Never thought I'd enjoy a 20 year old game as much as I did with Gothic. Going into this I thought I would bounce off immediately because of how dated it is. The game is played through the use of an 'action' key (Ctrl) plus an additional WASD press. This sounds horrendous coming from a modern control scheme, but it actually works really well.
It makes the combat in particular a fair bit harder, as you can't move and attack at the same time. I got used to it quickly though, and it has a nice flow to it the more you play.
I think the grind/progression of the game is the main appeal. You start as a nobody with no friends, but eventually work your way up to the 'hero' who can beat anything.
There are three distinct factions each with their own ways of doing things, and there's a good amount of memorable characters. The map is sized well and becomes familiar fairly quickly. Later game areas are gated off by the inclusion of tougher enemies, so it's technically possible to go there but you very likely won't survive. Story isn't the best of the best, but it does it's job well enough and didn't bore me.

Everything about this looks visually like shit and its sad that i've gotten to the point of praising something because "it looks ass" and i laugh about it, its like laughing as a kid because because your teacher said "penis" or "vagina", now i dont even know where im getting at with what im saying but is JUST LIKE IN THIS GAME, no i dont want arrows, i dont want to be handheld to where i have to go, but the fact that this gives me the same feeling as [insert empty sandbox openworld] speaks volumes for me so the shelved games it goes, i'll pick you up some day again baby because there's still something in you i could dig up...

When you start out, your character has no skills in combat so all you can do is swing a stick around and barely kill rats and birds, and you're so weak that NPCs bully you around and force you to do stuff or rob your money in protection rackets.
As the game takes place in a prison, the solution is simple and just like real life, do a couple of favors for strong guys who aren't assholes, work out, pay these strong guys to teach you how to get stronger and how to handle a sword, THEN you can beat the crap out of the guys who treated you badly until they're unconscious, steal their stuff, and then insult and/or threaten them once they wake up so they'll leave you alone forever.
Best prison game. Remap the controls.

Кошмарная по современным меркам игра. Чтобы ей наслаждаться нужно приложить очень много усилий. По большей части, это касается боевой системы и управления в целом. Иногда проскакивают и проблемы геймдизайна нулевых, когда вообще хер поймёшь, что тебе делать, куда идти и как это понять. Зато мир погружает в себя с головой. NPC, диалоги, квесты, ролевая система, лор, открытый мир хороши. Нынче так уже не углубляются. Карта очень небольшая, но мне это нравится, т.к. заняться есть чем везде. Сюжет хорош до финала. В конце слив дичайший и душная лока, но положительных впечатлений она не перебила. Я доволен, что игра вознаградила меня за затраченные усилия на её освоение. Ламповая РПГ.

They say Gothic is the series that laid foundation to many series today and they praise it to heavens. I would say that the game is good considering when it came out, but sadly I was not having a good time with it. This was my first time playing the game, and before this I had never heard of the games.

Firstly there was a lot of problems to get the game to work for me to even play it. I managed to run it, which is more than most, but the game still kept crashing quite often. It would seem Steam sells this game broken and I have read that it works better on other platforms. I downloaded mods that made the game bearable to say the least, but it was still very annoying.

Secondly, it's a very, very corny adventure in a game with an original setting (prison colony surrounded by a one-way magic barrier) with different factions to join and some different ways to play it. There's a lot of rough touches to admire about it for sure, like how weapon animations change as you get better training, but I still thing it's very rough around the edges and even for an old game I don't think it's good.

I have you know, I actually completed the game. I am a gamer who doesn't like leaving games unfinished, even if I don't enjoy them. I am glad I managed to finish the game, but I will never, ever, touch the game again. I do hope the other Gothic games are more tolerable.

Unfortunately, as the game progresses, it becomes to get boring. First chapter where you explore the world, meet the people, join guilds is the best part of the game. Later on, after chapter 3, the game runs out of content and forces you to go to the places that you have already gone. And not for one time. Its old, yeah. Combat is old, rpg mechanics are old, game design and level design is pretty old as I mentioned but it might be still playable. Give it a chance, if you don't like it you could drop it.

The first of the Gothics is a pretty immersive game with unique personal charm. It requires a lot of patience and perseverance, but over time it pays off with a interesting, well-designed world, iconic voice acting, challenging mechanics of melee combat and nice pacing. You start off as an absolute zero who has trouble even trampling an ordinary beetle. This makes progressing in this clumsy but open world even more satisfying.

Still - the fact that this game does not have autoloot by default makes it absolutely unplayable in any other configuration. The sprint exclusive only for a wallet full of ore in the era of constant backtracking is just straight-up time wasting. Broken game economy makes power-gaming this one easy task - for me, too easy. It should be more balanced. When you begin the game, you have no ore and so much to spend it on. 3 chapters after, you can have even thousands of them and no reason to spend.

Besides, I like to pick and choose from whole palette of junk while playing immersive RPGs. It's a bit sad that the game is constructed in such a way that you always end it with the same weapon and grinding for better items becomes pointless at some stage - you always end up with Ancient Ore Armor given to you in form of a quest and Uriziel.

