Retrospective: Gothic 1
 

It’s been a while since I’ve played through the Gothic series, so I figured it was high time to do so. A few years ago, I replayed Gothic so frequently it always felt natural to get back into it (5+ times per year).

This time, however, enough time has passed to make me forget certain things, making the whole thing a bit more interesting. Also, my impressions weren’t what I thought they would be, so it might be somewhat interesting for people to read. After all, it’s fairly well known that I am a rather dedicated Gothic fan, and my experience wasn’t quite what I expected.

First things first: I replayed Gothic 1 twice now (Guard + Magician), and I will replay Gothic 2 NotR shortly. I might also play through Gothic 2 vanilla and do a comparison between vanilla and NotR, as I don’t even remember what Gothic 2 was like back then. Finally, I’ll replay Gothic 3, with the community patch, but without any of the modes.

Each “article” will feature one game, unless people want me to split G2 and 3 up a bit to increase the level of detail.

Let’s get to it!
1) Installed Gothic.
2) Tweaked settings to maximize the graphics.
3) New game!

Bam. Video didn’t work. First glitch encountered. Ah well, let’s just skip it and watch the first in-game cutscene. The cutscene with Pyrokar and our nameless hero was roughly the way I recalled it except.. ugly. I don’t mean ugly as in “dented Porsche” kind of ugly. I mean train wreck ugly. I recently replayed BG1: EE followed by BG2, and they both looked fine, but Gothic almost made my eyes bleed. This is the main problem with 3D vs 2D. 3D is so tech based, once the tech improves it’ll look like crap.

My next impression was: The controls are sluggish. Moving, picking up stuff, inventory (where objects are still invisible, second glitch spotted), combat – it’s all got this sluggish feel that I didn’t remember. I suspect I’ve played G2 NotR a few times since I last played Gothic, as G2 is a significant improvement in terms of controls.

I’ll be perfectly honest, I actually quit once I got to the old camp. I didn’t feel like continuing. I’ve never had this feeling when playing Gothic before. I actually left the game for several days before coming back to give it another go.

Once I started exploring the old camp things improved greatly. The sluggish feeling was still there, and the square-looking graphics were most certainly still present, but the old feeling of exploring Gothic returned. There’s something special about exploring the old camp, the people doing their daily routines, the music (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JVtVyfAHNc), Mud. Oh, right. Mud. I usually avoid him by jumping over his hut, but this time I forgot, so I got stuck with Mud. He is quite possibly the most annoying character I’ve ever seen in a game. Luckily, he somehow vanished when I left the old camp with Mordrag to go to the new camp. I don’t know where, I don’t know how, but I don’t care as long as he left me alone.

In the new camp, I tried doing my usual thing where I upgrade my character to become a fighting machine. The thing is: You can get some really powerful weapons there if you know how, such as the axe of Lares or Silas. Unfortunately, it seems I forgot a certain thing or two because I just kept getting my ass handed to me by both of them. No worries, I know how to get a mediocre weapon first – Shrike or some such thing is near Gorn, and he’s a pansy. Or so I thought until he flattened me.

At this point, I was completely overlooking the crap graphics and sluggish controls. I was well and truly hooked again, and every time I got knocked down simply lead to more determination. This has always been one of the strengths of Gothic – yes, it can be hard, but it’s so damn sweet once you succeed!

In the end I did get my hands on Lares’ axe, but I didn’t have the strength to use it. Such a bummer. I don’t even know what I did different from my regular runs, but it must’ve been something.

After doing most of the stuff in the new camp, I always go to the sect camp (lead there by Baal whatever from the old camp). The sect camp is definitely my favorite, I really like the laid back style, the swamp, huts etc. I also love the heavy armor of the Templars. They’re still awesome. And let's not forget Baal Netbek, the "guru of the swamp" who thinks the trees are his servants, and that they're skipping and jumping about. He wants to turn the whole place into a flowery meadow. Good luck!

One thing I had noticed by now was the voice acting. I remember there being quite a bit of criticism, but I honestly don’t understand why. Yes, I’ve heard better, but I actually feel it’s among the better games out there. In fact, everything in terms of sound is still top notch in my opinion (sound effects, music, voices, etc).

Let’s fast forward a bit: Camp choice time. I suspect they wanted to do more with the camp choice – it now serves as a class choice, and a sense of belonging, which works out fine, but other than the game is (almost) identical from here on. It would’ve been fantastic for the replay value if there had been a few more differences.

