If you like Rpg-s with good game play, story and immersible world AVOID THIS ONE AT ALL COSTS NOT GOTHIC IN ANY WAY!!
I mean COME ON, even Risen, which is a short game took me 35 hours!
Where shall we start...
OK the Good:
-Graphics are beautiful. Although some of the designs aren't. Women are ugly, not ugly in traditional sense but almost men like trannyes ugly. Also different faces of most npc-s are repetitive and without facial expressions of even fundamental emotions such as happy sad and angry...
Now the Bad:
-DIFFICULTY easy, also so extremely set that if you play on easy, medium or hard you are a god, but if you play on Gothic constant rolling away is a must and leveling system doesn't help in any way...stupid idiots what were you thinking?!...well i guess you weren't.
-FIGHTING SYSTEM...boring: click, role away repeat...
why implement shields and block when you never use it...it doesn't make sense to me
-LEVELING SYSTEM a total piece of **** and it's the same if it wasn't even there. Since it has almost no impact on the combat except for doing more hits in a row and adding to your stamina and HP, which on Gothic difficulty doesn't help much, since you have to roll away all the time to avoid enemy attacks.
-THE WORLD is dull and empty. Any exploration on your own to gain that extra level or to find some special or unique items is totally unnecessary since the loot is small and of no importance and at the end you'll end with finishing one of the side-quests.
-QUESTS AND STORY - NO MORE FREEDOM!! Yes in Arcania you have to finish the part of the main storyline to continue to the next area, where you repeat the same. Story in itself is stupid and redundant. I hoped that on cost of LINEARITY at least the story won't suck...NO SUCH LUCK!!!
Quests are all marked on your map so you don't have to look for someone or something. Just check the map..although there are some STUPID exceptions...like ''find a wooden leg'' and ''find 12 Cobwebs for mama'' that for some reason aren't marked on the map. One of the most annoying quests ever...go figure.It would have felt just the same if there were no sidequests. Also to Spellbound idea of multiple solutions for solving a quest are in style ''get 3 of this item for Diego'' or ''get 4 of this item for Milten'' which result in absolutely the same result and have no influence on the main story. As i mentioned before the story is Crap. The old characters like Diego, Gorn , Milten , Lester and Xardas are there and Spellbound even introduced some new characters which are all boring and not memorable at all. Even the old characters all well known to Gothic fans are different...how should i say...stupid and useless. Their only role is to keep the lore of gothic games. Also there is no riddles to figure out like in previous gothic games. It's as simple as clicking your way through to the end.
-GOTHIC LORE- almost gone...no more learning points, no more sleeping no more forging at the anvil, yes now you can forge your own sword by opening crafting menu with c and cook, smith, forge, mix everything you want. Also you can steal anything you want and the npcs don't react. Npcs also do nothing. Mostly they just stand there or walk around. Also you can't kill or fight any of them. You can't join any faction or affect your reputation. And if you lead a bunch of monsters in the village...guess what...the npc-s don't give a damn.
-VOICE ACTING wouldn't feel so bad if the characters would actually have any facial expressions. But anyway it's mediocre at best.
-BUGS AND SUCH: everywhere !
FINAL THOUGHTS:
DO NOT PLAY I REPEAT DO NOT PLAY...WILL CAUSE BRAIN DAMAGE
....hahaha the beautiful flowers....mmm...doughnuts...erhgm...anyway
-Arcania is a mindless clicking game.
-Arcania actually feels more like action adventure than an RPG.
-Arcania sucks donkey balls!
So i recommend playing Darksiders (around 20 hours of gameplay), or PoP Warrior within and such great action adventures.
Or just go and replay the Gothic, Gothic 2 NOTR and Gothic 3(with community patch).
Also something to look forward to is RISEN 2 and ''Gothic Reloaded Mod'' found here ''http://www.gothic-reloaded-mod.de/?page=home〈=en''
which will be released in mid 2011. The sad thing is that they've ruined the Gothic lore.
For me the Gothic Saga finished with Gothic 3 which with the community patch finally feels like true Gothic game.
So if you're considering to play this mind-numbing game i recommend to go KILL YOURSELF...it'll be more fun!!!!