RPGWatch - Gothic 2 Retrospective

Fluent played Gothic II , and shared his thoughts in a new retrospective article.

Open-world RPGs. We all love them. We love exploring a huge, unbounded world, picking up quests all over the map, talking to a million and one NPCs and finding interesting things hidden around every corner. The sense of freedom and exploration you can get in an open-world RPG is second to none. Some are sprawling, huge worlds with lots to see and do, and others are more focused and funneled, yet still more open than your typical linear RPG. Above all, most of the open-world RPGs I’ve played are quite good. Some of them are great. A choice few are legendary. Today we will be talking about one of, if not the most legendary open-world RPG of all, Gothic 2.

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More information.

Gothic 2 was the first rpg I ever played. It's to this day the game I played the longest and the game I enjoyed the most. So this excellent review brought a big smile to my face. Thanks.

You're welcome, Ron! Experiencing this game for the first time recently has been a blessing for me. I played Gothic 1 awhile back and loved it, and G2 really takes all the great aspects of the first game and adds more great stuff to the mix, so it's been a fantastic game for me thus far. It's one of those 'ultimate RPGs' for me, right up there with Baldur's Gate and the like.

Thanks for posting it, Couch!

I swear I started the original Gothic four times before I realized how good it was. All the people on the old RPG dot kept raving about it so I finally gave it a few days of my time and was finally hooked. But Gothic 2 (with expansion) took the series to an entirely different level, and remains one of my top 5 favorite RPGs of all time.

Sir Markus said:

I swear I started the original Gothic four times before I realized how good it was.

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Same for me. I really hated the controls. But by the end of G1, I loved the controls. I used the G1 controls setting in G2 even.

Thanks Fluent for the great walk down memory lane!

No problem, MadGamer! It's my pleasure.

I have all Gothic games except Gothic 1, which Gog doesn't seem to put on sale, because it belongs to another developer or something like that, and I never touched them.
Shame on me!

I read/heard we need a Community Patch to play them, again I never bothered to Google it for more info, where to download, how to install it, etc...

To Fluent: congratulations for the review!! It does confirm what I've read about Gothic series in general, and Gothic II in particular. Your text really makes me wanna play this game.

How many hours I'll spend on it, should I wanna play as Completionist ?

Thanks!

gothic 2 kicked my ass so hard at first, i put it down and never went back

i think i need to give it another shot :/

G2NotR is in my top 5 games as well with PST and some Ultimas.

henriquejr said:

I have all Gothic games except Gothic 1, which Gog doesn't seem to put on sale, because it belongs to another developer or something like that, and I never touched them.
Shame on me!

I read/heard we need a Community Patch to play them, again I never bothered to Google it for more info, where to download, how to install it, etc…

To Fluent: congratulations for the review!! It does confirm what I've read about Gothic series in general, and Gothic II in particular. Your text really makes me wanna play this game.

How many hours I'll spend on it, should I wanna play as Completionist ?

Thanks!

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Only Gothic 3 needs a community patch to play and the first 2 don't. I could never get into the first game because of the controls and very small world space but Gothic 2 is really great and is my second most favorite game from the developer. (just after Risen)

Thanks for the great article and a remainder of how great were RPGs at that time! It's only a degradation after that... I would like to hear your opinion on Risen series, especially considering your question about Gothic 5. You need to witness what has happened to once great series.

In my opinion any cRPG gamer who hasn't played and finished Gothic 2 has no credibility whatsoever. Sad to see how far PB has fallen.

bjon045 said:

In my opinion any cRPG gamer who hasn't played and finished Gothic 2 has no credibility whatsoever.

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I'd say the same about Planescape: Torment - the most essential RPG ever developed

Fluent said:

Thanks for posting it, Couch!

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I should be thanking you for the good article Fluent.
All I did was add the video and images to your article. It's time for me to replay all the Gothic games again as it has been a while now since I last played them all.

Lexxx20 said:

I'd say the same about Planescape: Torment - the most essential RPG ever developed

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Agreed. It's that good.

Are you moving onto G3 now, Fluent? Or did you already play that one in the past?

EDIT: Just read the entire thing, so I assume you didn't play G3 yet. I would really recommend you do. It retains much, much of the atmosphere of the earlier Gothics, while providing an even bigger world to play in. As a result of the bigger scope however, it lost some of its focus (the content is just staggering), which resulted in less uhm... inspired or meticulously crafted quests. That's really the only criticism I can give it.
The world is stunning, even today! For me, it rivals Skyrim -- it is the better game in every aspect, hands down.

Awesome article, by the way. Makes me all nostalgic seeing someone else praise these games in such superlatives.

Great article fluent! You do gothic honour by writing such an extensive and in-depth analysis of them! You article put a big smile on my face here when I read it while sipping my lunch coffee. I just basicly wish to echo what Fluent said in this article. Gothic series is indeed that good and everyone who loves rpgs should play these outstanding rpgs which defined us how open world rpgs should be designed!

Its just remarkable how seldom these great games are mentioned in the press & among game developers. Teachings of gothic should be invaluable to any studio that is developping open world rpgs. Piranha bytes have tried to recreate this experience with risen series, but so far their attempts have not fully succeeded. Risen 1 was pretty close, but after that they've more or less alienated themselves from the core design principles of gothic series.

Gothic 1 and gothic 2 are really great games that remain always relevant to any audience. They're just pure rpgs goodness. Gothic 3 isn't a bad game either, but its slightly different kind of game and community patch 1.75 must be installed before playing it.

Heck just reading this makes me want to give gothics an other spin and i've already replayed these games so many times! And watching your lets play videos ain't helping

I loved reading your article about G1 and G2.
I even want to relive it all again, but I have too many other games to finish before mai this year

Only one remark, and strange that noone mentioned it before:
it is not Vatras the necromancer, but Xardas. Vatras is a watermage

For the rest: it was a great article and great reading. I wish PB would make a Gothic 5, back like the old days. Never really enjoyed the Risen games, The first one came close, but I never finished the 2nd. Haven't tried the 3th.

my favorite game

Great article Fluent. I really enjoyed reading it. You know you've done a good job, when the reader is transported back to the days when they first played the game, and remember just how great it was. The only problem with that, is now I want to play it again. With the backlog I already have, it will be no small feet.

Looking forward to your thoughts on Ravens Cry also.