had to rush it out like that, 1 or 2 more years could have been all it needed.
It's finally here! Excited to watch this after work! I too have only played the GOTHIC franchise just a year or 2 ago despite being 31 years old. So this feels special to watch!
This game with mods looks and runs great. It was a bit of work but I picked it out of your 61 games reviewed this year. I only screenshot two games to play. Both took a ton of work to get running but they’re great. The other was temple of elemental evil.
Shoutout for mentioning the voice acting. I know a lot of people consider it bad, and there are weird issues here and there, but i really, really liked them in all gothic games, especially in the first two. Something about the reputation i don't remember mentioned is also the fact that you can't just walk everywhere without the right reputation. This is something that's really missing in almost every open world game, and it's so immersive here and really adds to the level of progression you mentioned.
Another underrated blast from the past with Gothic 1 I realized is - if you are replaying it as I am doing now, or if you back then read the manual to not stumble with controls, you can enter the main gameplay loop 0 seconds after a skippable cutscene. Some games have it worse some better, but the nowaday EA influenced standard is 17 cutcenes, 3 unskippable dialogues, tutorial zone prompting you with flashy things on screen to pick a flower, put it in flower pot and put flower pot into flower pot hole or what have you. Gothic 1 playstart after years to enjoy it again: escape cutscene, bye Diego - jump forward, and you can never look back and join a camp at level 20+ if you so choose (you might want to visit a camp to fight someone for their weapon, but feel free to skip all interactions till the entire map is dead). How many speedruns of modern games are frame perfect first split waiting around or robotically making inputs, I guess that's why I hated every single sony game lately - if you want to replay one for completionist sake, you are repeating known movie sequences in what feels like more than half of your cognition time (spider man).
One of my favorite games. Doubt there's anything I don't know about it yet after having played it for over 20 years, but I still enjoy listening to people talk about it.
Its very hard to decide wich camp to join. The old camp has Snaf the criminal gangster cook, who dropped some fire tracks tearing the new camp a second asshole, as well as winning his rap battle agains Valentino the rich kid and him destroying Till with the other dudes in their disstrack. The new camp on the other hand has Big Baba Vatras and his Ong-Bak-Slap of destruction. The water mages also had a better disstrack than the fire mages from the old camp. The sect camp has Cor Angar with his extreme doubletime flow, as well as his fighting power and agility.
I remember playing pirated version of Gothic with german voice acting and english subtitles in Russia in 2002, before Morrowing came out. No other game since then given so much satisfaction from progression. I vividly remember being afraid of a pack of scavengers and wolves, and swamp sharks were a nightmare! And then you get better with your weapons, you get some armor - and you exact revenge! On scavengers, cause wolves and swamp sharks are still hard af (: And then you meet the Black Troll in the cave, I remember having a ring that gave +10 or smth like that mana on equip and I spent more than an hour blasting it from distance with the cheapest fireball spell, cause in melee he was one-shotting me (: Gosh, this review brought back so many memories. Thank you (:
Impeccable timing again, because I finished it at almost the same time you released this video. I've been playing through all of PB's games but backwards, starting from Elex 1 to 2, then the Risen series, and now I'm on Gothic. It's an amazing game for it being 21 years old. I agree that considering the time it was released, it was way ahead of its time. The skill learning is similar to Risen 1 (which is fantastic sans the last chapters) and the controls end up being quite intuitive as you mentioned. I think the biggest cons of the game are the last chapters feeling a bit too stretched out and rushed, general movement and glitches in it (lost count how many times I got stuck on something and had to reload) and yeah, general archaic design which hasn't aged very gracefully. The platforming is pretty painful, too. I never got acrobatics so maybe it changes it. The fact that those are the cons though and I was able to finish the whole thing coming out giving two thumbs up really goes to show just how well done this game is. The DX11 shader mod also gives it some fantastic lighting. Time for Gothic 2.
In polish version that weed is called "bagienne ziele" which would translate to swamp weed. However that ziele part has more of a herb connotation to it. Even tho it is smoked, back when I played it, I associated that stuff with sage or other psychedelics related more to hallucinations than giggles
Hi Mortym! The Gothic 1 and 2, along with Risen 1 and Elex, are my favorite PB games. The world lore, world building, and general atmosphere is an rpg-lover's dream. I am curious to try one of the controller mods for it.
Thanks for the awesome review of one of my favorite games. When you play G2:NotR I can highly recommend the community Mini Mod. Apart from that there is also the Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos Community Game, which is an amazing addition from the Gothic Community and a whole separate game with lots of continuation on the worldbuilding.
Piranha Byte's games are always the same but every time a fantastic experience. Exploration gets rewarded with a good time. Almost all other AAA games get repetetive at some point, even Witcher 3 had this massive amount of (optional) loot markers on the map which is a waste of the players time. I just love Piranha Bytes!
Yees I've been waiting for this. :D Thank you again so much for reviewing this game. I can't wait until you start with Gothic 2, because it's my favorite in the franchise. I remember it fondly playing it for over 14 times when I was in a rough spot and my right (mouse) arm was in a cast.
I actually love the idea of some more "retrospectives" for the channel. Talking about game mechanics and development and how certain games influenced the genre, etc. Do you like dungeon crawlers/blobbers at all? These would certainly be considered a subset of CRPGs imho. Something like Might & Magic 6 ~ 8 or Wizardry 8 flavor I feel share a lot of similarities to some of the games you cover. "Mort's M&M Series Retrospective" would be one hell of a drug lol Obviously you do you, and this may not fit your style at all. Just some thoughts from my perspective.
