Gothic is an interesting game for me. I don't quite remember how I heard about it, yet at the same time I don't quite know how I didn't hear about it as an avid retro gamer. See, Gothic is considered by many to be one of the most innovative RPGs of all time, and on the outset I definitely agree: aspects like a day/night cycle, NPC routines, dynamic weather, NPC convos, a knockout system, wide-ranging magic, NPC reactions to player actions (like pulling out weapons/entering homes), sword combos, and more may have existed in a title here-or-there, but to be present in a single package was simply unheard of.
So I'm not trying to take anything away from Gothic (and I'll be speaking about those individual components later down the line), but ultimately Gothic falters in too many areas for me to recommend it to newer gamers, particularly in its story and RPG layouts.
The latter, in particular, is especially disappointing because, on the outset, Gothic seems like it has all the right ingredients to call itself an RPG- customizable gear, narrative choice, and a leveling system ripe with skill points. However, examining each of these facets carefully discloses just how many holes they truly have, beginning with the gear. Gear is limited to a singular item in the form of generic body armor, meaning there's no division amongst all the other compartments; no helmets, torsos, legs, plates, or boots. As a result, you never have the opportunity to mix-and-match pieces, and because better armor is progressively made available ala the Ezio Trilogy, you don’t even have a reason to keep old sets around.
Regarding the second, skills are very limited, with only three mattering in the long and short runs: strength, dexterity, and mana. Strength determines how hard you hit, dexterity your damage with a bow, and mana your spellcasting meter. Lockpicking is rendered pointless due to non-RNG combinations allowing save scumming, and pickpocketing & sneak end up being exp black holes courtesy of mandatory combat sections in most story beats.
Even among the aforementioned trio of useful ones, you aren’t granted much variety. Strength is, in a lot of ways, overpowered since it also dictates weapons you can wield, and Ranged is outright discouraged courtesy of enemies having the capacity to either charge you quickly or launch their own deadly projectile.
What angered me the most about Gothic’s gameplay was the lack of a defense skill and the implied lies about player builds. Every time you level up fully, your HP bar increases, but this has nothing to do with your resistance to damage. The only way to affect that is to get some armor, but for the majority of the first chapter, you'll be hardpressed to find any. As a result, you’re all but strong-armed into running away from everything until you gain sufficient experience from sidequests, and even when you do get armor, there's no way, as I stated earlier, to upgrade it, forcing you to wait until the next chapter to obtain the next big set.
In terms of lies, you may think you can go into Gothic with a certain build, yet that isn't the case here as the game soft-requires you to invest points into strength, magic, and 2h weapons. If you don't do that, you'll be screwed at the end due to both the necessity of teleportation for saving time, as well as the majority of those late game enemies (orcs) being immune to one-handed weapons.
It's sad they went this route because there were three easy fixes: expand the skill tree, give multiple ways of taking out late-stage enemies, and make fast travel independent from magic.
The main campaign is the final major negative facet of the game as it just isn't all that engaging. Gothic boasts an interesting backstory involving a group of magicians screwing up the creation of a magic prison, their mistake resulting in hoards of prisoners gaining political power through a resource called Ore. While themes like criminal justice, cruel & unusual punishments, and the balance between security and order aren't explored, I wasn't expecting them to be nor was it necessary -- if you give me a good old-fashioned fantasy yarn, I'm down for the journey.
Except, Gothic's is very barebones. Per the above shift in dynamics, every convict has divided into three factions, providing you with your first choice in terms of who to join: the militarized Old Camp, the mercenary-run New Camp, and the tripping balls Sect Society. To the game’s credit, the first chapter spends a lot of time fleshing out the structures of the three: the writers subtly indicating that picking one over the other will yield consequences down-the-line.
