My review of the German version of Gothic II was originally published in January over at EA. Meanwhile it is not available anymore due to the switch to a new database. Seeing that you'll get to read my thoughts on recently released expansion to the game soon, we decided it would make more sense if it was reposted here now. That and the fact that the game will be officially released in NA in October. Minor (outdated) details were changed and the score removed. (8.9 out of 10 readers won't notice the difference though.) Co-credits go to Elysium, who proofread/tweaked the text.
You enjoyed the prequel and want to know if the successor is worth being purchased? Or maybe you have yet to play the game and wonder what the series is about. Read on...In April 2001 Piranha Bytes released the RPG Gothic which sold well in Europe and made its way to the US six months later. A year and a half later, the German version of the sequel shipped in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. It quickly became publisher JoWood's most successful game, clearly outperforming titles such as The Sims series, Age of Mythology and Harry Potter 2 in the charts over here since its release, but we've seen before that strong sales does not always indicate a good game. So, the question is: does Gothic II live up to its sales reputation? The game itself comes in a card box which has about same dimensions as a DVD case, but is twice as deep; a nice compromise which should pleases both, card box and DVD case fans. Featuring a nice looking fold cover it contains a (good) manual and 3 CDs in jewel cases. People whose PCs are notoriously low on harddisk space now will start pondering how to free up 2.2 GB for the game. After the installation procedure which takes about 8-12 minutes, you're ready to experience Piranha Bytes latest action-RPG.The Setting:
At the end of Gothic our nameless hero battled the Sleeper. As the creature fell, the magical barrier surrounding the prison colony collapsed, but our hero was caught in the wreckage and nearly buried alive. Heavily injured and growing weaker every day the hero nearly died. Fortunately, his old mentor, Xardas, seeks him out and rescues him just in time.
Gothic II begins about 4 weeks after the destruction of the barrier. Xardas reports that the Orc hordes are getting stronger. It appears that with his last breath, the Sleeper summoned a new evil. Mysterious shadows indicate that this new evil might be dragons which were thought to have vanished more than a century before.
Meanwhile the situation on the island is on the brink of civil war as farmers led by Onar refuse to provide free food support for the town of Khorinis, while prisoners that escaped the mine colony with the barrier's destruction have spread over the island, threatening wanderers and working as mercenaries for Onar. These former prisoners are being used by Onar to defend his land against Royal Paladins who've been recently dispatched to Khorinis. As the game begins, your first task is to convince the leader of the paladins of the existence of dragons and claim an artifact called the Eye of Innos. Setting on this quest reveals the first issue for your character: how to get into the city? Should one work for the farmer Lobart, trying to earn some money otherwise to pay one of the guards? Trust the strange merchant Canthar? A few of many questions to come.
The game:
You control the same nameless character who defeated the Sleeper and freed the prisoners in the original Gothic. However, you have lost most of your strength and skills from your severe injuries. With each level, your hitpoints increase and you earn skill points. The skill points can be invested to improve dexterity or strength. You also can learn a variety of abilities from skinning and declawing animals to learning how to brew elixirs. You could also forge weapons, learn to pick locks or improve your weapon skill.
There are over a hundred weapons in the game, all of them belonging to the following categories: one-handed and two-handed melee weapons, bows and crossbows. One-handed weapons are faster. Two-handed are stronger with a higher range. Better swords/maces require more strength. Bigger bows/crossbows require a certain level of dexterity. To train your skills or learn new talents you need to find people who are willing to provide knowledge. Some of them will teach you for free, but most of them want to be paid (once) or would like you to do them a favor. Their skill levels vary. For example, one of the blacksmiths in Khorinis is only capable of increasing your strength to 30. If you want to become stronger, you need to find another way. Sometimes you might also find or buy books which contain information on certain skills.
To make your way to Lord Hagen, commander of the paladins, you need to choose one of three paths: join the militia, become a novice at the local monastery or team up with the mercenaries at Onar's farm. Later in the game you can get promoted to paladin, fire mage and dragon hunter respectively.
The magicians are naturally best at casting spells. The noble knights are good fighters, but also know how to handle a few spells, whereas mercenaries have the best fight trainers around. You can try to find people to train you in other guilds, though not all of them are willing to do so. Some of the mercenaries don't mind improving your strength and weapon skills, while paladin trainers tend to provide knowledge only for paladins. You retain the option of increasing your mage's strength to that of a paladin or mercenary, however, you would sacrifice skill points you need to gain better spell classes.
