Piranha Bytes - Risen 3 or Gothic 5?

I guess I'm in the minority on loving Risen 2. I found the exploration rewarding, the dialog clever, the setting and story exciting, and the factions interesting. (Okay the two factions.) I just played it this year, so it was patched and perhaps I had low expectations going in. Anyhow, the amount of things one could do in the game - like possessing the monkey to steal, the voodoo spells where you could make monsters fight each other, and all the methods to buff yourself usefully if your skills were underpowered to pull off a spell… the treasure hunts. It was all very typical pirate stuff but I quite enjoyed that. The sword combat was a bit confusing, but I liked the use of guns so I didn't mind the combat. The only other complaint was the final boss fight but most games have crappy endings anyways. It's the journey not the destination. I liked Risen 1 but didn't have the desire to complete it. As for shitty combat, Gothic 3 takes the cake. Worst stun lock evar. And G3 was really buggy. I liked the huge world but it was at the expense of more generic characters/encampments. I did like that game a lot however.

Anyways having said that, I do agree that I would like to see a return to the world of Gothic, but as others have said, a return to the developer's style of gameplay is what's most wanted.

I would rate Gothic 2 best, and Risen 2 second best.

Don't matter, it's PB - I am going to buy it regardless, though if I had my choice it would be another Gothic. There have been 2 Risen games since the last PB Gothic, so it's overdue for another Gothic.

Gothic 3 was considered to be broken and it really was, but still it provided some of the best gaming hours I ever had

Gothic 3 is not broken at all with the latest community patch.

I really hope that they will name it Gothic 5. As much as I like the first Risen, I think it would be a very smart marketing move for PB, because Gothic has a very devoted fan base which Risen does not. Although I really considered Risen to be the true Gothic 4. I mean, it IS Gothic with a different name. But no matter, I will be forgiving them for Risen 2 and be an early buyer of the game, regardless of the name. If they did a Kickstarter, I would be one of the first to donate.

They need to make a Gothic 4 before they can make Gothic 5.

Originally Posted by JDR13
They need to make a Gothic 4 before they can make Gothic 5.

Well see the problem with that is Arcania is Gothic 4. Most of you hate it and wish it didn't exist but it does.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Well see the problem with that is Arcania is Gothic 4. Most of you hate it and wish it didn't exist but it does.

No, it's not actually. Piranha Bytes has stated that Gothic 3 is the last officially recognized game in that series. Forsaken Gods and Arcania are not canon.

Imo, the best way to think of them are as side stories in an alternate timeline.

Originally Posted by JDR13
No, it's not actually. Piranha Bytes has stated that Gothic 3 is the last officially recognized game in that series. Forsaken Gods and Arcania are not canon.

Imo, the best way to think of them are as side stories in an alternate timeline.

Good to know but Arcania still uses Gothic 4 in the title so I'm assuming they can't use it. Copyright law is a bitch when it comes down to how you word things. I know they have the rights, but you can only do so much. They can always say their version is a remake.

Update- It still has the Gothic 4 on the games website and metacritic. So I'm justified in saying so. Anyway I don't really care it's 12 am at night I'm tired , and If you want a debate look for Dart.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Good to know but Arcania still uses Gothic 4 in the title so I'm assuming they can't use it. Copyright law is a bitch when it comes down to how you word things. I know they have the rights, but you can only do so much. They can always say their version is a remake.

It doesn't have "Gothic 4" in the title anymore. That was dropped at some point. It's just ArcaniA now.

Of course a developer has the right to declare what's canon for a series they created. Who else would? JoWood should never have used "Gothic" in the title to begin with since they knew that PB would eventually be reacquiring the rights to the series. They tried to cash in on the name and failed miserably.

*Edit*

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Update- It still has the Gothic 4 on the games website and metacritic. So I'm justified in saying so. Anyway I don't really care it's 12 am at night I'm tired , and If you want a debate look for Dart.

I'm not looking for a debate. I was just mentioning what PB has said, and you seem to want to be argumentive about it for some reason. However, if you wish to take the word of a website that hasn't been updated since 2010 over the word of the series creator, I won't try to stop you.

