Help a fussy old sod find the perfect RPG

Learning the controls for the first Gothics takes no longer than 15 minutes with the help of JemyM's FAQ. They're absolutely simple. Just not exactly elegant, and definitely not intuitive.

Things got better in G2.

Let's get back to the original discussion now.

Ovenall said:

The Gothic games are horrible in my opinion.

I'd recommend Oblivion

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Wow.. speechless. There are two parts to Wisdom.

1. Knowing exactly what to say

and

2. Not saying it.

****eye rolling*****

OK, the original poster has already said he doesn't like the Gothic games.

I know it's literally blasphemy to criticize gothic here, but I agree with him. The Gothic games kind of suck. They are grey and brown and ugly and have a bad control scheme. There's just not much fun to be had, way too much work and they require a huge commitment to learn all the NPC names and locations as the journal, map and quest system is terrible.

Oblivion isn't the greatest game ever, but the gothics are a pain in the ass.

Ovenall said:

the gothics are a pain in the ass.

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No they're NOT <petulant foot stamp>

Two can play at this game!

Ovenall said:

****eye rolling*****

OK, the original poster has already said he doesn't like the Gothic games.

I know it's literally blasphemy to criticize gothic here, but I agree with him. The Gothic games kind of suck. They are grey and brown and ugly and have a bad control scheme. There's just not much fun to be had, way too much work and they require a huge commitment to learn all the NPC names and locations as the journal, map and quest system is terrible.

Oblivion isn't the greatest game ever, but the gothics are a pain in the ass.

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To you they suck, but not to the majority of hardcore RPG'ers on this site. You are assuming this gamer has the same tastes as you and making an absolute statement that the Games are bad. Perhaps you could have said "I didn't particularly care for the Gothics myself, though alot of folks on this site are big fans of the game. I would recommend Oblivion and etc etc".

To me it sounded like you were just fishing for flammage.

OK, from the original poster's comment:

"Gothic 2 - Terrible controls. Put me straight off.

Gothic 3 - Buggy for me, even with the latest patches. Framerate dips very badly. Just can't play it."

He said it, not me. I get it, the Gothic series is Not To Be Criticized here...

Ovenall said:

OK, from the original poster's comment:

"Gothic 2 - Terrible controls. Put me straight off.

Gothic 3 - Buggy for me, even with the latest patches. Framerate dips very badly. Just can't play it."

He said it, not me. I get it, the Gothic series is Not To Be Criticized here…

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I shelved the game myself because i was put off by the controls, but i gave it another shot and got used to them. There are countless others that had the same experience,. Some never gave it another shot, some did and still didn't like it. but most didn't regret giving it another shot. There's plenty to be criticized about every game, but everyone has different tastes, so absolutes can be misleading.

I've already learned that it's a waste of time to try to tell Ovenall anything. He'll just repeat the same things over and over, while trying to project his opinion as fact.

JDR13 said:

I've already learned that it's a waste of time to try to tell Ovenall anything. He'll just repeat the same things over and over, while trying to project his opinion as fact.

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Thanks JDR13, i'll keep that in mind.

I also would recommend G2. It is worth the 3 or 4 so hours to get used to the control scheme. It can easily provide 50+ hours of pure enjoyment and is one of the best action RPG's ever made.

It's also easier to get used to if you use the mouse control scheme rather than the G1 control scheme.

Yes.
Mapping the controls to an old gamepad is worth a try, too.

Since originally posting i've gone back to Risen and i'm really enjoying it. I think the issue I had before was getting through all the quests in Harbour Town. There's a lot of running around talking to NPCs and while some of the quests are quite interesting there isn't really much going on at this point. I think its more about deciding what faction to side with and the rest of the game takes a back seat at this point. Once you've picked a faction and get to chapter 2, things definitely open up.

Regarding all the Gothic 2 recommendations: I know i've only played a few hours of Gothic 2 but i've also watched a fair bit of gameplay(let's plays) and watched many reviews. To me the gameplay just seems exactly the same as Risen. I couldn't really see anything in G2 that you couldn't do in Risen(quests, crafting, etc). It seems that where G2 is better is the size of the game(world) and the fact its fairly difficult and so more of a challenge for the hardcore gamer.

Imo Risen is much better in terms of presentation, controls and I find it more accessible. If all I'm missing out on compared to G2 is a slightly bigger game world then I'd rather have the benefits Risen provides.

Of course, if there's a lot more to G2 than I'm assuming then I'd be interested to know. Also interested to know if playing with a controller would improve the control.

