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I actually had no idea Risen 3 was so close to being released until a few weeks ago. I know the last few Gothic/Risen threads have been pretty active – and I'm in the midst of playing through Risen 2 and beating Gothic 2 for the millionth time. With the newest game out in about a month, this might be a good time to bring it back, especially with the games on sale for as low as about $5. (thank you gaben, GoG) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMGyz0E81j4 Per the official website: quote:Piranha Bytes, the creators of Gothic and Risen, return to their origins with a new, classic RPG. Risen 3: Titan Lords pulls the player in to a hand-crafted role-playing world full of rugged charm where every decision changes the course of the story. Risen 3: Titan Lords is set for release in August 2014 for the Xbox 360 games and entertainment system from Microsoft and for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system as well as Windows PC. Screenshots:      While Piranha Bytes can be truly hit or miss when it comes to making combat worth a drat, the things they excel at are world building, atmosphere, and characterization. I felt the first Risen game was really drat good, but I'm only about an hour into Risen 2 and I still can't really get a handle on combat (maybe I'm just bad  ). The first Risen became an absolute grind during its last act though, and I'm hoping this game avoids falling into that trap.Judging by the fanbase's reaction to the second game, expectations are pretty low for the third game but there's still hope – at least they're not still with JoWood. That's a positive right? Right?  Unfortunately the biggest preview for this belongs to some loving German Let's Play superstar.  There isn't much in the way of combat shown, which is worrying, and it appears the game will use the same inventory game from Dark Waters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU_Xjgru_pY Given how much I love the Gothic games, I figured I'd put together a crash course effort post on the series as they're currently dirt cheap and are worth checking out for anyone into classic RPGs.
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Jun 21, 2014 20:11
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| # ? Apr 20, 2024 01:55 |
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 What exactly is Gothic? Gothic is a series of RPGs exported by :germany: (fake edit: how do we not have germany on here) with a pretty large cult following. The first three games tell the story of the Nameless Hero and his bros as they beat the poo poo out bandits, wildlife, monsters, dragons, and, of course, orcs. The fourth game is loving terrible so please don't bother with it. In fact I'm only going to mention it briefly as it somehow managed to be more of a mess than Gothic 3 – more on that below.) What makes it good/bad, then? Despite how buggy every game in the series has been, there are a bunch of redeeming qualities. The worlds of the Gothic games are smaller than other open world games, but in my opinion the games make up for it by being well-designed and far more detailed. The games have decent stories and plenty of odd (but charming) quirks, large casts of characters with distinct personalities and motivations, including the always popular so-bad-it's-good voice acting. The overarching story mainly consists of pretty standard fantasy tropes, but there's a hint of self-awareness in the script and character interactions to make it enjoyable. The Nameless Hero in particular is actually kind of a sarcastic dick and makes some responses genuinely entertaining. The series also has unusually good musical scores by Kai Rosenkranz, who also scores the Risen games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLyqSQhS6E0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFcD1Dxl-R0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAmWst_7Vj8 The games are notorious for their difficulty levels. At the start of all three of the main games, you're about as weak as a shitposting Goon, which means wolves, rats, giant bugs, and especially other humans walk right over you from the beginning. This also makes leveling up and finding better equipment incredibly rewarding, and it feels satisfying hell to become a tornado of magic blades and spell scrolls in the latter parts of the games. No hand-holding here.  Your abilities are leveled a bit differently from some other RPGs. Since you're not an expert in anything, the only way to boost even basic stuff like strength, dexterity, smithing, bow/crossbow skill, etc. is by learning it directly from other characters. Each time you level up, you receive about 10 Learning Points which can be put into whatever abilities you wish. This unfortunately is one of the weakest parts of the series, as the games have an enormous amount of backtracking because of it, but that eases off as the game goes on. Piranha Bytes did make it less shittier by giving the player warp stones in each game which allow you to jump between nearly all of the important locations at at any time. What can I do to make these games not poo poo themselves? Download the community patches. They fix a ridiculous number of glitches and spruce up the visuals quite a bit, particularly for Gothic 2 and 3. The second game is just a pain in the rear end to play without it, but three is unplayable without the patch. They should be considered a requirement. Gothic - Unofficial Patch Gothic 2 - Community Patch 2.10 Gothic 3 - Enhanced Edition 1.75 On to the games:   Gothic (2001) Available on: Steam, GoG The human race is getting its rear end kicked by Orcish warlords and the only answer lies in the creation of magic ore weapons - problem is, it all has to be dug out from an enormous valley of mines. King Rhobar, in his infinite wisdom, decides this is such an awful duty to fulfill that he sends every hardened criminal to the mine to perform their civic duties. The king has a bunch of mages cast a gigantic magic wall around a mining colony, called the Barrier, however the mages screw up and instead cover the entire valley, trapping them inside along with the rear end in a top hat convicts who immediately take it over, separate into three factions, and begin trading ore and goods with the king. The game begins with you, the Nameless Hero, and your weird haircut being tossed into the mining colony for unknown reasons. As you make your way through the game, you discover that a powerful demon called the Sleeper has been summoned by the Orcs and it's up to you and your bros to murder the hell out of it. The original Gothic has not aged well at all, to say the least. The control scheme was awkward even at release way back in 2001 and trying to go back to play it now is a nightmare at times. The story is decent, but the inventory system and combat feel entirely too dated, relying on weird button combinations on the keyboard to do things as simple as drop an item or attack. Honestly, you really don't have to play it and can skip right into the sequel...  