Well I have the obvious solution to this dilemma! (I mean Risen 3 or Gothic 4.2 )

PB we graciously allow to make Risen 3 in whichever form they like…
BUT they have to give us a (faithful, well ok update the GUI and make the controls a bit like Risen 1) Gothic 1 remake on new tech… There problem solved

Hey we can make a petition about this! If gamers were able to manage to make the Japanese to put resources in releasing on the PC (DS) I bet we can make PB at least consider it (IF they don't already do that is)

Originally Posted by Hyperion
Gothic 3 was considered to be broken and it really was, but still it provided some of the best gaming hours I ever had

Gothic 3 is not broken at all with the latest community patch.

That's why I used past tense. I played the unpatched vanilla version and I have to say I don't regret it at all. Bugs and glitches were overwhelming indeed, but they were kinda a part of the whole experience. Sometimes finding a way around them was more satisfying than the challenges provided by the game itself.


Also ArcaniA is a criminally underrated game. Sure it's a terrible Gothic, but as a stand alone game, it beats many well received RPGs out there (like Amalur or many Diablo clones). It has incredible visuals and scenery (some of the best I've ever seen; you can check out some Mobygames screen-shots here to see what I'm talking about), it's absolutely bug free and most important of all, it has personality. The combat system is not too bad either. I would give it a solid 7.5/10 and I suggest you guys to give it another chance. It kinda grows on you after a while, especially after you finish the prologue and reach South Stewark.

The next game should be called Risic since they will reveal that the Risen and Gothic series are actually in the same world and now they will combine them into one. They should use the melee combat system from Risen since it is the best melee combat system there is.

I think they should do a remake of Gothic with all bugs fixed and adding the unfinished content they wanted to add.

Then they could create a few standalone prequels for the stories of Lester, Gorn, Milten and the other one I forgot his name.

After that they should create the story of someone else on the mainland a couple of centuries after Gothic 3.

Originally Posted by Pladio
prequels

Dunno which one you forgot, probably Diego. But no please, not prequels on anyone or anything.

Plenty of room to do a good prequel on life before the barrier existed. Just leave out Mudd, I'm begging you.

Risen 3 probably, with some more Gothic influences

Also ArcaniA is a criminally underrated game. Sure it's a terrible Gothic, but as a stand alone game, it beats many well received RPGs out there (like Amalur or many Diablo clones). It has incredible visuals and scenery (some of the best I've ever seen; you can check out some Mobygames screen-shots.

I had some texture mods installed for Arcania, but it looks very good even without them. Very good game, totally agree.

I've never said this about a development studio before, but I think they should pack it in. They aren't evolving and they haven't been for a long time. Their games are getting progressively worse compared to the competition, instead of progressively better. There's some serious dysfunction causing that, personality wise. I think the devs are stuck in a rut and their attempts to improve what by now is a very stale design have resulted in loss of things that were good with no corresponding gains. They're stripping stuff out to make their games "accessible" but aren't adding anything new to them. Why is it always people like this who keep at it a decade longer than they should have, and people like the Jagged Alliance team who vanish from the industry before they've even hit their peak? Sucks. Big time.

"Their games are getting progressively worse compared to the competition, instead of progressively better. "

I don't agree with that at all.

First PB doesn't have any competition. The main reason why I play their games are for atmosphere. No other "open world" game (elder scroll, Two worlds 2 etc) comes close to them in this regards. So in my humble opinion so PB doesn't have a competition. The Witcher 3 might challenge them but that remains to be seen.

Second, their games have not gotten worse. They surly have ups and downs but I won't say Risen is worse than Gothic 2.

To say PB needs pack up is like saying Bethesda needs to pack up and thats just silly…

I have to say that I had a good time with all of the PB games so far. Maybe because I played none of them at release, and thus didn't encounter any serious bugs. I even enjoyed Risen 2 and was pleasantly surprised after hearing all the bad reviews. Sure, combat was pretty bad and the game became quite unbalanced after a while (as with all PB games), but at least it wasn't the same ol' same ol' stuff other developers seem to rehash.

Having said that, yes, I think there is some room for improvements, but as long as their games don't get significantly worse I'll buy them at some point or another.