What makes Gothic 2 shine (apart from the high difficulty) is the setting, it somehow feels more "alive" than it did in Risen. Not saying that Risen's setting was not good, I thought it was, but Gothic 2 had a better setting (even though the two are relatively similar). I would still recommend playing Gothic 1 first though (in the gothic series, that is), because not only does the events in Gothic 1 play a large part in Gothic 2, but the game is, as I said earlier, more forgiving and easier to get into. Also, even though Gothic 1 might not be a looker, it had a really interesting, and quite different, setting. And this is from a person who has no nostalgic ties to Gothic, I played them relatively recently (I bought "Gothic universe", a collection of the first 3 gothic games).
Oh, and the expansion for Gothic 2, Night of the raven, does apparently increase the difficulty of the game by quite a lot. The expansion is integrated into the main game though, so there is no "play the game first and then the expansion". My version did not allow me to play the game without the expansion.

Risen is indeed a more modern, refined and polished version of the Gothics but I feel that the world of Gothic was not only bigger and more detailed but also more convincing, more atmospheric with better writing and generally more interesting. Without spoiling too much there are 4 people your character will be strongly connected to throughout the Gothics while there is only one in Risen.

It is also worth noting that the last two chapters of Risen are vastly inferior to the rest of the game and the end of Gothic 1 or 2.

The first two Gothics have more memorable NPCs and reward exploration a bit better. They simply have more personality. But they're of course less accessible, as you've already found out.
Risen is a more polished but very conservative interpretation of the old Gothic formula. Piranha Bytes had good reason for doing it that way, after the G3 debacle nearly killed them. Now they're pushing forward again with Risen 2.

Regarding Risen's "problems" in the last 2 chapters, which are, with one exceptions I won't mention here, a matter of taste:
(mild spoiler)

And another general hint for all Gothics, including Risen:
Always carry a bow and a couple of arrows. You must be prepared to shoot at a switch at the other end of the room.

Jimmay said:

Also interested to know if playing with a controller would improve the control.

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Several people wrote that mapping the controls to a gamepad is even the best solution. It's unconfirmed whether it can be done with a new controler like the XBox 360 pad. Old Gravis or Logitech pads work, if you have the configuration software installed.

G2 has a secondary control scheme: The most agressive attack was mapped to a mouse button. It's not elegant, but it works.
There's also a mod for G2 which allows to lower the difficulty level. Many players found thi useful. G2 Gold is very difficult, according to today's standards.

I'm a fussy old sod as well, heres my thoughts on a few games.

I'm also currently playing Risen and cannot figure out what I am supposed to be doing yet. I'm still in the Bandit Camp and guess I will venture to Harbour Town next as I seem to have stagnated in my quests in Bandit Camp. The dialogue is great, good voice acting, not so great controls, bad inventory system, bad quest history. Haven't been killed by an ostrich yet but have been eaten by a pack of wolves. I'm gonna do the same as you and slog it out to Chapter 2 and see if it improves.

I felt Fallout 3 was better than F3: NV, mostly because I cannot stand the music in NV and just do not like Vegas (even in real life) at all. Needs more face melting mutants imo. F3 had a much better main questline than NV imo.

Oblivion I liked, it wasn't perfect by any means but well worth playing. I even prefer Linear games to to open world and I'm sure I easily put over 100 hours in Oblivion.

My favorite game in years was Dragons Age, I liked almost everything about it. I loved the cut scenes, the dialogue, well … everything. I think I even put a few hours into every race as I wanted to see everyones story. I never felt lost or poor. I always felt I was advancing the storyline. Good game.

If you have an Xbox, grab the first Gears of War. Its not an RPG but it surprised me how enjoyable it was. Good story, very simple yet workable controls. I'm not a huge shooter fan but I even played this game thru twice which is extremely rare for me.

Toff said:

I'm a fussy old sod as well, heres my thoughts on a few games.

I'm also currently playing Risen and cannot figure out what I am supposed to be doing yet. I'm still in the Bandit Camp and guess I will venture to Harbour Town next as I seem to have stagnated in my quests in Bandit Camp. The dialogue is great, good voice acting, not so great controls, bad inventory system, bad quest history. Haven't been killed by an ostrich yet but have been eaten by a pack of wolves. I'm gonna do the same as you and slog it out to Chapter 2 and see if it improves.

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Gothic's ostriches were more dangerous. Realistically you had a 50% chance against one of them with a level 1 character without an armour. If you fight two of anything you're dead.

Risen: