Arcania - Review Flood #1

Our own Arcania review should give you a good idea whether or not it's the right game for you. Below are links to all published reviews we are aware of since the last similar newsbit.

• PC Gamer only posted a very short review. "A shallow but entertaining adventure. The world is wonderful to explore, but a lack of depth keeps this from achieving greatness." - 76%
• Holdstartselect concludes: "Although fundamentally being a decent RPG Gothic 4 just isn’t with the times. Nothing in this game from go to woe seems original. The lack of any depth for the game just isn’t on par with what is out now or even what came out a few years ago. I did enjoy the game but it certainly will not be one that is remembered in a few years to come." - 6.5 stars (out of 10 ?)
• Eurogamer Italy - 5/10
• All articles in German from now on. The GamerPlus review is identical to the Gamers.at article we mentioned a few days ago.
• Krawall - 80%
• 4Players - 40% (PC), 30% (XBox360)
• PlayNation - 73%
• GameZoom - 8/10
• MTV GameOne - 20 minute review video. No score.
• ComputerBildSpiele - Review video in addition to the already posted article.
• GamePro - Sister mag to GameStar. - 71% (XBox360)

More information.

Strange, I have rarely seen so many different ratings. From 30 to 10% is QUITE a range! o.0

Originally Posted by elikal
Strange, I have rarely seen so many different ratings. From 30 to 10% is QUITE a range! o.0

It seems that some are still in shock. A highly polished, high quality game was expected, but wasn't delivered and the reviewers don't know what to make of it.

After putting in around 10 hours into Arcania, I still feel that its a fun game, but I also get the feeling that its an unfinished project. I don't mean that its buggy, I just have the feeling that a lot more was planed to be done with game, but it just didn't happen. At some point for some reason production must of came to a halt and then they "cleaned-up" whatever they had just to get it out the door.

This game was getting so much attention and had been on everyone's radar for years. It seemed that a lot of work was going into this and that it was going to be a technical show-case. However, Arcania has been nothing but a very BIG disappointment.

I wonder if Arcania's poor performance has something to do with JoWoods problems. I was just listening to the Fallout Podcast with Chris Avellone and he was saying that they are all very excited and proud about the eminent release of New Vegas and the team cant wait to see the fans reaction! I just can't imagine the folks at JoWood having the same excitement about Arcania, fully knowing that the game was going to disappoint. It just doesn't make sense…

Reviews so far don't seem that bad really… From Metacritic:

Gothic 1 - 81
Gothic 2 - 79
Gothic 3 - 63
Gothic FG- 44
Gothic 4 - 73

Jowood might be quite relieved

73% out of how many reviews?

G4 is NEVEr 10% ahead of G3! G3 in it's current state is a great game and a real Gothic. G4 is just … Console Gothic. It's like a Two Worlds clone with worse graphics, less content and far worse gameplay. Just aweful.

Only about 5 - Metacritic is lagging the reviews…

Price: €19.99 €49.99
http://www.onlinekeystore.com/Arcani…-4-RETAIL.html

Jowood has nothing to fear though, I'm pretty sure these casual rpg players they're aiming for are plenty and will buy Arcania en mass.

Originally Posted by spiraling69
I just can't imagine the folks at JoWood having the same excitement about Arcania, fully knowing that the game was going to disappoint. It just doesn't make sense…

If the recent Elemental: War of Magic has taught me anything, it is that developers can be completely blind to the faults their game has. Much like a wife who ignores her husbands blatant adultery, I believe some developers get so caught up in things that they can't see the forest for the trees. I'm not saying this is the case with Arcania, I just don't know, but I am saying that it is possible they were completely excited and thought this game was going to get blockbuster reviews.

Originally Posted by Bateman
G4 is NEVEr 10% ahead of G3! G3 in it's current state is a great game and a real Gothic. G4 is just … Console Gothic. It's like a Two Worlds clone with worse graphics, less content and far worse gameplay. Just aweful.

The comparison isn't quite fair. You even mention "in it's [sic] current state" so why do you not take into account that the Gothic 3 scores are mostly from the time of (or shortly after) Gothic 3's release when the game was in a much shittier state than now?

Comparing apples to apples, we'd have to compare the Gothic 4 release version with the Gothic 3 release version. The release version of Gothic 3 (even including the release patch which brought G3 to version 1.07 IIRC) would have deserved a 0% rating because the game was simply unplayable at that time (save game corruption, crash bugs, extremely poor performance, disappearing NPCs and monsters, holes in the world mesh, broken quests etc. etc. etc.).
Arcania (release version) is not just 10% but actually light years ahead of Gothic 3 (release version) for the simple fact that it is at least playable.