ONLY, that doesn't happen. See, it doesn't matter which you choose because the story will progress in the exact same manner. Minus some dialogic differences, you’ll still manage to develop good relationships with enough major characters to render your chosen allegiance pointless. There are some fans who counter this by claiming that Gothic differentiates from other "Chosen One" narratives in that you're a nobody who gets treated like dirt, but having played the game I can say that that is just nonsense. Yes, some characters brush you aside as a nobody....but they treat everybody who isn't within their inner circle like a nobody; it's not specifically directed at you. And even if it were, the vast vast majority of NPCs out there are kind and offer you advice/help, so I don't know what those fanboys are talking about.
But I'm going off on a tangent - the story is lackluster because there's nothing personally motivating the protagonist to do stuff. Most of the early parts of the game have you playing errand boy, completing objectives solely because someone else wants X from somebody else. It's fleshed out enough that I'll refrain from labeling them fetch quests, but the structure is unfortunately noticeable, and even when the questline does get engaging, it's hampered by drawn-out moments that feel more akin to filler than genuine blocks of storytelling: you can't do A until you do B and C; to complete D, you need to find parts E, and F or talk to G, H, & J. I can't go into specifics without spoiling, but you'll notice it pretty quickly.
Another big issue I had with Gothic is how it goes all-out on explaining its mythological aspects. This is admittedly more of a pet peeve of mine than a legitimate critique, but I've never been a fan of video games that develop a deep mythos, only to then have said mythos play a concrete part in the story down-the-line (during which the mystery is inevitably unveiled in full detail): and unfortunately Gothic falls prey to that, revealing the true nature of its folkloric bits over the course of your journey.
The Sect Brotherhood, for instance, worships a deity called "The Sleeper" whom they believe will lead them to salvation. You could've used this as a springboard for exploring themes like how religion provides ignorance and bliss, or the line between faith and delusion, or even gone more metaphysical via pondering whether the Sect has a strong reason for their dogma. But alas, the Sleeper ends up playing a big part in the story.
Another great example is the New Camp magicians developing a plan to blow-up the barrier with a bunch of magic ore whilst being protected by mercenaries. You could've explored the ethics of a private military force, how hope can be used to exploit a populace, or how desperation can result in people believing in anything that promises them freedom (one of the characters in the game, Lester, outright states that!). But nope, that plan plays a big part in the narrative too.
Those are the two of the larger ones, but there are other revelations like the mysterious disappearance of the master magician Xardas, the backstory behind the barrier's creation, and the culture of other species. I'm not saying it hurts the pacing of the campaign, but what it does do is hurt its existential scope: it no longer has these pieces of lore to fall back on; they're just another standard building block for the player to completely examine.
Sidequests (of which there are surprisingly not many) aren't any better. Outside of some kooky characters, I can't recall any standing out for me personally. They don't explore any themes, don’t tell deep side stories, and just aren’t that fun, making them wasted potential. As a saving grace, I did appreciate the journal entries for them as they could be quite humorous at times.
With regards to the Nameless Hero, he's likable enough, though I wish there were dialogue options that allowed you to dictate his demeanor as the de facto one is that of an overly-optimistic homie who just wants to get home. I'm not quite sure why they stripped him of any personality given that he isn't an RPG avatar -- you don't get to name him, you don't get to dictate his morality, and you don't even get to customize his looks. He's essentially a bare bones template in a fantasy adventure, meaning the writers might as well have done more for him. If they were hoping this blankish slate would help make the guy and his situation more investable (i.e. the same thought process behind Isaac Clarke’s muteness in the original Dead Space), then the presence of voice acting defeated this.
I know I've been ranting nonstop, but Gothic does have a lot of good aspects to it. I pointed out in the introduction how it incorporated numerous revolutionary systems into its interface, and they mostly hold up to this day. NPCs have the same repetitive convos everytime you pass by them, but is this honestly any different from the radiant AIs of Oblivion and Skyrim that have become the thing of memes these days? It's also worth pointing out that big franchises like TES and Zelda haven't even brought in facets that were present in Gothic like NPC reactions to swords being drawn or entering restricted property.