Gothic 2 (2002) Available on: Steam, GoG After defeating the Sleeper, the Nameless Hero is saved from certain death by Xardas, the necromancer from the first game. Unsurprisingly, you've forgotten all of your abilities from the first game and you're pretty much a dumbfuck weak babby all over again so have fun running outside and dying to wolves and rats within minutes. (These games are fun I swear, please, don't go) Xardas gives you a new quest – apparently the Sleeper summoned a massive army of orcs, lizard dudes, and dragons to assault the lands beyond the valley in Khorinis and, again, you're tasked with putting an end to their plans. The release on GoG and Steam, Gothic 2 Gold, comes with the expansion pack called Night of the Raven. It's actually a pretty good addition and adds a hefty amount of content, but it has a few caveats – mainly that it basically adds in an unskippable chapter in place of what should be a trivial quest and Piranha Bytes also rebalanced the game around it due to fan feedback as people apparently wanted this game to be harder. This kind of makes getting strength and other stats at higher levels a pain in the rear end. At the end of the game, you and your posse gently caress off to the main continent of Myrtana to see how well your other brethren are faring against the Orcs leading to...  Gothic 3 (2006) Available on: Steam, GoG Forsaken Gods available on: Steam, GoG The Nameless Hero arrives with his crew in Myrtana and finds that the Orcs have won their war against the humans. Those that remain are either slaves to the Orcs or rebels. King Rhobar himself is trapped in his own castle, ironically protected by the same type of Barrier that trapped you in the first game, but unfortunately he trapped a battalion of Orcs with it. Xardas also apparently screwed you and everyone else over and the rune magic used by the paladins and mages has been wiped out, leaving them powerless. Thanks a lot, Obama.  Gothic 3 had quite a bit of hype before it was released, even garnering the Best RPG of E3 award from some Gamespot or other dumb website, and we all know how great getting those accolades from vidoe game journalists can be.  Regardless, it appears that the series publisher, JoWood, blew its load early and forced Piranha Bytes to finish the game within less than a year when, in reality, it probably needed double that because it was very much unfinished. The initial version suffered from awful performance, unintentionally hilarious clipping issues/glitches, a stun lock bug that completely ruined combat with a large number of enemies, and laughably awful AI for enemies like Orcs and other humans. Seriously, wolves and boars are more lethal than Orcs at higher levels. Piranha Bytes eventually told JoWood to gently caress off, but not before they somehow made an expansion pack which managed to feel even more unfinished than the base game. A team of former developers and members of the Gothic community joined forces and ultimately created the Community Patch, which turned out to be a massive undertaking and rebalanced the base game, fixed performance issued, enhanced visual features, and fixed and ungodly amount of bugs (I believe the expansion got a similar treatment). In its current state, Gothic 3 is still a bit of a mess, but buried beneath it is an enjoyable game that's still worth a look. Also Crispin Freeman plays the voice of the hero now and his sarcastic comebacks are beautiful.  As bad as the release for Gothic 3 was, it was at least partly redeemed by the work of the community patch. The series still managed to go from bad to worse with...  ArcaniA: Gothic 4 (2010) Available on: Steam What can be said other than “lol it's bad, don't buy?” Not much honestly. Like many other PC series trying to find mainstream success particularly in North America, JoWood and newcomer developer Spellbound attempted to make the game more accessible while attempting to retain what makes the games interesting in the first place and utterly failed. It's short, stupid, and has a story that lacks the kind of odd quirks that made the previous games stand out. It's absolutely unremarkable and is best forgotten. Thanks JoWood!  This also apparently had an expansion, the Fall of Setariff, but I couldn't be bothered with it. I'm sure someone else might have been able to beat it... As for these days... Gothic 5 Nope, not happening any time soon, per Piranha Bytes. Risen is their new baby now.  "Show me your wares." 
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Jun 21, 2014 20:11
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Playing through Risen right now, and I'm loving it.I started it years ago, and didn't give it a fair shot, decided to try again and I'm glad I did.I'm trying to get mods to work, but I can't seem to get them to load up, maybe next playthrough.Based on what you're saying Gothic 2 is best one?I can only afford one, so I want the best one.
Iron Casanova fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Jun 28, 2014 |
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Jun 28, 2014 03:36
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Bought myself Gothic 2 over steam, my first time playing anything of this series. After sticking it out until the combat became bearable all of it's charm started to come through and I'm really enjoying the atmosphere and freedom of it. But I still feel like I'm playing it wrong. It feels like I have no agency in combat apart from how high I can bloat my HP through easter eggs and being 'gamey'. Swing combos and parrying feel too unreliable, or maybe I still bad at this, does this improve later on?
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Jul 7, 2014 08:43
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Bobigondo posted:Bought myself Gothic 2 over steam, my first time playing anything of this series. Basically you'll suck at the game until a point when you've got some decent weapons and armor and some good skills, and then you're an unstoppable badass. You'll get more skills in swordfighting and you'll be parrying dudes and dodging blows, but even getting stabbed will be a thing you'll shrug off. Keep with it, and just go with the idea that things need to be rough at first so you feel better when you're unstoppable.
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Jul 7, 2014 09:17
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So, any of the Risen games worth a drat?
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Oct 13, 2014 17:05
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Lichtenstein posted:So, any of the Risen games worth a drat? The first one.
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Oct 13, 2014 17:12
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The new one's not great but it's decent enough if you like the gameplay style. The combat's pretty awful though...you can spam dodge and the entire dodge is invulnerability frames, even if you're just rolling face first into a wall over and over 
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Oct 13, 2014 17:20
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| # ? Apr 20, 2024 01:55 |
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Is it worth...? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfJPtUuZn_4
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Dec 14, 2014 05:03
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