Gothic 3 - Retrospective Review @ C4G
 

C4G looks back at Gothic 3:

More information.

"It's really hard to find an RPG with a really flexible quest design nowadays"? What? It's almost become the standard.
But it was indeed ahead of its time back then, I also loved the fact it didn't give map pointers and other aids, you were free to explore and solve the problems on your own.

There's something about Gothic 3 that I really enjoy (modded out). I've played it 3x now and just really enjoy most aspects of the game. It gets a little crazy in some parts where you are fighting 100 orcs at a time but the world design and exploration is some of the best ever.

Now I feel like playing Gothic 3 again.

One day I'll do some research on what mods are available and replay them. I enjoyed the Gothic series thoroughly.

It's actually one of the easier games to mod. Some good YouTube videos on how to mod the game. Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls 4 were way harder to mod.

Gothic 3 doesn't get much respect these days, even among the Gothic fan base, but as someone who's played both Gothic 2 and 3 in the last few months, I am surprised to find that I prefer G 3. Beautiful music and graphics (except for some npc animations) and minimal hand holding. Not that G 2 doesn't have some charm, but I don't think it's ageing as well considering they're only 4 years apart.

It's not my favorite of the Gothic series, but it's certainly well worth playing. Current games these days could only hope to be favorably compared to Gothic three.

The video gave me goosebumps - I had unparalleled feeling and enjoyment when I first played Gothic 3. It is just a totally different experience for me due to the atmosphere, graphics, music, weapons, factions - brilliant.

Is Elex as good as Gothic 3? I am only asking as I have not played Elex yet.

Good game, but I think it's inferior to Gothic 1&2 in nearly every possible way. It's obvious that it wasn't finished, and even with the community patch, It doesn't feel like a fully fleshed-out game. Some areas and dungeons had little to nothing in them.

It was certainly a beautiful game for its time though, and the environments still look good even today. The music is fantastic as well even if I slightly prefer the soundtracks of the earlier games.

I enjoyed Elex more. It's certainly a lot more polished. Whether or not you think it's better though might depend on how much you like the setting. It's very different from any of their previous games.

My first graphical Wow!-moment I had in G3. I had a brand new graphic card and on my first session I was walking towards a hill behind which the sun rose. In the very moment a group of deer crossed the hill on its ridge. I was stunned, pure magic.

In my memory this scene is in 4K@120fps.

One of the everlasting impressions this game left me is the way castles and other buildings are designed, and how well they were placed on the map.

I remember a review saying it took German designers to really appreciate and master this art, since they still had so many of them in their country :)

I loved both of them equally and played each of them several times…

In November 2006 I helped to solve the famous Gothic 3 memory bug, by setting the large address aware bit in .exe and .dll files.
I wanted to play this game so much, that I analyzed the memory leaks and found a hacking solution together with some other forum members. My script was downloaded a lot on the German site World of Gothic.

Do you know if they implemented this in-game or we'll still have to install it like a mod?

I think the community patch flags the files meanwhile with the LAA-bit.

With the community patch, this was my favourite Gothic of all three. Loved the scale and getting lost in the landscape.

I'd say Elex is a lot better than Gothic three, unless you are simply heck-bound on having a medieval fantasy backdrop.

Loved the game, but Nordmar was my least favorite region. It's because I hate winters and the cold in real life. I was born in central Minnesota and have lived here since. Winters here are brutal.
Varant and Myrtana are more to my liking.

I enjoyed this game quite a bit but agree with JDR13 there were some empty dungeons, and a fair amount of empty sprawl in general, and too many "settlements" with one NPC to interact with. Music is great, and the more populated areas (NPCs, wildlife, or otherwise) come alive in dynamic and interactive ways.

I'd say Elex suffers from too much sprawl as well but other than that and the brutal difficulty, it's an amazing game and really fleshed out setting. I doubt I'll ever finish it though.

Curious what the community patch even does to Gothic 3 and what it adds?

Elex isn't difficult at all. (Except you make the mistake and try melee fighting.)