While I was still on a roll and having fun, I had now become quite agitated with all the bugs (no, not meat bugs, though trying to hit them can be somewhat frustrating). I was crashing quite frequently, and even when it didn’t crash I often had to force a shut down as the main character got stuck mid-air when jump over stuff or down from certain places. This is the kind of thing nostalgia has a habit of removing from memory.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out in Gothic 3, because my experience in Gothic has convinced me it’s in a far worse technical state than Gothic 3 ever was. Either it’s been too long since I last played Gothic 3, or people simply had higher demands by the time it was released. Gothic 1 is also worse than any Bethesda title I’ve played in recent memory, and that’s saying something. There’s also a bunch of other glitches like Gorn attacking you if you get shot by a crossbow bolt (don’t ask me why) or Gorn getting stuck or Gorn accusing you of attacking him despite never having attacked him or Gorn starting a cutscene and then running in the opposite direction, meaning you have to open task manager and shut down the game manually and then reload. Maybe they should’ve done a little more Gorn testing.

At any rate, bar the bugs, I was enjoying it a lot. Going through one quest after the other, gaining power and then WOOSH it was over. Seriously. Once you get the portal runes, you’re 8 hours away from the end. It’s just bam, bam, thank-you-ma’am, done. I knew it was shorter than most people think, but I didn’t expect the “2nd half” being, in reality, the last 25%. It’s actually a bit similar to Risen in that regard, though it has to be said that the ending is still a lot more fun than the one in Risen, as it’s not just lizards in caves.

After completing it once as a Guard, I started over as a Magician. I can’t say that changed my point of view significantly – it’s a bit more challenging in most cases, especially in the start, but it’s not too difficult. Fairly well balanced I’d say. I normally play Templar, which I consider the most fun, but also the most demanding in terms of spending skill points right. Guard and Magician are so straight forward in that regard there’s no real way to ruin the character build without doing something really dumb.

All in all, I still think Gothic is a milestone in the RPG genre due to the living, breathing world. The level of detail is amazing and the content density is fantastic as there’s something interesting to experience all over the place. However, certain aspects haven’t aged well, so the whole “remake” thing that some people are suggesting isn’t a bad idea.

I didn’t take too many notes when playing through Gothic 1 again, as I wasn’t planning to write this when I played it, but I’ll be sure to take some notes during G2 to make it a bit more accurate. Also, it would make it easy to do a fairly accurate comparison between G2 vanilla and G2 NotR, which I’m fairly certain hasn’t been done in quite some time (if ever?).

Feel free to post comments, questions etc. If there’s anything specific I should add (examples, details, whatever) just point it out. :)

Edit: A bit of a funny thing that I don't think most people have noticed. You get a quest near the end called "The Meeting" where you're supposed to talk to Lester and Gorn about meeting Diego and Milten. Talking to Gorn is no problem. Talking to Lester leads to the weirdest conversation I've ever heard in a game. I suspect they forgot the voice over for it and just patched it together with different quotes or some such thing, as it doesn't make any sense at all. He keeps changing his voice and saying random stuff that is just plain silly. Worth a look if you ever find yourself playing through it again.

Thanks, fun read. I played a bit of the game not that long ago (also just to and a little beyond the old camp), and my experience was similar in terms of still enjoying the setting and the atmosphere of it, although I don't remember running into as many bugs. It definitely looked better in my memory than in reality though :p If you are doing a rerun of the whole series, it would be cool if you'd do a retrospective for the main site.

Wasn't Baal Netbeck named after a real person ? I forgot, whom.

That is actually true Alrik! I found this:
"In the swamp camp the player can meet an insane NPC named "Baal Netbek". He is named and modelled after Joachim Nettelbeck who was a reviewer for the German magazine PC Player at the time. He even lent his voice to the character."

Maylander good job writing this retrospective of yours. Reading all that made me fuzzy inside and made me almost install gothic 1 once again, so job well done :D Its been few years since my last gothic run, so I'd love to replay the whole saga, but I'm afraid it will have to wait for summer when things calm down a bit.

Gothic is a very special game and it really moved the whole genre forward. More time passes, more I value it.

Btw have you seen the swamp witch? ;)

Gothic memories are coming back!

hahaha That's exactly what I did 2 weekends ago. The thought of interacting with all those people in old camp and trying not to screw up a quest or profession or relationship held me back. I'll go back once my Realms of the Haunting playback is done.

Nice little write-up, Maylander.

The only thing that bothers me about Gothic 1&2 is the odd way the camera turns in those games. Something about about the lazy camera movement actually makes me feel a little dizzy if I haven't played those games in a while. It goes away after some time though.