Gothic takes a long time to implement fast travel ala teleportation; however, for most of my playthrough, I actually didn't find this to be burdensome due to how compact the overworld was. Piranha Bytes knew what they were doing when designing their setting as nothing feels out of place or extraneous the way you sometimes get in other free roam titles. Everything is relatively within walking distance, and while I would've liked an upgradable skill for increased speed (the presence of sprint potions showcase it was a possibility), you can do enough long jumps to lunge between the three main locales without much time wasted (and trust me, you will have to do such traveling A LOT). Would it have been better to present teleportation from the get-go? Of course. In fact, you don't get the Old Camp rune until the very last chapter (where it literally serves no narrative purpose), but that aforementioned compactness makes this flaw forgivable for the most part.
That said, exploration doesn't yield much in the way of goodies. Sure you'll find a blatantly copy/pasted cave, grotto or abandoned tower here-and-there, but they don't give any unique items -- just potions, ore, and generic weaponry.
Combat is a mixed bag. I mentioned before the presence of combos: movesets and twirls progressively learned from local trainers. However, I honestly found that simple hacking and blocking were highly sufficient in dispatching most foes, rendering such dances more prototypical than fleshed-out.
Magic is surprisingly wide-ranging -- you got your typical elements (minus Earth) and their associated effects (burning, freezing, shock, etc...), but the devs also took the time to program in several additional spells: illumination, bestial shapeshifting, sleep inducing, shrinking, and others I’m sure I’m missing. Sure, you won't have to use these most of the time (and it's more of a hassle to cast them compared to a straightforward spell), but for those who opt to roleplay as a sorcerer, there is a lot of variety to be had here.
In terms of aesthetics, Gothic did come out in the early-2000s so it's got the same charm/flaws as Deus Ex and RuneScape. I won't pretend it's great, but I do think it holds up relatively well as characters are proportioned well, and creature designs absolutely unique. The only major faults would be some inconsistent texturing on cliff surfaces, and the lack of color variety due to every major location boasting the same dull brown/grey/green template.
Kai Rosenkranz score gets the job done- it doesn't stand out the way Jeremy Soule's Oblivion OST did, but its continuous loop never feels annoying. I would've liked the major story beats to have their own leitmotif, especially since Gothic actually has cutscenes, but it is what it is.
SFX is okay. A number of creature noises are reused for different beasts, but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a good diversity overall. Humans, on the other hand, are the same grunts and yelps repeated ad nauseam.
Voice acting is a mixed bag. Gothic suffers from TES problem of having a handful of VAs voice every character, though I did feel the overall quality of the performances was relatively better. Still, it's a shame that they couldn't have gotten unique voices for at least the major NPCs.
The Nameless Hero's VA actually grew on me. I do think he sounds too....Prince Charming-ish considering the grim world around him, and bad ADR does fail him at times, but he really will grow on you, and has some funny deliveries for you to enjoy.
Enemy AI is another thing I want to talk about- I really appreciate how enemy creatures will try and swarm you over attacking one after the other, and how humans do try and parry your attacks and strafe to the side to get a swing in. It's not perfectly done, but it is an improvement compared to a lot of modern enemy AI I've experienced in gaming.
Other things I did like were the knockout system, which makes it semi-possible to play nonlethal against humans (I say semi because, as soon as they recover in the span of half-a-minute, humans will try and attack you again, forcing you to execute them regardless) and the bartering system, which allows you to literally use any item you find and trade it for other items you need with anyone. Now, is it realistic that a weaponsmith will accept bloodfly scales? Not really, but it's a fantasy game so you get what you get. That being said, I didn't like that coins didn't have ANY value whatsoever- I get that currency is going to lose value in a society without a centralized monetary system, but shouldn't the material the coins are made of mean something? Why even include it in the game if they serve no purpose?
Another thing I really liked was how pickable items stood out from the ground. Even if it was darker, the outline coloring makes a strong difference.
Lastly, a lot has been made about the need to hold down "ctrl" in order to do any action. It is a bit strange at first, but you get the hang of it very quickly. Combat is surprisingly responsive all things considered.
