Strengths:
- · Immense world to explore;
- · Beautiful vistas as every location has its purpose;
- · Nonlinear – do it your own way;
- · Freedom of creating any character you desire.
Weaknesses:
- · Quests tends to be repetitive;
- · Quests logs / maps needs a lot of improvement;
- · Brutal system requirements;
- · World not as ‘alive’ as in Gothic 1 and 2;
- · Buggy state if not using the community patch (1.75).
To those who haven’t played any of the Gothic games, you are missing out on a RPG treat – a vast and open world where abundance of exploration filled with non-player characters (NPCs) doing their own things thus making the Gothic series a living and breathing world. Filled with quests galore, its only mishaps is the combat system and extremely high system requirements. The journey now continues with Gothic 3 that improves some of the mishaps from the previous two however added a few more. That’s not to say to ride is game off as the world is massive, filled with some of the most gorgeous vistas I have ever seen in a long while thus making it an explorer’s heaven to boot.
The timeline is game takes place is a little bit of a mystery. I presume it’s within a couple of months as the manual (page 28) describes that the hero arrives at Myrtana a little bit out of shape. Also the time presented on page 35 of the manual states ‘1 year ago’. So I presume it’s a couple of months between Gothic 2 and 3. Yet, this time, the opening sequence starts off all the heroes from the previous Gothic games immediately attacks the besieging Orcs. To those players of previous Gothic games, this strikes very odd considering the Orcs are extremely tough to kill however here, in Gothic 3, they are challenging but nowhere near as deadly in Gothic 1 and 2.
It took me a while to grasp this idea however it does make sense as the hero (played by you) have done many great deeds beforehand and it would be a little odd that the hero gets himself smashed to oblivion by a wandering mole rat again. That said, it is by any means not an easy game overall however still challenging enough to strategically pick your adversaries – that is you cannot simply just barge in and then see the area swathed with experience points in a matter of seconds.
Gothic 3 is termed as a role playing game (RPG), meaning it’s heavily based on deeds that earns you experience points. This also extends to killing foes and discovering locales. What you can do with the experience points is to spend it on your character to make him more powerful. This game has no classes to choice from (templates) therefore you can mix-match to your liking. For instance: I started off using bow and arrows (hunter) with a couple of thieving skills (lock picking / backstabbing). After this ‘survival’ period, I have enough experience points to learn a bit about alchemy and then finally, a mage. It was a long road to specialise in a mage however this is one of the beauty of this game – you can choose skills as your desire, as long you can find the trainer to train you, experience points and gold – in some cases, plenty of gold.
The main plot will take you from one end of the map to the other – well almost as it really depends upon what you want to achieve. Here is another great feature of this game as it’s truly open world. The world doesn’t scale according to you however there are indications of whether you should be in a certain place or not by the monsters wandering around. Divided into three regions, Myrtana is where you start off, filled with lush green trees and rolling hills – basically the temperate zone. North of Myrtana is the icy cold region of Nordmar – geographically looks smaller than Myrtana however don’t let that fool you as the area is littered with mountain ranges, meaning the landscape has many levels. The southern region is the vast desert of Varant. This area is generally flat however geographically, the largest.
And this is where the game truly shines – the landscapes are a beauty to behold. For instance: after spending some considerable time getting lost in forestry Myrtana, I arrive at Faring, the basecamp for Nordmar. Here is where my jaw dropped as you can see the mountain ranges nested just behind this city. Nordmar is extremely difficult to navigate as it has many elevation levels however you will see some of the game’s most spectacular scenery. Varant is just one huge desert region where there’s plenty of ruins to discover. I remember there’s a massive ruined city and searching through this, I found many artefacts that gave my character no benefits other than earning experience points. However it really made me feel like I was some kind of archaeologist, rummaging for lost treasures in the middle of nowhere, filled with blistering sands being blown to and fro the ruins. This kind of reminded me of the early Tomb Raider games or even Thief – The Dark Project. Wonderful stuff – explorer’s paradise.
Yet with all those wonderful things to discover, there’s a lot of searching to do as this game as no quest markers whatsoever. That’s not a bad thing however for some, it could be detrimental as some items can be easily missed if you are not careful enough. Just imagine this: one of the quests involves finding twelve fire chalices scattered throughout the entire world and once you located them all, you need to hand them over to the twelve Paladins for which happens to be also scattered throughout the world. Imagine not have quests markers can be very daunting indeed. For the explorer, there’s real no concerns however the map can be utilise a bit better. Meaning that I wished that I can place my own notes of what I have discovered on the map as in its current state, only shows the main cities. Heck, there’s not even a fog-of-wall as this will assist you gauging where you haven’t explored.
Yet what assisted me is the plants you can gather – meaning I spend a lot of time simply gathering plants as some quests involves this. Also it’s an indication that if the area is clear of gathered plants, this means I have explored that area – this also includes locating treasure chests and the like. It was my only saving grace otherwise I will have little idea where I have been. In addition to this, the quest logs are a little confusing as the log entries only records the discussion made between the quest giver and the hero and that’s about it. An example: I need to seek three people for approval of my deeds - the quest log will not update who already gave me approval. And once the quest is resolved, it’s marked as finished however you still need to go back to the original quest giver for the final reward. Crazy as.
All the characters you will met are all voiced and, like most games, the voice acting is not that great however it’s certainly not cringe worthy either. Thankfully the subtle humour is still there and it never overstays its welcome. This is an appreciating touch as it makes the main hero almost human like and not some mucho filled with mucho talk and grunts. Yet be prepared for hearing the same voices over and over again. Also I swear one of the voices is Michael Gough (the voice of Deckard Cain in the Diablo series). The musical scores are well composed and that familiar Gothic theme thankfully makes a return. Yet I really love the musical scores for the desert region Varant, haunting yet peaceful, just like the vast desert.
Because of the massive open ended world, to complete the game wholly depends upon what you do. If you are aiming just to finish of the main quest, then don’t play this. This game is designed to be explored from top to bottom and from left to right. It’s a huge world with plenty of things to discover and accomplish. The unfortunate thing is that some quests tends to be repetitive (there’s so much that I can take when ask to defeat so-and-so during those arena quests) however don’t let that deter you. So if you are planning to complete this game the way it’s designed, it can take easily close to 100 hours. For me, at the time of this review recorded close to 120 hours and I still got a quarter of the map to discover and then revisit the world again to finish off the main quest line.
Granted at the time of release, the game was a buggy mess. Maybe the dispute between publish JoWood and developer Piranha Bytes may have something to do with this. Piranha Bytes ‘left’ the game with version 1.12 (still in a buggy state) however the community, yet again, saved the day. April 2012 saw the latest version 1.75. It’s a sad state of affairs though as if the game ended at version 1.12, we will never get to see the game in its fullest glory. Version 1.75 still have minor issues however, and thankfully so, we get the see the game for what it was meant to be. An extremely highly ambitious game in term of size however the world, whilst beautiful to explore, it still felt not as ‘alive’ as in Gothic 2. A definite explorer’s paradise to boot though.
7.5 / 10 (basing on community patch 1.75 – without it, it will be a dismal 4).