Once you've chosen a guild there's no turning back. People will treat you differently depending on the group you're a member of and your position. Once in a while it can be wiser to appear neutral and not wear your suit/armor/robe while investigating. Naturally, each guild has a unique set of quests and missions. In addition to that you can also join the local thieves guild (even as a noble knight) and solve some problems for them - of course, one might as well betray them and grab the bounty.
The quests:
Gothic II offers a abundance of side quests, though, as mentioned about, you'd need to play the game thrice to see all of them. Almost all quests can be solved in more than one way. For example, if you're told to get item X from person Y, you have the option to be diplomatic, threaten her/him, beat her/him down or try to steal the item. The quest tasks won't surprise RPG veterans, but that doesn't mean they're boring. There are a few annoying "Collect X,Y,Z for me"-quests (with X,Y and Z being spread randomly across the island).
Fortunately, the vast majority of such missions are optional, and you're under no obligation to suffer through them. There are plenty of quests to keep you busy and give you a few extra rewards, but not as many as offered by Morrowind. Though there are some reports of logical bugs, I did not run into any problems.
The controls:
Gothic II relies on the common keyboard/mouse combo. You can draw the last weapon/spell used via space bar or directly access items you've equipped through the keypad. You also have the option to change your key setup. You cannot pick up items with a weapon or spell at the ready, and people might react aggressively if they feel threatened. The battle system is comparable to the original Gothic, but you can choose an alternate system. Once you draw your weapon, your view is 'locked on' the person/monster closest to you. Left and right makes your character strafe around the target while forward and backward will move you closer and further away respectively.
Once you switch to strike mode by holding down the left mouse button, left/right swings your weapon. Forward performs a vertical strike towards the enemy and backwards blocks. Using bows/crossbows or casting spells works in a similar fashion. Pressing left or right while having the left mouse button pushed makes the character switch between targets, the forward shoots/casts.
The alternate battle system is more simplified. The major difference is that you don't lock onto enemies, so you have to strafe in circles 'manually'. Pushing the left mouse button then is enough to swing your sword. I personally found the default system to be better as block/dodge/counter actions seem easier to perform. Once you get the grasp of it one on one fights are actually fun. Melee action against groups, however, still can be a mess once in a while, especially if you're fighting together with an NPC because the system tends to lock onto your partner in the heat of the battle, so there's a chance of hurting him during the fight, though he will not turn against you if that happens. Definitely an aspect Piranha Bytes should improve since there are missions where you constantly have a friendly NPC along with you. To sum up, you'll get used to this approach, but you probably won't fall it love with it.
The graphics:
Gothic II uses an upgraded version of the Gothic-engine, which means more objects, more textures and a few new visual features such as fog effects. While some things might not look as nice as, say, Morrowind, a lot is compensated through strong location design which adds much to the game atmosphere. All the better if you have a machine that can handle 300% visual range option, though my PC could not. I played the game on an Athlon 800 with 256MB RAM + Geforce II MX400 which is closer to the min specs. Outside of town locations my framerate seemed smooth at 200%, though that depends on what you consider to be good enough. If you're not satisfied you can adjust the visual range for enviroment and objects (separately), model and texture details and turn on/off cloud shadows among other things.
In some places, especially the town of Khorinis, the performance suffers noticeably. Gothic II requires 256MB RAM, but more will definitely boost performance thanks to reduced HD accesses. Gothic II is constantly loading the map 'on the run' and you will encounter loading screens only thrice: when launching the game and when entering the mine colony and in the last chapter. Speaking of loading times: the very first (and so far only) patch for the game improved the loading times a lot - about thrice as fast with the patch. Reducing the waiting time from a Battlefield 1942-esque experience down to acceptable range. Nitpickers might want to complain about the character detail, but overall Gothic IIis a very nice looking game.
There are only a few rendered sequences to be seen in Piranha's title If you've been spoiled by Square or Blizzard titles none of them are going to wow you. Interestingly enough you'll get one when spending a night at the local whorehouse in Khorinis. (Which I only did for the purpose of investigation!) It doesn't really add anything to the game. It's just strange to see one of the rare CG movies focused on something that's not really related to the story; a setting usually not featured or skipped in most RPGs.
Sound:
If you're looking for bombastic and dominant themes similar to the ones in Japanese RPGs then the Gothic II soundtrack might let you down. Most of the music in the game is calm and ambient, but it definitely fits the atmosphere. A few samples can be downloaded at the Gothic IIsite. The music is neither memorable nor annoying even after one has played for a while. I actually had it turned off most of the time. Even without music, the ambient sound is intense. You can hear the birds singing or a wolf growl while exploring the forests, notice the blacksmiths working in Khorinis and perceive the menacing noise of a dragon or a golem walking.