I think you are the first person I heard to say something positive about Elex 2. This video has definitely convinced me to try Gothic again, it never occurred to me to mod it, the beginning frustration with the controls did turn me off but I always regretted not sticking with it because of all the positive feedback about the story.
I absolutely love G1... and since I´ve played with all camps, I would say the most lore sense makes to play as swamp camp (first one I´ve joined). It ties the strongest to the story and just feels complete. Both other camps pretty much sends you to spy the Swamp camp anyway. But I thoroughly enjoyed every camp! Love to just RP in Old camp, being shade... or being templar in Swamp Camp.. just perfection.
Greetings from Germany - gothic I and II are such great games despite all their little flaws. I always smile when I see that people outside of germany like it as well.
You have forgot to mention one important thing about Gothic - it's minimal interface, which allows for greater immersion. I can only recall Dead Space with better idea of an interface. It also has a "gothic" style. Elex 1, and especially Elex 2 are far inferior in this aspect. // P.S. Light and dark are also used perfectly in this game to build immersion.
Great review and great game all around. PB might have gone downhill in later years and their refusal to change their design philosophy at all makes for some frustrations, but this shows they can still show gold.
Chronologically, it's a prequel to Gothic 1. And yes! That free mod feels like a standalone Gothic game with more polish and detail than the first two.
I was pretty glad to see Mort mention he intends to play it in his recent video. Now he just needs to find the 500 hours he'll need for G2 and Archolos, plus edits.
@@egamruf I can't say enough, how gothic 2 and archollos change my life, it makes every other open world rpg bad because no one match the immersion, exploration, world building and progression, and btw, I just LOVE the graphics, with the dx11 mod it gets so beautiful, the best rain ever made also kkk
Another nice old german RPG is the Drakensang series (2 games + 1 DLC). The river of time is a really chill adventure with gameplay like Dragon age origins (except magic isn't OP) but the atmosphere is more like a fairy tale, and the character design reminds me of hand-drawn Disney movies. I never tried the MMO though.
This game really gripped me, back in 2003
The atmosphere is just unparalleled.
Gothic 2 is still one of my favorite games of all time.
i'm playing gothic 2 till this day, every year, different mods , masterpiece.
Gothic still has an almost mythic place in the hearts of Polish players because of the top-tier localization.
Not only in Poland. In fact, in Russia it have a big fan base as well.
Don't forget the popularity of gothic machinima community. Brilliant people
imagine how we germans feel about it
Same here in Czechia, enormous fan base! 🙂
Same here for Romania..this game is my childhood:)
Also, it's almost all one world - Morrowind had 5000 loading screens for each area you entered. Gothic had 3.
Gothic has more than 3 but your point stays valid^^
@@rudolfgernd8760 one for each mine, one for the ork graveyard, one for the temple, did I miss any? Doing it from the top of my head haven't played gothic in a long while.
@@The_Yukki So 5 distinct, (relatively) big zones. Still pretty damn good.
@@TheHalogen131 oh I'm not complaining, it is impressive
@@The_Yukki Oh, I didn't think you were complaining. I was proving you correct.
I replay Gothic series every year, I couldn't live without those nostalgic journeys to the childhood
Same for me. Feels like coming home.
What I really loved about Gothic and what very few RPG's do is that it ties in progression to the world and story in such an organic way. The way you join up a camp and learn their styles etc. You start to identify a certain way. It's so rare to see that these days.
It’s the simple “for Gomez!” or “May the sleeper be with you” that made immersion in those games, whichever camp you joined
@@DMartinovNot just that. How NPC's act with you. For example when you first arrive to the old camp NPC's just acts like you are not even a human being.
Even the new camp with lefty. You bring water to the rice field workers or get beaten up.
And as you progress they just start respecting you. Gate guard to the inner yard,bloodwynd,Jackal even congratulates to you when you reach the Guard rank.
This game achieved that a lot of modern games lack. Making its world just like its alive and actually making sense. Not even a single question like "How these people survive without any food source",but "Ohh sect camp sells swampweed and buys resources with that money"
I spend a lot of time in my youth playing Gothic 1,2 and 3 + Risen. Especially the music still stays in my heart 💙
Kai Rosenkranz is so good, they got him back for the remake too
What makes this game such an unforgetable experience is that it's just so real. For example: There is a moment, when you enter a camp for the first few times, where someone approaches you and asks if you dont wanna pay him some protection money, since your new. If you decide to say no, almost a week later, a guy in a hurry asks you for help. Well, he lures you to a group of guys and says that you should rather have paid that protection money with a nice reminder message. That moment and many more of those sort just arent in rpg's anymore, a truely awesome experience. And since im german, i just gotta say it, the dialogues are just legendary, they're written in a true natural way, as if we are just talking in a rough tone, but perfect for the setting. Truly a masterpiece from my childhood ^^
Yeah, the dialogue was sooo well done. As you said it just felt real and it made me laugh out loud more times than any other game, but in a good way.
aufs maul?
I think one of my favorite mechanics is how respawns work. Instead of creatures respawning over a period of time, it instead adds new creatures every chapter. So you can theoretically clear the entire world of creatures in chapter 1 and then run around in a monster free world until you trigger chapter 2... And then in chapter 2, clear out all the new monsters and run around in a monster free world until chapter 3, etc, etc. This also means that there actually is a set max amount of XP that could possibly be attained in the game as once you've reached the last chapter, if you've done all the quests and killed all the creatures and NPC's you could, there's nothing more you could do in the game to earn more xp. Pretty sure there are people who have figured out the max amount of xp you can get in this game but I'm not one of them.