But overall, I just didn't enjoy Gothic enough to recommend it. At a $10.00 asking price, it definitely provides enough bang for your buck (though don't take my Steam count seriously- a number of "logged" hours were in-fact my computer being idle while I had to attend to other tasks), but without a compelling story (which ends on a lackluster, sudden, cliffhanger note) or sufficiently developed RPG mechanics, Gothic's revolutionary systems falter in bringing to life a world full of potential.
So I'm not trying to take anything away from Gothic (and I'll be speaking about those individual components later down the line), but ultimately Gothic falters in too many areas for me to recommend it to newer gamers, particularly in its story and RPG layouts.
The latter, in particular, is especially disappointing because, on the outset, Gothic seems like it has all the right ingredients to call itself an RPG- customizable gear, narrative choice, and a leveling system ripe with skill points. However, examining each of these facets carefully discloses just how many holes they truly have, beginning with the gear. Gear is limited to a singular item in the form of generic body armor, meaning there's no division amongst all the other compartments; no helmets, torsos, legs, plates, or boots. As a result, you never have the opportunity to mix-and-match pieces, and because better armor is progressively made available ala the Ezio Trilogy, you don’t even have a reason to keep old sets around.
Regarding the second, skills are very limited, with only three mattering in the long and short runs: strength, dexterity, and mana. Strength determines how hard you hit, dexterity your damage with a bow, and mana your spellcasting meter. Lockpicking is rendered pointless due to non-RNG combinations allowing save scumming, and pickpocketing & sneak end up being exp black holes courtesy of mandatory combat sections in most story beats.
Even among the aforementioned trio of useful ones, you aren’t granted much variety. Strength is, in a lot of ways, overpowered since it also dictates weapons you can wield, and Ranged is outright discouraged courtesy of enemies having the capacity to either charge you quickly or launch their own deadly projectile.
What angered me the most about Gothic’s gameplay was the lack of a defense skill and the implied lies about player builds. Every time you level up fully, your HP bar increases, but this has nothing to do with your resistance to damage. The only way to affect that is to get some armor, but for the majority of the first chapter, you'll be hardpressed to find any. As a result, you’re all but strong-armed into running away from everything until you gain sufficient experience from sidequests, and even when you do get armor, there's no way, as I stated earlier, to upgrade it, forcing you to wait until the next chapter to obtain the next big set.
In terms of lies, you may think you can go into Gothic with a certain build, yet that isn't the case here as the game soft-requires you to invest points into strength, magic, and 2h weapons. If you don't do that, you'll be screwed at the end due to both the necessity of teleportation for saving time, as well as the majority of those late game enemies (orcs) being immune to one-handed weapons.
It's sad they went this route because there were three easy fixes: expand the skill tree, give multiple ways of taking out late-stage enemies, and make fast travel independent from magic.
The main campaign is the final major negative facet of the game as it just isn't all that engaging. Gothic boasts an interesting backstory involving a group of magicians screwing up the creation of a magic prison, their mistake resulting in hoards of prisoners gaining political power through a resource called Ore. While themes like criminal justice, cruel & unusual punishments, and the balance between security and order aren't explored, I wasn't expecting them to be nor was it necessary -- if you give me a good old-fashioned fantasy yarn, I'm down for the journey.
Except, Gothic's is very barebones. Per the above shift in dynamics, every convict has divided into three factions, providing you with your first choice in terms of who to join: the militarized Old Camp, the mercenary-run New Camp, and the tripping balls Sect Society. To the game’s credit, the first chapter spends a lot of time fleshing out the structures of the three: the writers subtly indicating that picking one over the other will yield consequences down-the-line.
ONLY, that doesn't happen. See, it doesn't matter which you choose because the story will progress in the exact same manner. Minus some dialogic differences, you’ll still manage to develop good relationships with enough major characters to render your chosen allegiance pointless. There are some fans who counter this by claiming that Gothic differentiates from other "Chosen One" narratives in that you're a nobody who gets treated like dirt, but having played the game I can say that that is just nonsense. Yes, some characters brush you aside as a nobody....but they treat everybody who isn't within their inner circle like a nobody; it's not specifically directed at you. And even if it were, the vast vast majority of NPCs out there are kind and offer you advice/help, so I don't know what those fanboys are talking about.
But I'm going off on a tangent - the story is lackluster because there's nothing personally motivating the protagonist to do stuff. Most of the early parts of the game have you playing errand boy, completing objectives solely because someone else wants X from somebody else. It's fleshed out enough that I'll refrain from labeling them fetch quests, but the structure is unfortunately noticeable, and even when the questline does get engaging, it's hampered by drawn-out moments that feel more akin to filler than genuine blocks of storytelling: you can't do A until you do B and C; to complete D, you need to find parts E, and F or talk to G, H, & J. I can't go into specifics without spoiling, but you'll notice it pretty quickly.
Another big issue I had with Gothic is how it goes all-out on explaining its mythological aspects. This is admittedly more of a pet peeve of mine than a legitimate critique, but I've never been a fan of video games that develop a deep mythos, only to then have said mythos play a concrete part in the story down-the-line (during which the mystery is inevitably unveiled in full detail): and unfortunately Gothic falls prey to that, revealing the true nature of its folkloric bits over the course of your journey.
The Sect Brotherhood, for instance, worships a deity called "The Sleeper" whom they believe will lead them to salvation. You could've used this as a springboard for exploring themes like how religion provides ignorance and bliss, or the line between faith and delusion, or even gone more metaphysical via pondering whether the Sect has a strong reason for their dogma. But alas, the Sleeper ends up playing a big part in the story.
Another great example is the New Camp magicians developing a plan to blow-up the barrier with a bunch of magic ore whilst being protected by mercenaries. You could've explored the ethics of a private military force, how hope can be used to exploit a populace, or how desperation can result in people believing in anything that promises them freedom (one of the characters in the game, Lester, outright states that!). But nope, that plan plays a big part in the narrative too.
Those are the two of the larger ones, but there are other revelations like the mysterious disappearance of the master magician Xardas, the backstory behind the barrier's creation, and the culture of other species. I'm not saying it hurts the pacing of the campaign, but what it does do is hurt its existential scope: it no longer has these pieces of lore to fall back on; they're just another standard building block for the player to completely examine.
Sidequests (of which there are surprisingly not many) aren't any better. Outside of some kooky characters, I can't recall any standing out for me personally. They don't explore any themes, don’t tell deep side stories, and just aren’t that fun, making them wasted potential. As a saving grace, I did appreciate the journal entries for them as they could be quite humorous at times.
With regards to the Nameless Hero, he's likable enough, though I wish there were dialogue options that allowed you to dictate his demeanor as the de facto one is that of an overly-optimistic homie who just wants to get home. I'm not quite sure why they stripped him of any personality given that he isn't an RPG avatar -- you don't get to name him, you don't get to dictate his morality, and you don't even get to customize his looks. He's essentially a bare bones template in a fantasy adventure, meaning the writers might as well have done more for him. If they were hoping this blankish slate would help make the guy and his situation more investable (i.e. the same thought process behind Isaac Clarke’s muteness in the original Dead Space), then the presence of voice acting defeated this.
I know I've been ranting nonstop, but Gothic does have a lot of good aspects to it. I pointed out in the introduction how it incorporated numerous revolutionary systems into its interface, and they mostly hold up to this day. NPCs have the same repetitive convos everytime you pass by them, but is this honestly any different from the radiant AIs of Oblivion and Skyrim that have become the thing of memes these days? It's also worth pointing out that big franchises like TES and Zelda haven't even brought in facets that were present in Gothic like NPC reactions to swords being drawn or entering restricted property.
Gothic takes a long time to implement fast travel ala teleportation; however, for most of my playthrough, I actually didn't find this to be burdensome due to how compact the overworld was. Piranha Bytes knew what they were doing when designing their setting as nothing feels out of place or extraneous the way you sometimes get in other free roam titles. Everything is relatively within walking distance, and while I would've liked an upgradable skill for increased speed (the presence of sprint potions showcase it was a possibility), you can do enough long jumps to lunge between the three main locales without much time wasted (and trust me, you will have to do such traveling A LOT). Would it have been better to present teleportation from the get-go? Of course. In fact, you don't get the Old Camp rune until the very last chapter (where it literally serves no narrative purpose), but that aforementioned compactness makes this flaw forgivable for the most part.