All the conversation in the game is spoken, but subtitles can be optionally turned on, or dialogue can be skipped. Altogether, Gothic II features about 9 hours of spoken text. The title features more than 400 NPCs, so you can probably guess that Piranha Bytes didn't hire more than 400 people to lend them their voices. It won't take long before you recognize familiar voices. Does this have a negative impact? Not at all. I personally prefer this approach over games where either none of the NPCs are voiced or only key characters. The voice actors do a decent job and lend credibility to their characters. Compliments to the writers as well. A farmer talks like a farmer, and if a person gets angry then you can be sure the game doesn't bleep out swearwords.
The world:
This is the part where Gothic II really shines. As mentioned above all NPCs are voiced. Most of them keep busy during the day with work, a leisurely stroll or by chatting with other NPCs. While this is only pseudo-smalltalk (like "Something really needs to be done against that." or "What? I haven't heard about that before."), it helps create the illusion of a living and breathing world. NPCs go to bed at night or sit together at camp fires. They won't be too happy if you wake them up or try to sneak into their houses, and they will remember if you've stolen something from them. In this case, a "forget"-spell is quite handy. NPCs also might help you when you are under attack, a feature you're going to benefit from, especially in the early parts of the game where anything stronger than a wolf might cause severe damage. Frustrated with being killed by creatures in other games while NPCs stand a few meters away and watch? Not likely to happen in Gothic II. While you're usually on your own, there are missions where characters team up with you. Fortunately, they're skilled fighters and one doesn't have to babysit them. You, however, should try to keep them close to you when climbing towers since the pathfinding might produce odd results in this special case.
Hiking through woods or caves provides some incredibly intense moments especially if you're poorly equipped and keenly away that enemies are about. The constant feeling of menace sometimes creates a tension comparable to Silent Hill. Gothic Iplayers might be interested to know that you'll also visit the mine colony again and you will meet old friends who can be found all across the Island; rewarding to those who spent many hours playing the original, however, you don't have to have played the former to enjoy Gothic II. Most characters will provide a short summary of their background if you mention that you don't remember them. Size-wise the action-RPG features thrice as many locations as its predecessor according to Piranha Bytes - after having beaten the game I don't doubt that. If you know what to do and ignore side-quests you can beat the game in less than 50 hours, but if one plays it the 'normal' way and also tries to beat it with another guild again it's definitely more than that.
Summary:
A question I often saw was: Is Gothic II better than Morrowind? This I can answer with a definite and concrete "Well, duh." Both games feature different approaches and you might like one of them more depending on your preferences. Morrowind offers an enormous number of quests and I know various people who've put more than 100 hours into the game without even bothering to follow the actual story. Gothic II is more linear, but offers a more believable environment. In fact, if you're a fan of RPGs you simply should have both games. If you liked Gothic then Gothic II is a no-brainer anyway. It doesn't revolutionize the genre, but what was realized in the game is executed very well. Providing a great experience. Looking further into the future you might want to know that one of the Piranhas already stated in an interview in December that they're going to work on Gothic III which will contain completely new locations (as the character leaves the island) and feature a new graphics engine. I personally can't wait to see what it will look and feel like.
- Spunior
Comments
this is always my purchasing decision question:
Is it multiplayer?
No, there isn't any multiplayer. You don't buy any pure single player games at all?
Nice review Spunior, glad it's back in the net where it belongs!
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ― Howard Thurman
I do when they go to the bargain bin, or if its an action game I mean most fun RPG experiences on the PC have been in multiplayer IE Baldurs Gate, Diablo, Lineage, Dungeon Siege, NWN and so on...I dont really play games for games I play them for social reasons...ya know?
Awesome review Spunior! Certis had posted some impressions of this game awhile back so I picked it up at GoGamer and so far I'm very impressed. You're right, it's quite a bit different from Morrowind but I loved them both. Now that I'm at a respectable level in the game, the combat is fantastic unlike Morrowind's click fest attack style. If I had to knock this game for anything, it would be the difficulty at the beginning of the game. I tend to hate RPG's where you start as a lowly wuss and can't kick a fly's ass and Gothic 2 seemed worse than usual in that regard. If you stay with it though, you'll get a truly rewarding experience with a great story, interesting locales and great action. I'm a single player gamer and this game gets my vote as the best of the year so far. I've been at it for weeks now and I'm still having fun. I can't remember the last game that was able to keep me captivated for so long and leave me still wanting more. Now if I could only get my hands on the expansion pack! (Spunior - if you played the exp. pack, how does it stack up to the full version of the game?)
You'll get an exhaustive answer to that tomorrow.