Gothic 1 Goodness

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
…I remember just after starting it up for the first time my first though was finally a game like U7 that allows you to explore and have believable settlements and NPC's but in 3D!

Yes - my thoughts exactly. G1/G2 are what U9 should have been more like (if not in graphics, at least in terms of gameplay functions and features).

Originally Posted by Lurking Grue
Yeah, it's kind of funny how you trudge through the early game in your ragged clothes hoping, really hoping, to get your hands on some armor, any armor, someday soon.

What you write really conjurs up the essence of what makes G1 (and G2) so thrilling. The game is hard - especially at the beginning. Enemies can one and two-shot you. But every stat increase, every incremental weapon/armor upgrade has meaning and makes the game hugely interesting.

Just a 5 point increase in strength causes the thoughtful player to consider, 'hmmm, maybe I can eek out a victory with those lurkers now…'

Originally Posted by Maylander
The stat potion thing is actually quite useless. The huge load of stat increasing potions is indeed inside the temple, not outside it, and by that time you'll have Uriziel.

You are correct on this. By the time you get access to the stat potions you are in the temple part of the endgame and you cannot get out as the gate closes shut after you enter the section where Xardas has teleported in.

Two things on this. First, like has already been stated a few times in this thread, better character development balance would have been nice. Secondly, however, it's still a lot of fun quaffing the potions and looking at the numbers.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
Hmm, thinking back now it seems Gothic 1 and Risen were quite similar in their dungeoncrawling endgames… I believe you even had to go to that temple twice, IIRC?

They were similar. But Gothic 1, hands down (imho) has far more intersting dungeons. Multiple ways to get to different areas make them feel more like an 'indoor overworld' compared with Risen's fairly linear passages.

Also, there are quite a good number of puzzles to solve in G1 which I think makes the dungeon experience very interesting.

It's worth pointing out that Risen isn't the only conetemporary game these days with linear dungeon crawls - linear dungeon crawls seems fairly standard these days which is unfortunate. Two Worlds 2 dungons, with the exception of the 'maze' like dungones were all very linear and quite frankly, boring.

Originally Posted by Pessimeister
I've finished Gothic three times and Risen twice and consider them both fantastic experiences. Nostalgically I probably lean towards Gothic a little more, but they both do what they do so exceptionally well.

Like you I'm sure I suffer from my own dose of nostalgia. Objectivley however, the featureset of Gothic is right up my alley: Exploratory discovery in huge doses, rewards for thoroughly exploring everything, hand-placed loot, no level scaling, hard at the beginning but powerful at the end, NPC schedules, NPC schedules that are altered based on story progress, day/night cycle, shooting stars FTW!, thunder sound effects that are NOT annoying (yes, I'm looking at YOU Risen!), secret places galore… just on and on.

Also, although the geography of G1 is small, I really like how things change continuously throughout gameplay. I find it interesting to revisit places I've already been to and discover that something has since changed. I find this much more interesting from a gameplay standpoint than the large but uneventful spaces of Oblivion.

Originally Posted by TheMadGamer
secret places galore…

I'll never forget diving underwater and resurfacing inside a hidden cave that contained some goodies. I can't even remember exactly where it was (waterfall near the Old Camp perhaps?), but I thought that was the coolest thing in the world at the time.

Originally Posted by JDR13
That's assuming you decide to keep Uriziel as a sword. You also have the option of having Xardas transform it into a rune, which gives you the most powerful offensive spell in the game. At least that's how I remember it.

Yep, Wave of Death if I recall correctly. Neither Wave of Death nor Uriziel is in any way enhanced by Strength or Dexterity though, so those stat boosters in the temple are still irrelevant. Well, all except the Health increasing ones - they're quite useful.

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.

@Maylander

I agree. I'm currently replaying G2 right now (off the heels of just having completed G1) and its very obvious that the engine went through quite a lot of improvments. Everything about G2 is better, mechanics-wise.