I haven't done a full playthrough in a very long time, but I encountered very few bugs during any of my previous playthroughs. I suspect at least some of the bugs you encountered have as much to do with modern hardware as the game itself.

Overall, there still hasn't been an action-RPG since G2 that can match those games in terms of atmosphere and exploration imo.

I think Morrowind is better in that regard by far, but it's a matter of style and taste, I suppose. I do like the brooding atmosphere.

I do love exploration in Morrowind, but Gothic has superior atmosphere hands down for me.

I'm talking specifically about action-RPGs though. I don't think Morrowind falls into that category.

Sure it does. Just like Oblivion and Skyrim, except dice as well as skill determine whether you hit. Still action, just a little randomness added is all.

EDIT: Actually, I'd reserve the term "action RPG" for Diablo and its clones. But I am more of purist than most. ;)

Simply having combat being determined by reflexes doesn't automatically make something an action-RPG. TES is more of a simulation\sandbox RPG to me.

I compare Gothic more to games like Two Worlds or Dragon Knight Saga. Although I think it's far superior to those titles.

Morrowind isn't an action RPG in my opinion. For something to qualify for that genre - action has to be a major focus, which it most definitely isn't.

I'd argue that Oblivion and Skyrim COULD be considered action RPGs as dice rolls exited the picture and reflexes entered - but I wouldn't personally call them that.

Then again, it's as subjective and arbitrary as the RPG genre in itself.

But we all know that Thrasher is likely to be wrong when I don't agree with him.

Wrong again. Combat is the focus, just because you didn't like it, doesn't mean it didn't exist. The world does not revolve around Dart, but he would like it to. Yeah I'm sure you think very highly of yourself. But we all know you have a lot of bad ideas.

Do there really exist RPGs where combat is actually *not* the focus ?

yes - there are called adventures :)

I don't think so, how else would you give the player a challange that he/she can overcome with mechanical movement (button pressing) to give them the sense of achievement, without killing someone or something. Moreover, I don't think that gamers will be content with illness, political unrest, raising children, paying bills, cutting lawn .. etc. as challenges in an rpg ;).

Yeah, really by today's definition of an action RPG, every RPG I have ever played has pretty much focused on action (i.e. combat). Torment even had its share of combat.

That's why I prefer to use a more strict interpretation of "action RPG" as one that is almost entirely combat (e.g. Diablo).

Could certainly identify with your text. The enjoyment I got after beating opponents, especially in 1v1, was usually more that what I get from your average boss fight.

Just a note on G3. I would strongly argue that playing with the QuestPaket and the Content mode leads to a MUCH better game with a degree of variety and detail close to what you'd expect in G1/G2. My estimation could be wrong but when I replayed G3 with those 2 there was ~30% more content and more precisely the type of content G3 lacked, "chapter"+city+level spanning quests.

I have to both agree and disagree here. Everything you said about Dart may be true ;). But calling Gothic an action RPG is absurd IMO given the well established RPG trapping/definitions. Gothic has practically everything required to be defined as a hardcore RPG yet its combat is skill based. Lets not deminish it! And saying Morrowind doesn't involve player reflex is slightly disingenuous. Stats control "to hit" but once speed and athletics skills rise (inevitable) they factor into combat as player skill.

I have been trying to find information on the QuestPack for G3 but did not find much. Is it new content made by fans, or recovered content from the game itself? Does it include voice overs from the original or made by fans :-/?

It's fan made Content. There are voice-overs but only in German, afaik. However, English subtitles are available. It requires the current community patch as well.

Many thanks, I will have a look at it.

What are you disagreeing with? I was just trying to lead folks to see that the term "action rpg" has been so diluted by the gaming press to be pretty much meaningless.

I don't consider the term "action-RPG" to be derogatory. If I did, I certainly wouldn't use it to describe a game that I consider to be one of the greatest crpgs ever made.

Apparently I'm disagreeing with JDR13 ;). Your hilarious rebuke of Dart threw me off.

The point is action is a major part of the enjoyment of Gothic 2+NOTR. Learning the fighting is a major element in the game. Put crap fights in the same game and it will be a half interesting RPG. So I have the same point of view.

But I name action RPG the real time Rpg. I don't use real time RPG because nobody do. Diablo like games are Diablo like games. I think that some want use RPG for a game like Gothic and Action RPG for some other games, I imagine ME2 for example, because they think RPG need follow a strict definition that they know.

Well RPG tag in computer games has been used a long time before those younger was born and I don't see why change it because some younger believe to know the "truth".

The RPG genre as such evolved, too. Let's take a look at Lands Of Lore I or Eye Of THe Beholder, for example - that's pure "dungeon crawling" at its best. Even the Realms Of Arcania games have that.

