I'll start my review of Gothic 3 by saying that I found it to be a huge improvement over the first two games. The pace of the game is now much faster, and it has much better voice acting and controls. It's also much better at immersing the player because it gives you a huge world and encourages exploration, something I complained about a lot in the first two games.

There are tons of side quests to do in different towns and villages and you don't even need to do them all. You can take your time and do them in the order you want, or even ignore them completely.

Gothic 3 definitely managed to capture me in this regard. There's a certain amount of freedom, but at the same time the game doesn't lose its sense of direction. There's still the main story going on in the background, which you can go back to if you want, but towards the later stages the difficulty starts to escalate and so you may be forced to do side quests to level up more and improve.

The combat system is not as bad as in the first two games, but it's quite problematic. You get used to it though, so I don't think it's much of a drawback. The game also has a really great soundtrack that definitely creates a nice atmosphere while exploring. The whole continent is divided into 3 main regions, Myrtana, a beautiful grassy area with lots of forests and open spaces, Nordmar, a snowy region in the north and finally Varant, a hot, desert region in the south.

Now, even though I consider Gothic 3 to be a better game compared to the other two games, there are still a lot of little issues that I haven't mentioned. One of the things I really want to criticize is the lack of character customization. I think the game could have greatly improved my view of the game if it allowed the player to create their own character.

Other drawbacks: Some parts of the game are very frustrating, some of the map is confusing and disorienting, and there are occasional problems with the AI of the NPCs.

For example, at the entrance to one of the villages, there was a tamed Ice Golem that kept trying to attack me every time I walked past it, even though it wasn't aggressive and I don't recall ever making it aggressive or anything like that. As soon as I approached it, it senselessly literally saw me as an enemy.

Other than that I didn't encounter any major bugs and the game never crashed. Overall, Gothic 3 is enjoyable and I think it surpasses Gothic 1 and 2 in every aspect. Anyone who thinks otherwise is probably a fan of Gothic 1 and 2 and has nostalgic memories of those games.

Nostalgia is a big weapon for game companies and some gamers can be blinded by nostalgia. They can't see reality. As an objective eye, even if I played the first two games in today's conditions, after what I saw, if I had played the first and second games in their release years, my opinions would be more or less the same.

The Gothic series isn't as good and polished as the Elder Scrolls games it's trying to be, but they can be fun in their own way, and if you really want to get into the series you can skip first and second and start straight from game third.

A potentially good game ruined by clear lack of polishing, balancing, and good plot to follow. The quests are boring. The enemy behaviour is absolutely ridiculous, even a wolf can do attacks with milliseconds between them, and even with paladin armour, you can get killed easily. Want to kill a goblin? It will just dodge backwards, so you hit him once in five swings, while other goblins hit and stun you from behind. Did you upgrade and learn the most advanced fighting skill? Now the enemy will sometimes fall on the ground, be invincible and do a guaranteed far reaching attack when he will stand. Also, I was tired of liberating every single settlement, fighting through hordes of enemies, it just gets too repetitive and boring. And the very idea of choice to fight for Orcs and help them is ridiculous, the Nameless Hero, who dedicated himself to selflessly saving humans in previous games now would serve the Orcs that want to kill all humans? Why would anyone choose that? IMO, but this game is even worse than Arcania, at least that game works as it supposed to.

Well, what can I say, it was quite a disappointment. I bought it at the time of release and, as a huge Gothic fan, could hardly wait to play it. Then I started the game and saw the beautiful graphics and was blown away, it looked better than Oblivion and I was totally blown away. Then I played for a few minutes and realized that something was wrong. The characters were behaving strangely, the group split up immediately and I just got the ominous mission to find Xardas, which I then had in my quest log for the next 30 hours.... that's the main quest for almost half of the game!!! Well, the story was generally a disaster, Vatras was suddenly white :D, there were bugs at every turn (although my first playthrough was strangely spared most of them), the ending was an absolute joke and the combat system was also horrific. I liked the world building, Myrtana was beautiful, the music is the best in the whole Gothic series and the city conquest system was really cool. Otherwise, unfortunately, an absolute disappointment.

Я ненавижу эту игру. Ненавижу боевую систему, которая стала еще хуже чем в дилогии, ненавижу мегадухоту которая просто сочится из каждого уголка. Да я дропнул ее почти что в самом начале, но мои впечатления настолько негативны, что я даже не собираюсь давать шанса этой игре. Конечно понимаю что, я словно издеваюсь над инвалидом, учитывая трагичную историю разработки, но тем не менее.
За проебанный сюжетный потенциал, тоже очень обидно ( финал конфликта богов, уже сама концепция такого взрывает мой кок)

One of the best eurojank experiences out there...
+ Impressive graphics for its time, and they can be improved with mods.
+ A very open-ended storyline with numerous factions that can be joined or destroyed. Think Fallout: New Vegas style story structure.
+ A vast world to explore. Yes, there are a lot of fetch quests as you might expect from a game of this quality and age, but there are a lot of nice experiences as well.
+ The soundtrack is just mesmerizing. One of the most iconic tracks I've ever heard in a game come from this.
- The combat is an insane hit-or-miss. Sometimes, you get into the flow and it just works, but most of the time it is either you being spammed attacks or you spamming attacks.
- Often, you can feel that the game systems are being held by literal duct tape. You'll know what I mean when you see it.

This game is propably better than a 1/10 but I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really
really really really really really really really really really
really really really really really really really really really
really really really really really really really really really
really really really really really really really really really
really really really really really really really really really
really really really really really really really really really
really really really really really really really really really
REALLY REALLY REALLY DO. NOT. CARE!

Fuck. this. shit.

This is the single most disappointing video game sequels of all time and makes complete stinkers like "Lightning Returns" seem like goddamn masterpieces in comparison.

This was an out of nowhere death blow for one of the most promising RPG Series of all time and what should have been an all time great series.

And it's not. Because of this thing.

... I will forever hate this pile of trash with seething passion.