With that said, I more than fully agree naturally that Gothic 3 v1.74 is then again also light years ahead of Arcania as far as the "real Gothic" feeling etc. is concerned but -still- it remains an apple vs. orange comparison as of now.
To make it apple vs. apple we'd have to wait four years and then see if/how/to which extent the community has improved Arcania.

Originally Posted by Kardiophylax
…but I am saying that it is possible they [Jowood] were completely excited and thought this game was going to get blockbuster reviews.

Like you, I wasn't there in the board room meetings so I can't say I know for sure. But I suspect Jowood knew exactly what they were aiming for with this game.

Jowood has a history wrestling with an ongoing turbulant financial situation. I suspect that the aim of Arcania has always been, from the beginning, to be a more mainstream game with the end goal of generating more revenue.

I say this because there is a big clue right from the get-go during Arcania's development… the multiple changes with the name of the game, with 'Gothic' being toned down (and at one point eliminated entirely) and finally the actual name of the game: Arcania - A Gothic Tale.

I think Jowood felt they needed the word 'gothic' because it has some brand recognition, but at the same time they wanted to design out a lot of features that made earlier Gothic games what they were to appeal to a wider market.

That's my 2 cents on this subject.

Originally Posted by TheMadGamer
I say this because there is a big clue right from the get-go during Arcania's development… the multiple changes with the name of the game, with 'Gothic' being toned down (and at one point eliminated entirely) and finally the actual name of the game: Arcania - A Gothic Tale.

I think Jowood felt they needed the word 'gothic' because it has some brand recognition, but at the same time they wanted to design out a lot of features that made earlier Gothic games what they were to appeal to a wider market.

The actual name is ArcaniA - Gothic 4 and as a part of official description, listed among key features, there´s this bit: "A COMPLETELY OPEN WORLD: Enjoy the complete freedom & the almost unlimited options known from the Gothic series."
(caps courtesy of copy&paste, not added by me )

Originally Posted by Moriendor
Comparing apples to apples, we'd have to compare the Gothic 4 release version with the Gothic 3 release version. The release version of Gothic 3 (even including the release patch which brought G3 to version 1.07 IIRC) would have deserved a 0% rating because the game was simply unplayable at that time (save game corruption, crash bugs, extremely poor performance, disappearing NPCs and monsters, holes in the world mesh, broken quests etc. etc. etc.).
Arcania (release version) is not just 10% but actually light years ahead of Gothic 3 (release version) for the simple fact that it is at least playable.

To be completely honest, I was still more impressed with Gothic 3 out of the box than I am with Arcania.

At least I could see the potential that G3 had, even if it was full of bugs at the time. I just don't see that potential in Arcania.

Originally Posted by Moriendor

The release version of Gothic 3 (even including the release patch which brought G3 to version 1.07 IIRC) would have deserved a 0% rating because the game was simply unplayable at that time

I think you're overstating your case here. I bought G3 at release and played it at every stage, from unpatched to V1.74. There were problems at the start but not so many IMHO that it was even close to unplayable. There is a kind of folklore now about how bad G3 was but it wasn't really that bad. The important thing was that it was worth sticking with because of the scope of the game and all the things PB did right.
As to Arcania, I've played the demo and agree that it's solid in terms of performance and stability. The question the demo left me with was whether that mattered. It just seems to lack personality and style; subjective qualities for sure but it's all about one's own taste, no?

Sure. I played the G3 demo and it was completely playable.

I spent 50 hours with Gothic 3 with the release version, and possibly the first patch.

It was around that time that the game became very slow and my savegame got corrupted. The savegame bug was terrible - but you could get around that by saving smarter than I did.

If Gothic 3 represents unplayable, I'll take an unplayable Gothic over a Gothic in name only - any day of the week, and twice on Sundays.

Even in the flawed and buggy release state, Gothic 3 managed to entertain me more than any game had done in a loooong time. It pulled me away from WoW for a week, and that was deep into my WoW addiction (rather, my DPS addiction).

Moriendor said:

To make it apple vs. apple we'd have to wait four years and then see if/how/to which extent the community has improved Arcania.

I fear these "casual rpgers" have not the time and ambition to build up an Arcania community and start a fan project to patch it. Most Gothic fans are loathing Arcania, so there's is only a small chance that Arcania will improve over time.

30% ? lol , i wonder how they would rate newspaper boy simulator.

Some things are so wrongly made that can not be fixed via patching or moding , like the horrible combat system .

Originally Posted by fragonard
I think you're overstating your case here. I bought G3 at release and played it at every stage, from unpatched to V1.74.

Where do you live ? Moriendor of course means the German version (at least I assume so), meanwhile international versions already had a few patches included, if I remember correctly.