I've only played the German original, I don't know how good the translated versions are. But in German, this games dialogue is iconic and unparalleled. The characters just feel real, there is no construction.
It's also the case with the Polish version. It's very well translated, and the dialogue is well acted.
STECK DIE SCHEISS WAFFE WEG
The whole Ruhrpott slang is so perfect for this game.
"Wie oft hab ich euch Pennern gesagt: Rennt nicht durch meine Hütte!?"
The English version grows on you if you appreciate hammy acting. Bromor in Gothic 2 is legendarily bad in the English dub, iconic even.
When I was 15 or 16 (2003 or 2004) a friend burned me a CD with Gothic. Before that I mostly played sports games, Point and Click Adventures and Action Titles (GTA III). This game truly changed my perception of Video games as a medium. I never thought that you could even program something as complex as this. Being able to speak to every person, go wherever you like, truly interact with the world. It was soooo much ahead of its time.
To this day there is no game quite like it (and its sequel). Risen 1 is the closest. I didn't enjoy Elex at all, it was such a chore to progress.
What makes me really sad is that the vast majority of RPG studios don't even attempt to create something like Gothic. You get to know the Colony so intimatelly, are able to find navigate without even using the map within a very short amount of time. While most RPGs tell you to go there kill X go back get reward. Equip boring item Number 375 because it does 0,7 percent more damage. Sell bunsh of shit you collected... REPEAT OVER AND OVER AND OVER!
I want to add, that even though I had an illegal copy of Gothic, I bought this game 4 times in my life. I own it both on GOG and Steam, I own a box with G1+G2+G3+Addons, and I own another copy of G1 because the CD that came with the box stopped working at some point. (not to mention all the other PB games I bought, even though nothing came close to G1 and G2)
The reason companies don't make such games anymore is because gaming isn't a niche hobby anymore, and with that the lowest common denominator is what's the target audience. Simply look at difference in design between Morrowind and Oblivion... And since Oblivion sold better than Morrowind... We got Skyrim, an even more dumbed down experience.
@@The_Yukki I really don't accept that as an answer. I don't expect companies like EA or Bethesda to put 100 Million $ into such a game. That would be unreasonable.
But look at isometric RPGs (I know they aren't really isometric). For years people said that there isn't a market for such games. But then Obsidian made Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny. Granted, those games were likely not succesful enough to make them a lot of money and it's not unlikely that they won't make games like that again (after the MS aquisition).
But there are games like Divinity Original Sin (a HUGE success), ATOM RPG, Underrail, Wasteland, Pathfinder,... by smaller studios (or in the case of Larian smaller at the time of release, now they are quite big).
If you had asked anybody within the industry ten years ago, they would've given you the exact answer you've given me. I personally didn't like either Morrowind or Oblivion very much. While I find the former to be better, there are huge barriers, that make the game hard to get into. (Just understanding all the systems they built is hard enough. Having to deal with the weird dialogue system was just painful for me.) I don't think the same can be said about an experience like Gothic at all.
I see no reason why smaller studios couldn't make a game like that and make a reasonable profit.
I think the problem is, that there aren't any examples of games like that being successful or even made at all. Some people would point to Elex, to show that there are games like that and that they don't sell that well. But I don't really think Elex is very much like Gothic at all. So many small changes in their design that add up to a game that is fundamentally different. For me the first few hours felt at least somewhat like Gothic, but at some point it just frustrated me.
In Elex there are too little worthwhile items to find in the world, making exploring just boring. Quests you're given early on can't reasonbly be completed until you're at least mid game (I tried to complete one quest at least 5 times only to be shot). Gothic had quite hard Quests at the beginning of the game too, but there were extremely powerful scolls you could find, and leveling up had a much greater impact (again making exploration rewarding). So when you got stuck, you could just explore and kill some creatures, maybe you even find something useful that helps you in completing the quest. When I got stuck in Elex I tried multiple quests until I found the right ones to get XP, only to find out, that I was barely any stronger. Enemies don't really give you much XP in Elex. 5 XP for an enemy that can kill you early on. I'm not quite sure, but I seem to remember, that the "weaker" ones (even they can kill you early on, if you run into two or if you are distracted) didn't give any XP. Is that a joke? That's just a design that destroys imersion, given that the world is much bigger, there is a lot more walking involved. And the teleporters are often very hard to find especially if you are like me and don't like to look up their location. Which I begrudgingly had to do at some point because I was tired of walking. Sometimes, I was quite near the teleporters before, but they were behind some building or otherwise off the path.
It seems to me that even the company that made those games doesn't understand what made them good. But I'm sure if someone made a game that played and felt like Gothic, it would be a success. Not so much that the big studios would take notice. But enough for other smaller studios to give it a try. Just like it was with isometric RPGs.
@@dagerry I bought Kingdom Come a while back but I still haven't played it. I know it's rather stupid to buy a game and then not play it for years, because prices are much lower now. I think the reason I haven't played it, is that I know that this game asks for comitment and time. It sounded very intriguing, but with so many releases and so little time I prioritised different games. Maybe I should give it a try. I'm surprised it sold so well.
My older bro gave me my own copy for my 12th birthday. After waiting 7 years, I immediately fell in love with the game. The graphics, the controlls, the bugs, nothing stopped me from having the time of my life 16 years after the game's release.
Just hearing the music from this game immediately transports me to this world that I experienced almost 20 years ago. Incredibly immersive game. Also never understood why everyone seems to dislike the voice acting. I think it's absolutely amazing.
@MortismalGaming I was a little afraid of this review, because I was sure you will give it your due dilligence, but now I can sleep in peace, you've played it, you've enjoyed it, and your conclusions are 99% spot-on, and this from a 20 years Gothic 1 die-hard fan!
Man, this makes me wanna replay the old Gothic games again! Few games have made me feel so immersed as these, especially with the power progression and diagetic leveling system, combined with a just right size of an open world that doesn´t get old and stale through the game. I played through to Gothic 3 which I dropped after several hours when I realized it just had a bunch of "MMO style" side quest and a crap story progression, but I am now playing Risen and am pleasantly surprised that they went back to their roots with that game as well! Looking forward to Elex as well. I highly recommend you play through Gothic 2 too after this to see the progression of their style towards games like Elex!
I highly recommend you play some mods for gothic 2. there are some pieces that feel like playing gothic 2 for the first time again, e.g. Archolos, Dirty Swamp, Legend of Ahssun...
@@tnx9240 Thx 🙏 I will definitely try some of those out!
Two things that shouldn't be left unmentioned:
1. The map. It's diegetic, if you will. No markers, no nothing. Not even a map before you buy it. But because the design of the map is so incredibly distinct, you will find your way around it easily.
2. Difficulty. The camps are essentially your choice in difficulty (with the Old Camp being "easy mode"). This is even more pronounced in G2 and an interesting design choice. I'm not 100% for it, because sometimes you prefer roleplaying over choosing the right difficulty setting, but it's creative.
Funny, I remember how Gothic and TES were considered rivals in the days of Morrowind.
Then Oblivion and Gothic 3 came out and everyone was like "huh..?" because they both felt like a step in the wrong direction.
Maybe Gothic 3 has terrible game performance (even on modern PC), but at least doesn't punish you for leveling up, unlike Oblivion
What? Oblivion is bad?
@@morkgin2459 Without mods of course
Edit: We're talking about game mechanics. Story and dialogues are good
@@morkgin2459Oblivion's RPG systems were horribly designed. Scaling was badly designed, which meant that, unless you were extremely deliberate about your gameplay, you'd lose power relative to the enemy as you leveled up.
Also, abandoning the rather unique aesthetics of Morrowind in favor of a much more generic fantasy land was an issue for some players.
Oblivion wasn't bad, but its flaws were really noticeable.
I played Morrowind back in 2002 (my first open world rpg) and then a year later, I played Gothic. Even now, nearing 30, I still come back to Gothic. I wish that people can get through the old looking graphics and gameplay on focus on whats important.
And as Mortismal said, it's the worldbuilding. If you start to play this game and really give it a little bit of time, at one point you will be awed. You will understand exactly why this game was special back in the early 2000's and why some of us play it to this day. The character progression was really well made for the time and it still feels great even today.
One thing tho, there are couple of mods that people can use to make the graphics and gameplay a little bit better but even the vanilla version is a beauty on it's own.
A couple of months ago, I played Gothic 2 and for the first time I did use a mod for the game called L'hiver, which I loved (even tho it makes the game 3 times harder).
Cheers !
100% agree with this review. The Gothic games are incredibly good but you do have to put some effort in the get off the ground with them otherwise they are very unforgiving. However that effort will be repaid hand over fist if you succeed. The power curve is very steep as Mort says and it is incredibly fun to use that power later game to rip to shreds stuff you were previously terrified of. An all time classic every serious cRPG fan should try at least once. Gothic 2 is arguably even better. Gothic 3 is a bit different and has, IIRC, one or two quite serious issues including find item puzzles involving exhaustive random search across huge areas which is the opposite of fun really. You get the same kind of find puzzles in Gothic 1 & 2 but the Gothic 3 world is so much bigger, that's the problem. Less is sometimes more.
The problem was, it was "designed" to be played without a mouse in the first place.
Legendary game, i am from germany and in the german version you do have a little concert in the old camp of the band "in extremo" check it out on youtube!
Man the in extremo concert, or rather lack there of is only bad thing about Polish Version of the game, but afaik it was down to either some copyright, or the fact that it'd be weird to have all dialogues in Polish but then outta nowhere a song in german playing.
@@The_Yukki hi, I believe it was a copyright issue. The lyrics of the song are not in German, it is in Nysvenska some sort of swedish
I'm playing Archolos with a gamepad right now and it's crazy how good this game holds up.
It was designed for Xbox controller first and foremost, then the Xbox version got canned.
Well a remaster can easily fix this shit.
I wanted to add a few thing in how Gothic was ahead of it time.
This is a first game where npc react to the player.
-If you unsheathe a weapon , most npc will get nervous and take out weapons and tell you to sheathe your... and if you won't they will eventually attack you
-If you walk into npc home uninvited they will try to chase you out
-All npc have routines , they will go to their work in the morning , go to tavern in the evening and then go sleep at night
and it was all in 2001 , morrowind a year later had npc that could at most look in your direction when u came close
..and their reactions to you can change depending on your progression.
Really looking forward to your thoughts on Gothic 2, it's still my favorite game of all time.
You're in for a ride, Gothic 2, Gothic 3 (patched) and the first Risen are my favorite rpgs of all time. Hopefully you enjoy them!
@@kbityy It's not misunderstood, it's simply unfinished. Its world is filled with copypasted MMO side quests that no fan patch can fix. It is still a pretty good game though, with an impressive for its time, no loading screens open world and beautiful music. But it's a very disappointing Gothic follow up.
I was a huge fan of Gothic 1. Back in 2002 or 03... it just completely blew my mind with all of those possibilities available to play with. That's going to be always my number 1 game, I guess, since, never again I had experienced anything like it gave me back those days.
My favourite (together with Gothic 2) RPG of all time, and a template for everuthing I look for in action RPGs.
And now you need to start on your Gothic 2 review :)) Good video mate, very very nice
One of the best game I ever played, even with he's problem. Hope the remake will still be very good.
I remember watching my older cousin playing Gothic, Fallout 2, and the first Witcher, I love to see a point of view who never played it as a kid :D Thanks
Possibly some people were asking for a review of "Gothic" because a remake of "Gothic" is "coming soon" (as are "Wayward Realms" and "Skye"). The specification "Coming Soon" means to me that we might see it in the next three years. If you look it up you'll find there's a demo available.
Yeah the demo comes free with any piranha bytes game you buy
I say this with love, but I think your review videos are getting significantly better over time. If this "retrospective style" is the reason for the shift in quality, then I'm all for it. Personally, what I'm looking for from a review (esp when deciding whether to buy a game) is not just a list of the game's features, or a detailed breakdown of the game's combat or other systems. These are just factual information, and things I can find out for myself by looking at the game's Steam page or developer website. What I want is to hear more of the reviewer's opinions: what they think are the positives and negatives of a game, what makes the game appealing, etc. These are the things that will help me decide whether I will enjoy a game or not. If a game isn't even worth playing, then a review telling me about the details of the combat system is not useful information to me.
Beautiful review! As a hardcore fan it melts my heart to see you showing appreciaton for the game like that lol.
The thing about the weed is that the german term "Kraut" is the literal translation of weed (like in the garden) but does not have the slang connotation to amrihuana it has in english. Obviously that translation didn't turn out as well^^
Gothic 1…the best atmosphere.
Gothic 1/2 > Risen 1 > Elex 1 > Gothic 3 > Elex 2 > Risen 2/3
Gothic 2 is by far my most favorite game of all time. Almost a perfect title.
Nobody is mentioning Archolos, amazing mode, made by a Polish team a year ago, and available in Steam for free. It's a full new story in a Gothic world, on old engine, it fills amazing, I felt like a child again. Highly recommend.
This game was enormously popular here in Slovakia back then. I ppayed it in my early teens and it was a mind blowing experience.
You talking about the power curve sparked so many fond memories. I remember being truly afraid of the forest around the swamp camp, or the orc controlled area. And by the and of the game you are indestructible. The best thing is that in high tier armor, arrows just bounce off of you.
The people in the outer ring of the Old Camp give you a lot of sh*t in the beginning. Near the end of the game I summoned an army of skeletons there to see what would happen. Fun times. Well, for me and maybe the skeletons.
@@kaltaron1284 I remember one time right before entering the final dungeon, I decided to try to kill everyone in the Old Camp. It wasn't even a challenge and I loved it. I remember I was wearing the best old camp armor and some kind of two handed sword at the time.
@@Throrface Yeah, in one of my playthroughs I pretty much killed everyone just to see how much stuff I would end up in my inventory with. Answer: A lot.
Also in the second one (or was it the third one?) there was a cool chain of events where you could first join the Templars (? ). Then attack their leader and all his subordinates would attack him. But he's immortal because important quest NPC and killes them all in self defense. Then you run to the next guard, pay the fine for hitting someone and loot all the corpses.
Next I went to the castle that was besieged by orcs. Betrayed them so I could kill everyone inside then slaughtered the orcs as well by luring them to an unreachable spot.
Later in the story line the commander holds a speech that he will now take his troops to relieve that castle and I was just like "Dude, your perception of the situation is a bit off. What troops? Who in the castle? And against what orcs?"
I think I later put him out of his sole misery in the castle.
If you like the first, you'll love the second. Third one...that's more tricky.
I also like to mention the map, it is just... a map with some POI and not flooded with markers. When you accept a quest you have to listen to where you have to go. Can't wait for the review of Gothic 2, especially when you come back to Khorinis in the second part (if I remember correctly). It's like coming home. I really miss games like these.
Glad you really liked the game mate. I expect you will love Gothic 2 with its Addon. Its like the first Game but everything is improved.
As a german i grew up with those games and they are still one of my favourite RPGs of all time.
I always will have a soft spot for Piranha Byte Games because of these Games and especially Gothic 2.
A true masterpiece, I really cannot think of any title worth a remaster more which I'm very excited about! The day-night cycle of the NPC's, wildlife AI with real food chain mechanics, it's mind-boggling this was made in 2001. You're in for a real treat with Gothic 2, I'm anxiously waiting your review :)
Most underrated rpg in existence!
So glad you liked this; certainly one of my favorite games.
I remember when a friend bought Gothic II back in 2005 or so, the controls were so weird originally but you're absolutely correct that it starts to feel really natural after a while. It's really pretty cool.
Thanks for the info about the Union workshop mod. This sort of info is why I always, like ALWAYS, check with you first when I'm looking up info on any game, especially older ones. You've taught me about so many games. I am grateful for you and your channel. Thank you.
Things about the world, immersion and atmosphere, that set gothic apart even from more recent rpgs
- day/night cycle and how the world is actually reacting to it, is better than in most more recent open worlds
- npcs actually seem to live in the world, go about their business and not just wait for the player - even more than in skyrim, or other open worlds.
- lots of animals don't attack right away, the ones that do are predators - the predators also attack weaker animals
- a map is an actual map - no quest icons anywhere in the world and it is an absolute joy to explore the world on your own
- No stupid enemy-Lvl-scaling that break immersion - I can't kill a dragon on lvl 1 and then get killed by a Guard on lvl 20 - and I don't just encounter weak enemies at the start of the game, for no reason. That the Game is not waiting on my progression makes it feel even more like the world is not just evolving around the player...
Nice to see an angle from smb who never played Gothic series, but like you said, its much less common in US than it was viral in EU. Good review. When you will be going for Gothic II, remember that there is A Night of the Raven dlc (not sure if you can play regular game without dlc now though) and its basically adding new parts of the map/ side quests/ NPCs/ items/ factions etc on top of regular GII story, so Id say there is no reason to play it without it. Its like expanding everything, but you can also just do your regular GII story and completely abandon DLC additions.
PS. Rooting for Archolos mod review in the future, since it was made by professional studios/ orchestra/ VAs . You will probably like the improvement of some stuff you've disliked in G1
My first real RPG - the first game I bought on Amazon too. This game is what made me love RPGs and play so many thereafter.
Game is clunky as hell nowadays, but really a fun game.
I think the story does also have a nice plot twist which at the time was very unexpected for me. Also, you can smoke weed in a game :D
I'm going to gobble this review up. Quality content.
When you play gothic 2, don't forget to use the directx 11 mod, it makes the game much better
I hear a lot of people saying the DX11 mod is very buggy. It works on some pc configs and others, not. Just depends on your setup. If it works for you, then install some texture mods and your all set.
I've heard that too, but the performance boost and the lighting changes makes the game so much better@@Robert-yt9pq
Haha, very clever. You keep both terms in the title 😄👌
Figured it was a good compromise and an opportunity to collect some data lol
Don't forget to try Archolos when you finish Gothic series... awesome review! Keep it up!
A glowing review. I'll be first to admit my younger self couldn't get into the game so many years ago because of the stiff controls. I did love the immersive atmosphere and the world building, it was and still is very consistent. Almost like the devs had a clear vision. ;) Your review has convinced me that one day I should give this game another try. Also very looking forward to hearing you talk about the other Gothic games and Risen. How both series peaked and stumbled in the end. I understand Gothic 3 is best played at least with the latest community patch/mod. Gothic 2 is in a much better state.
I know your to-play list must be long, but I might know another CRPG that might fancy your interests. The game I'm referring to is called Albion, from Blue Byte. Released in 1995 it's very retro, but just like Gothic way ahead of its time and beloved by many. Strong world building, with an engine showing some surprisingly advanced graphical effects. I believe it's very playable on modern hardware, at least the GOG version.
Great review. Never got into Gothic or Gothic 2 when they were originally released, but your review makes me want to try them again. Another RPG from that time that you might like is Arx Fatalis, by the way.
In Arx Fatalis, you had to "draw" glyph/spell in the air, in front of you to cast. Mouse gestures to cast spells. Jowood published it. Very good game. I hated the controls, so I quit.
Good game with one of the best second installments of a series ever imo. I recently replayed it also with a controller (with custom layout on steam) and its a great experience. Was a bit tricky to setup but once its done youre in for a good time. Definitely recommended
Gothic 2 is in my top 3 games of all time.
But when it comes to the open world its pretty much #1 and unparalleled for me. Even though i like the setting of the first game more.
Also the immersion and atmosphere are just brilliant.
I remember playing it as a kid back in the day and it was a big topic in school. And when Lefty told me to bring water to the farmers.
I seriously thought people are just saying things for the sake of it. And later when a friend came visiting and we played the game, looking into my jornal he asked ''why arent you doing these?'. And i replied, 'wait, those are actual quests?'. I just didnt know games that had quests not revolving around fighting and / or killing things.
Not even talking about quests that gave you actual choices that arent just dialogue options.
The world building is still amazing to this day. It was all handcrafted. Nothing was automatically generated and therefore felt bland like it is in many open world games today. Everywhere, there were small rewards for exploring. And also many of the side quests had possible different outcomes. You don't want to pay protection money? Yeah, the guys from the next quest will turn out to be hired thugs who punch the ore of you anyway. A quest to fetch lots of delicious food to some guards? Yeah, you reward is that you get laughed at for being so stupid to collect all this stuff. Gothic was glorious!
This is the best Game ever made.... Thank you for reminding me. Greetings from Germany
Loved 1+2 when i was a kid. First game i played that was fully voiced too. Idk about the english voiceover but the german was so janky it was good.
I remember playing this game, with my brother, when it first came out. Spent hours figuring things out, especially when it came to magic.
I'm weird - just couldn't warm to G1/2 but absolutely loved G3, go figure!
I fell in love with it back in 2007 when I found the trilogy on sale at Gamestop. The second was even better. And I have this unpopular opinion that, with the community fix pack, the third is pretty fantastic. And the scope of 3 is insane. I finished 2 in about 100 hours. By 130 hours into Gothic 3, I think I'd explored about 1/3 of the map. I couldn't even finish it. So ahead of its time.
I love me some Elder Scrolls, but these games have always been the better open world RPGs IMO.
Loved Risen too, but never played 2 or 3, or Elex. I gotta check all these games out.