And inside of a dungeon, there's only one thing : "fight forwards !".
No social interactions, no crafting, no quests, even. Yes, not even quests as such.

I don't know who invented the "Quest" as something that's been scribbled down in an journal, but at least there did exist things one had to keep in mind as things to do - and to scribble them down on the own sheet of paper, bevore the computer. Now, the Journal is within/inside of the computer, and modern games keep track of Quests on their own.
Same with Maps.

So, from this perspective, these "Action-RPGs" are nothing but "open world dungeon crawlers", where the open world replaced the dungeon - and in some cases it's still a dungeon.

But - what differs games like Titan Quest, Sacred etc. from Lands Of Lore I and Eye Of The Beholder is the fact that fighting takes place in an completely different style.
Simply, because the view is different now. You don't look into a dungeon like in Dungeon Master - front view - but you look at an open area or into a dungeon from above - and that makes the fighting style a LOT different !

Plus, the Multiplayer part. Dungeon Crawling as an multiplayer game ? Not a good idea. And at that time, no-one from the "multiplayer crowd" even wishd so. Simply because there wasn't any distinction between the view of the first person in a group (the group leader) and the second, third or fourth.

And because the fighting style was changed with the view onto the battlefield, it could become much faster then, too. Because you had an much better overview, could evade spells and arrows, could even use the terrain to your advantage ("kiting").

Action = adrenaline, imho, which means on the other hand that "slow RPGs" = no adrenaline. They are for people who like it slow, who don't like combat that much, but might prefer rather puzzles and stuff that needs your full concentration. Rather that than the ability to quickly move the mouse (and earn money with that through E-Sports).

Remember that puzzle in Drakensang 2 where you had to free the "mermaid" ? I wonder how much time the bestest and fastest E-Sports teams would need to solve that … Each member of them individually …

I definitely consider Gothic to be an "action RPG". The skill of the player means so much, far more than in most cRPGs.

As for Diablo clones? I just consider them "hack'n slash" and that's about it. They're not really RPGs to me as there are no meaningful choices.

Anyway, I am actually playing Gothic 2 NotR and Gothic 2 vanilla at the same time right now, so it'll take a while to finish. The difference is quite big to be honest. I find it very interesting, especially since I've forgotten so much of how things were handled in G2 vanilla.

If the "action" skill of the player required is what makes it an action RPG - then we need to call games like Dragon Age tactical RPGs.

But we don't do that - because tactical combat is not really the defining feature of the game as a whole - it's just part of it. We could also call it a story RPG because story is a huge aspect of it.

To me - an action RPG needs to have action as the dominant factor, or it should be shared with other dominant factors. That's why Diablo qualifies for me.

Obviously, that's just my opinion.

I'll stick with my definition. Action RPGs are diablo clones. The industry movement to put the word "action" into all of their RPG descriptions isn't relevant.

Diablo clones are "Diablo clones". Why try to add a second label to something that already has one?

Because that's where the definition of "action RPG" originally came from until it was later misused and muddied by the gaming press.

"Diablo clone" is used by the majority to describe RPGs that are top-down, mouse-driven, and combat-heavy. "Action-RPG" is a much broader term that was never limited to just that type of game.

My memory serves me differently. I never had seen the term "action RPG" applied to anything other than a Diablo clone until the Gothics, and more often since the release of Arcania.

Until the Gothics? You mean a series that started 13 years ago? :)

Yes, your memory certainly does seem to serve you differently than that of the majority. I can name a lot of games that were considered action-RPGs over the years, and they weren't all top-down, mouse driven titles.

I ma sure you speak for the majority since you are always so disagreeable with everyone. Also, you do realize that Diablo was in 1999 and Gothic was in 2002? Or have those brain cells died? ;)

I'm not speaking for anyone, just pointing out something that's obvious to most. But but all means, please continue to claim that the term action-RPG was never used to describe anything but Diablo clones.

And Gothic was actually released in 2001, although I fail to see the relevance.

Never? OK, I'd like a reference to an action RPG that predates Gothic that wasn't a diablo clone.

When exactly did you start playing RPGs? It's just an honest question, because I get the feeling that maybe you haven't been playing as long as some of the rest of us. I also thought I recall you saying that one of the Infinity Engine games was the first RPG you played.

I've played a lot of the games mentioned here including Dungeons of Daggorath back in the early 80s. Although I don't recall if the term action-RPG was used that far back, it certainly was at times in the mid to late 90s. Prior to then, I'd say "hack and slash" was the more popular term.