You can melee fight in Elex but not in the toe-to-toe style. I had much better success with swiping and dodging/evading a bit, rinse and repeat until the beastie/baddy is dead. And, it goes without saying that, similar to the ranged weapons available, if you do melee make sure you have an excellent weapon. There are lots to obtain through various ways all over the place! Should melee simply not work for you at all, find a nice ranged weapon and plink away!

I didn't think melee was bad at all. You just have to beef up some, mod your weapons at the workbenches, and learn the baddies attack styles. No, you can not spam the attack key. Watch your Stamina and chain your combos.

Same, but mostly because Nordmar felt empty compared to the other regions. There just wasn't much to do, and everywhere looked the same.

The CP is a major bug fix plus an optional rebalance. The rebalance I consider questionable and personally don't use it but he bug fix part is essential, truly essential.

Not a fan of these games as I was in the past. Still I wish more developers would've taken lessons. Especially how the armor and weapons feel well earned and unique.

It is not as good as 1 and 2, true… and at launch… OMFG was full of bugs not to say about the main quest braking bugs (As a player that finished the first and second Gothic multiple time I was used to a lot of freedom and this aproach fraked my Gothic 3 main quest).
But you can see that the devs had a dream, to make a bigger and better Gothic, and they tried to keep the quality of their game (I mean the detailed crafted world, the many ways to solve quests, the beautiful graphic and semirealistic medieval fantasy).
The game was a disappointment just like how Cyberpunk is now.
Yes, I've finished it later but the feeling that this could have been soo much better stayed and infected my memory of it.
Gothic 1 remains the first best open world I've ever played, and Gothic 2 perfected that formulae.
PS: I used your script @HiddenX back in the day, never made the connection. Thank you!

I loved Gothic 1 and 2, but my most memorable moments were with Gothic 3. I´ve waited to play this on till it was modded, so found no bugs and the fps were acceptable.
One of the best of all time for me, along side Ultima Underworld, Arx Fatalis, System Shock 2 and Deus Ex.

Only grip i had with the game was the combat system, too button mashing for my liking.

Can't disagree about that. That's why the best way to play is Pure Mage. You need to do some low level metagaming to make that work, unfortunately, but it's rewarding.

Seeing this retrospective video, I got excited and fired up Gothic 3, since I never got far into the game in the past. I loved G1/2 but 3 was a serious disappointment. And each time I retried playing I get deflated and just quit. Well, this time I barely cleared the first village, Ardea, and I just quit then and there. The melee combat is just attrocious. I can't do it. Also, come to think of it, what an awful start to the game. Starting you off right in the middle of a battle that took forever to finish.

Refinished this last autumn, good one.

Yes, the begining it´s the worse part, i remember that I hated fighting some wolves, but i think the combat gets a little better as you level up, and the discovery and exploration are top notch.
I started the game several times, until i forced myself to get to other villages and doing quests, and then I fell in love.

5 mins=forever?

I remember that Piranha Bytes put the fight in the beginning of the game, because fans complained that the start of Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 was too slow…

I am probably in the minority here but I did like the fight at the beginning, as it provided a good context to the fight with the orcs and there was plenty of loot afterwards. Moreover, it was a good introduction to the combat system which again I did like with charge attacks, and it was easy to learn and did not take away from exploring and adventuring.

Yeah I thought all the available loot was a nice reward for having to deal with a significant battle right at the start of the game. I mean, if you're looking for immersion in a game, there it is staring you right in the face.

I also had no problems with the fight in the beginning since it is designed as a tutorial and you can't do much wrong in it.

A much bigger problem were the two or three boars after the next hill, if you walk in the wrong direction. Before the community patch they insta-stun-killed you. :biggrin:

I play all Gothics as a ranged fighter and avoid melee where possible.



Melee is much better in Risen 2 and 3.

The stunlock boars - the greatest enemies in Gothic 3 :)

That says a lot considering it wasn't very good in those games either. :)

May be I should have said "easier" instead of "better".;)