The lack of cyclical autosave, and the full number of game-breaking bugs, such as the one at the end of the game, also do not help. I'm warning you, player! Save your game before talking to Xardas in the Orc ruins. And never overwrite, because you may get softlocked and lose the entire 30 hours of the game. Not to say, the final boss had nice idea, but execution was anti-climatic.

It's also a pity that a game based narratively on a novel about a hero who goes from being an ordinary pushover to becoming a magician - has such crappy and wooden spell casting mechanics.

There was a time when I was playing around with a blue water mage robe on and slashing everything I could with my sword because the spell casting mechanics were just plain unpleasant.

My compatriots from Poland love to overestimate it, but millions of flies can't be wrong - there is something to this shit. Games like Skyrim are boring and cliche in comparison to this. When it was released in 2001, it had to be mind-blowing experience.

Эта игра имеет один из лучших опен ворлдов в мире. Сама карта очень компактная, но при этом настолько насыщенная, что ловишь ахуевоз. Так еще и компактность карты обусловлена сюжетом неплохая такая синергия.
Как обычно и бывает, присутствуют разные классы ( воин маг дальнобойный) а значит присутствует вариативность, за это плюсик.
И да, грех не упомянуть то самое ЛЕГЕНДАРНОЕ УПРАВЛЕНИЕ, которое просто морально убивает современного геймера, но как только привыкаешь и принимаешь данную фичу, то даже ловишь определённый кайф от нее
Ну еще тут проблематичный баланс игры, где в начале ты посасываешь валыну шныга от каждого моба, а ближе к концу ты бог машина.
Верим в то, что ремейк улучшит многое

One of my favorite video game franchises EVER started with this thing. Gothic is an ugly and difficult-to-play yet unbelievably immersive and atmospheric video game.

I was terrified of this game when I was little, so it took me a while to beat, but it was SO worth it. The story is exceptional, and the main character is one of my favorite protagonists in any game.

The gameplay is excellent - the combat is widely known for being one of the worst things gaming's ever put out, but I LOVE it. Getting used to the hardcore controls makes progressing unbelievably satisfying.

With all these great things said, I sadly can't give this a 10. There are SO many moments in this game where you'll get stuck and confused, and the sheer amount of bugs you can still encounter right now is insane. There are also many moments where the game seems straight-up unfinished, and it's actually true.

Gothic is a mess, but it's a damn good mess. If I were to rate all games I've ever played based on pure atmosphere, Gothic would easily be in the top 3. Excellent game. - 🕘

I'll start by saying that I only played the first game for a little over 3 hours, because the game doesn't give me the desire to continue any further at this point. Although you get the atmospheric feel of the locations with good ambient music, the game has many drawbacks such as ridiculously bad controls, poor dialog and a very slow pace.

Not to mention the graphics. I skipped the graphics when I reviewed it because it's an old game and it wouldn't be fair.

First of all, the controls. Doing anything in the game, even the simplest basic things with our character, like picking up an item, talking to someone, or worst of all walking up the stairs, can be extremely frustrating and laborious.

These kinds of bad controls and animations really take away from the gameplay experience very quickly. I've also mentioned the bad dialog, but that mostly refers to the main character and not the NPCs.

He's a combination of both bad lines and bad voice acting. The guy has an overly serious demeanor and acts like a bit of a naive child for no apparent reason, as almost every character tries to intimidate him or rob him.

However, what really discouraged me from continuing, apart from the slow pacing and the fact that the game doesn't allow you to freely explore the map, is the fact that you are forced to discover solutions to the next mission step on your own, because almost every standard creature can kill you in one hit, so your movements are restricted and you are trapped in a tiny space.

The game probably gets faster towards the end, but after the 3rd hour I couldn't stomach it anymore. I'm sure Gothic could have been a really fun game if these issues could have been fixed, but otherwise it feels like a broken game as it is, especially considering that there are also some in-game bugs, which I kind of forgave from the beginning since it's an old game, but all in all I can't recommend this game.

sorry I gotta be the one to tell everyone this but the controls are good and the combat is good

RPG encounter design doesn't get any better than this: no scaling, no magical handwave to explain why enemies suddenly hit the road and get replaced with other enemies once you hit a certain level, no bandits in glass armour; the world is constant and if you fuck around you're gonna get got by an orc or some kinda weird bird just like real life

it's the earthiest and most respectable method of approaching these things; the rare instance where the game doesn't treat the player character as an elevated actor with undue importance and insists they participate on even ground. you start off at the very bottom and are tasked with earning respect and trust gradually, shaping the way you're perceived, your station, and opening doors to people and opportunities you wouldn't have had otherwise

this emphasis on a more grounded world extends to most everything else as well. NPCs have routines and sub-routines; monsters sleep, eat, roam, and flee from predators if attacked; and objects with no mechanical value or purpose can be interacted with for cosmetic or roleplaying purposes. while many, many, many games prior had schedules and day/night variance, few if any operated on this level, and many of gothic's contemporaries wound up looking rigid and staid in comparison

if there's any stumbling here it's that the second half loses some steam after you choose a faction and get railroaded into more linear action oriented quests, but it's not enough to detract much from the overall experience because.........

the controls are good
the combat is good