A small update: I fired up Gothic 1 the other day due to all the discussion about Gothic music and what not around here.
I made a few interesting observations:
- My 2010 Gothic saves were still installed (I usually zip them and put them on an external HDD). I recall playing them for fun and to completion, not as speed runs or anything. The lowest played time was 16 hours, 32 minutes. In other words: Gothic 1 is actually a pretty short game once you know exactly what to do and in what order to do it, even if you're something of a perfectionist. Gothic 2 and 3 are much longer. For comparison: Mass Effect 1 is a 20+ hour game with DLCs installed if I complete everything in it.
- The controls are fairly sluggish compared to the controls in Gothic 2. Moving, fighting, picking stuff up; it's all relatively slow. It's so much smoother in Gothic 2. Fighting humanoids in Gothic 2 is quite a bit more fun than it is in Gothic 1 due to how much smoother the combat is. I use the same control scheme in both games, so it has nothing to do with the settings. It's simply a matter of polish.
- I prefer the "rough" personality of certain characters in Gothic 1 compared to the softer version in Gothic 2. Especially Diego and Lares stand out, but also others like Lee seem a bit soft in Gothic 2 compared to 1. It's not only their voices that have softened up quite a bit, but also their dialogues.
- The level of detail is still impressive. It's flat out amazing.