Great review! I actually love the controls for mouse and keyboard for Gothic 2. I got really comfortable using the mouse to control the camera and look around quickly and fluidly. There's a way to play vanilla G2 without the expansion installed which changes a fair amount and makes it more challenging. For the sake of review, going through twice would be too much so might be wise to look up some "best practices" tips for NoTR as it's noticeably more difficult but not overwhelming so.
If you want to have a really complete perspective of the Gothic saga, you should play and review both Gothic 2 vanilla and with the add-on, they are quite different. The vanilla version is hard ti install but there are guides on internet. Also the mod Archolos. And you can ignore completely everithing that came after Gothic 3.
Nice review btw.
A few days ago was the 20th anniversary of Gothic 2 and with that they added on steam the possibility to install the vanilla version. But apparently it's not really the vanilla, it's a mod that tries to replicate the experience but taking a bit too liberties. I don't know it personally but if you manage to find a way to play the real original version it would be better.
If you cant get enough of G1 and G2 by the end of this consider Chronicles of Myrtana. Its a stellar G2 total conversion mod that is on par with the first two games in every regard.
Wow, thanks for the heads up on that. I played through Gothic 2 4 times(4th for night of the raven) and I have to check this out soon(after I finish a couple games cause it will consume me). I just hope I can figure out how to add the mod on steam.
@@jayhouston7054 you are gonna absolutely love it then, feels like what Gothic 3 should have been.
@@maz0t Oh Gothic 3, I put so much time into that when it first came out, killed every npc leveled up to godlike power, did every quest..got to the end and a bug prevented me from doing the ending I wanted. I did finish it doing a different ending(sorry memory is bad on how and what) and never went back. And that craptastic god forsaken ended up having a game breaking bug. Never went back to either.
@@jayhouston7054 It had some great ideas i think. The world itsself was great and the faction + magic systems were good. But the narrative and scaffolding the game was set upon just didnt hold it together. It helps a tiny bit with mods now but games like Elex has taken everything good from that game and made it better. Shame they had to rush it out like that, 1 or 2 more years could have been all it needed.
I'm so glad your checking out my childhood games 😊 To this day, I'm still playing them every year again over and over 😁
It's finally here! Excited to watch this after work!
I too have only played the GOTHIC franchise just a year or 2 ago despite being 31 years old.
So this feels special to watch!
Great review, played this classic back in its heyday and still have very fond memories.
This game with mods looks and runs great. It was a bit of work but I picked it out of your 61 games reviewed this year. I only screenshot two games to play. Both took a ton of work to get running but they’re great. The other was temple of elemental evil.
Shoutout for mentioning the voice acting. I know a lot of people consider it bad, and there are weird issues here and there, but i really, really liked them in all gothic games, especially in the first two.
Something about the reputation i don't remember mentioned is also the fact that you can't just walk everywhere without the right reputation. This is something that's really missing in almost every open world game, and it's so immersive here and really adds to the level of progression you mentioned.
Another underrated blast from the past with Gothic 1 I realized is - if you are replaying it as I am doing now, or if you back then read the manual to not stumble with controls,
you can enter the main gameplay loop 0 seconds after a skippable cutscene. Some games have it worse some better, but the nowaday EA influenced standard is 17 cutcenes, 3 unskippable dialogues, tutorial zone prompting you with flashy things on screen to pick a flower, put it in flower pot and put flower pot into flower pot hole or what have you.
Gothic 1 playstart after years to enjoy it again: escape cutscene, bye Diego - jump forward, and you can never look back and join a camp at level 20+ if you so choose (you might want to visit a camp to fight someone for their weapon, but feel free to skip all interactions till the entire map is dead).
How many speedruns of modern games are frame perfect first split waiting around or robotically making inputs, I guess that's why I hated every single sony game lately - if you want to replay one for completionist sake, you are repeating known movie sequences in what feels like more than half of your cognition time (spider man).
Thanks for the review. You made me want to give it a shot.
Gothic 1 is the first game I ever finished as a kid.
It will have a special place in my heart forever.
One of my favorite games. Doubt there's anything I don't know about it yet after having played it for over 20 years, but I still enjoy listening to people talk about it.
That review was enjoyable to watch, even though I'm not interested in the genre you got me hooked and interested in this title
Its very hard to decide wich camp to join. The old camp has Snaf the criminal gangster cook, who dropped some fire tracks tearing the new camp a second asshole, as well as winning his rap battle agains Valentino the rich kid and him destroying Till with the other dudes in their disstrack. The new camp on the other hand has Big Baba Vatras and his Ong-Bak-Slap of destruction. The water mages also had a better disstrack than the fire mages from the old camp. The sect camp has Cor Angar with his extreme doubletime flow, as well as his fighting power and agility.
I remember playing pirated version of Gothic with german voice acting and english subtitles in Russia in 2002, before Morrowing came out. No other game since then given so much satisfaction from progression. I vividly remember being afraid of a pack of scavengers and wolves, and swamp sharks were a nightmare! And then you get better with your weapons, you get some armor - and you exact revenge! On scavengers, cause wolves and swamp sharks are still hard af (: And then you meet the Black Troll in the cave, I remember having a ring that gave +10 or smth like that mana on equip and I spent more than an hour blasting it from distance with the cheapest fireball spell, cause in melee he was one-shotting me (:
Gosh, this review brought back so many memories. Thank you (:
Impeccable timing again, because I finished it at almost the same time you released this video. I've been playing through all of PB's games but backwards, starting from Elex 1 to 2, then the Risen series, and now I'm on Gothic.