That said, exploration doesn't yield much in the way of goodies. Sure you'll find a blatantly copy/pasted cave, grotto or abandoned tower here-and-there, but they don't give any unique items -- just potions, ore, and generic weaponry.
Combat is a mixed bag. I mentioned before the presence of combos: movesets and twirls progressively learned from local trainers. However, I honestly found that simple hacking and blocking were highly sufficient in dispatching most foes, rendering such dances more prototypical than fleshed-out.
Magic is surprisingly wide-ranging -- you got your typical elements (minus Earth) and their associated effects (burning, freezing, shock, etc...), but the devs also took the time to program in several additional spells: illumination, bestial shapeshifting, sleep inducing, shrinking, and others I’m sure I’m missing. Sure, you won't have to use these most of the time (and it's more of a hassle to cast them compared to a straightforward spell), but for those who opt to roleplay as a sorcerer, there is a lot of variety to be had here.
In terms of aesthetics, Gothic did come out in the early-2000s so it's got the same charm/flaws as Deus Ex and RuneScape. I won't pretend it's great, but I do think it holds up relatively well as characters are proportioned well, and creature designs absolutely unique. The only major faults would be some inconsistent texturing on cliff surfaces, and the lack of color variety due to every major location boasting the same dull brown/grey/green template.
Kai Rosenkranz score gets the job done- it doesn't stand out the way Jeremy Soule's Oblivion OST did, but its continuous loop never feels annoying. I would've liked the major story beats to have their own leitmotif, especially since Gothic actually has cutscenes, but it is what it is.
SFX is okay. A number of creature noises are reused for different beasts, but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a good diversity overall. Humans, on the other hand, are the same grunts and yelps repeated ad nauseam.
Voice acting is a mixed bag. Gothic suffers from TES problem of having a handful of VAs voice every character, though I did feel the overall quality of the performances was relatively better. Still, it's a shame that they couldn't have gotten unique voices for at least the major NPCs.
The Nameless Hero's VA actually grew on me. I do think he sounds too....Prince Charming-ish considering the grim world around him, and bad ADR does fail him at times, but he really will grow on you, and has some funny deliveries for you to enjoy.
Enemy AI is another thing I want to talk about- I really appreciate how enemy creatures will try and swarm you over attacking one after the other, and how humans do try and parry your attacks and strafe to the side to get a swing in. It's not perfectly done, but it is an improvement compared to a lot of modern enemy AI I've experienced in gaming.
Other things I did like were the knockout system, which makes it semi-possible to play nonlethal against humans (I say semi because, as soon as they recover in the span of half-a-minute, humans will try and attack you again, forcing you to execute them regardless) and the bartering system, which allows you to literally use any item you find and trade it for other items you need with anyone. Now, is it realistic that a weaponsmith will accept bloodfly scales? Not really, but it's a fantasy game so you get what you get. That being said, I didn't like that coins didn't have ANY value whatsoever- I get that currency is going to lose value in a society without a centralized monetary system, but shouldn't the material the coins are made of mean something? Why even include it in the game if they serve no purpose?
Another thing I really liked was how pickable items stood out from the ground. Even if it was darker, the outline coloring makes a strong difference.
Lastly, a lot has been made about the need to hold down "ctrl" in order to do any action. It is a bit strange at first, but you get the hang of it very quickly. Combat is surprisingly responsive all things considered.
But overall, I just didn't enjoy Gothic enough to recommend it. At a $10.00 asking price, it definitely provides enough bang for your buck (though don't take my Steam count seriously- a number of "logged" hours were in-fact my computer being idle while I had to attend to other tasks), but without a compelling story (which ends on a lackluster, sudden, cliffhanger note) or sufficiently developed RPG mechanics, Gothic's revolutionary systems falter in bringing to life a world full of potential.