Neither good RPG nor Action/Fighting Game
Gothic is a bad RPG for a number of reasons. One is the fact that you are not creating your character and it isn't your character who's role you are taking. You are given a character who basically sucks at everything, especially responding to controls. I was a level 10 before I got a single new skill (stronger swordsman) and it really did not seem to change anything for me. The baddies that were killing me when I was a level 1 could still kill me just as fast at level 10. There was no feeling of progression that after 7 hours of playing, something was getting better for me. All my leveling up seemed to be completely pointless, and its at the beginning of a game where you are supposed to really see the effects of leveling up so that you crave it each time its near. Its the reason that in any good RPG you hit level 2 so quickly and immediately gain some new feat or improved skill or an HP boost or something. In this game you get neither. And its even more infuriating when you have to gain like 40 levels before you can make your character be able to do anything at all that focuses on your style of playing. When you finally have managed to attain a new weapon that you can actually use, or afford the armor, you also get disappointed to find that you can see little to no difference in the damage it is doing or absorbing. Where is the pay-off?
Gothic is a bad Action/Fighting game due mostly to the unresponsiveness of your character. It is nearly impossible to attempt hit and run with your character as everytime you try to turn around and run away, your character will still want to engage the enemy and will not turn around. Then after a few moments he will turn and do a slight trip thing before finally beginning to run. That is of course if none of the opponents have decided to attack you in the 1-2 second gap. If they have, well... your character is dead. Same difficulty with attacking animals, for example, the wild boar or goblin. You can swing at it all you want and probably not hit it. Even when it is backed up against a rock and you can visually perceive your sword passing through it and the rock directly behind it, there are times when no damage is dealt. The moment it attacks, however, your character is in stun. Completely unresponsive to controls such as attack, parry, or runaway. No no no... your character will simply stumble after each of the 4-5 hits it takes for him to die, which takes a little over 1 second. The fighting does take some skill to use, as in timing your hits, and what kind of attack to perform, but too much of it just seems like dumb luck over and over. If you are lucky you can take out an entire camp of baddies without getting hit a single time. If you are unlucky, the first guy will take you out in two blows. You are going to die a lot in this game. Good thing there is quick save and quick load, quick save taking 8 seconds (Dual core Athlon +4400 with 2 gig ram) and quick load about one minute. Count that out and see if you have the patients for it, especially when it takes a little over 1 second to die against a freaking boar when you are level 10.
Not to mention the technical difficulties of this piece of art. Baddies that travel through walls and through the ground only to pop out of some other spot randomly. Slow saves and loads, graphical and sound glitches, random crashes, system freezes all plague this game. All things that make you have to start from your last and only 'quick' save, unless of course it got corrupted.
I have many more complaints about this game, but I also want to give it credit for something. Nice big world that is filled with content and interesting landscapes, an interesting faction system, not bad voice acting, and something else... To sum it up: If you have the patience to deal with several hours of Bull$hit maybe the game becomes enjoyable, but there is only so far the excuse, "You just have to get used to it," can go, and this game crossed it by 40 levels. There is no reason to put up with so much crap for a game.