It's an amazing game for it being 21 years old. I agree that considering the time it was released, it was way ahead of its time. The skill learning is similar to Risen 1 (which is fantastic sans the last chapters) and the controls end up being quite intuitive as you mentioned. I think the biggest cons of the game are the last chapters feeling a bit too stretched out and rushed, general movement and glitches in it (lost count how many times I got stuck on something and had to reload) and yeah, general archaic design which hasn't aged very gracefully. The platforming is pretty painful, too. I never got acrobatics so maybe it changes it.
The fact that those are the cons though and I was able to finish the whole thing coming out giving two thumbs up really goes to show just how well done this game is. The DX11 shader mod also gives it some fantastic lighting.
Time for Gothic 2.
In polish version that weed is called "bagienne ziele" which would translate to swamp weed. However that ziele part has more of a herb connotation to it. Even tho it is smoked, back when I played it, I associated that stuff with sage or other psychedelics related more to hallucinations than giggles
Hi Mortym! The Gothic 1 and 2, along with Risen 1 and Elex, are my favorite PB games. The world lore, world building, and general atmosphere is an rpg-lover's dream. I am curious to try one of the controller mods for it.
Thanks for the awesome review of one of my favorite games. When you play G2:NotR I can highly recommend the community Mini Mod. Apart from that there is also the Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos Community Game, which is an amazing addition from the Gothic Community and a whole separate game with lots of continuation on the worldbuilding.
Piranha Byte's games are always the same but every time a fantastic experience. Exploration gets rewarded with a good time. Almost all other AAA games get repetetive at some point, even Witcher 3 had this massive amount of (optional) loot markers on the map which is a waste of the players time.
I just love Piranha Bytes!
Yees I've been waiting for this. :D
Thank you again so much for reviewing this game. I can't wait until you start with Gothic 2, because it's my favorite in the franchise. I remember it fondly playing it for over 14 times when I was in a rough spot and my right (mouse) arm was in a cast.
This game will always have a special place in my heart.
Back in 2002 this game was just mindblowing. And still is for me.
I actually love the idea of some more "retrospectives" for the channel. Talking about game mechanics and development and how certain games influenced the genre, etc.
Do you like dungeon crawlers/blobbers at all? These would certainly be considered a subset of CRPGs imho. Something like Might & Magic 6 ~ 8 or Wizardry 8 flavor I feel share a lot of similarities to some of the games you cover. "Mort's M&M Series Retrospective" would be one hell of a drug lol
Obviously you do you, and this may not fit your style at all. Just some thoughts from my perspective.
Looking forward to the review! Nice title change
Guess I'll have to check it out now😂
Thank you Mortismal
I think you are the first person I heard to say something positive about Elex 2. This video has definitely convinced me to try Gothic again, it never occurred to me to mod it, the beginning frustration with the controls did turn me off but I always regretted not sticking with it because of all the positive feedback about the story.
I absolutely love G1... and since I´ve played with all camps, I would say the most lore sense makes to play as swamp camp (first one I´ve joined). It ties the strongest to the story and just feels complete. Both other camps pretty much sends you to spy the Swamp camp anyway. But I thoroughly enjoyed every camp! Love to just RP in Old camp, being shade... or being templar in Swamp Camp.. just perfection.
Greetings from Germany - gothic I and II are such great games despite all their little flaws.
I always smile when I see that people outside of germany like it as well.
You have forgot to mention one important thing about Gothic - it's minimal interface, which allows for greater immersion. I can only recall Dead Space with better idea of an interface. It also has a "gothic" style. Elex 1, and especially Elex 2 are far inferior in this aspect. // P.S. Light and dark are also used perfectly in this game to build immersion.
Thats my favourite game series right there. Thanks for reviewing them!
Thank you soooo much for covering this pearl of a game. I was completely addicted to it as a child. I'd really wish to see your opinion on Gothic II.
I’m gonna download this on my Deck! New subscriber, really like your stuff.
Risen 1 was my fav and it feels so bad when i know what they did to 2 and 3
Great review and great game all around. PB might have gone downhill in later years and their refusal to change their design philosophy at all makes for some frustrations, but this shows they can still show gold.
You also must play the mod Archolos: Chronicles of myrtana, it is the true sequeal to gothic 2, it's an masterpiece
It really is astonishing that this mod exists. If I was Mort, I'd skip 3 and just play Archolos.
Chronologically, it's a prequel to Gothic 1. And yes! That free mod feels like a standalone Gothic game with more polish and detail than the first two.
I was pretty glad to see Mort mention he intends to play it in his recent video.
Now he just needs to find the 500 hours he'll need for G2 and Archolos, plus edits.
@@OmerSaidtr Yes, I mean, true sequel since gothic 3 came out with lots of problems
@@egamruf I can't say enough, how gothic 2 and archollos change my life, it makes every other open world rpg bad because no one match the immersion, exploration, world building and progression, and btw, I just LOVE the graphics, with the dx11 mod it gets so beautiful, the best rain ever made also kkk
Cool! I just finished Dragon Age Origins on Steam Deck and I just picked up the Gothic games on sale. I'm happy to hear it works well on Steam Deck.
Nothing makes me as happy as playing this game (and Gothic 2). I was very lucky to have known it.
Another nice old german RPG is the Drakensang series (2 games + 1 DLC). The river of time is a really chill adventure with gameplay like Dragon age origins (except magic isn't OP) but the atmosphere is more like a fairy tale, and the character design reminds me of hand-drawn Disney movies. I never tried the MMO though.
12:42 ... Gomez creeping out that hallway there, kinda scary xd
I am very envious that you are playing it for the first couple of times