Gothic 4 - Arcania

[Darth Payne]

Just played through the demo for the game Gothic 4 - Arcania.

 

So far it seems pretty good, decent enemies, and gameplay seems pretty good.

 

Hopefully, in the full game graphics will be a little better.

 

Edit: Things you get to fight in this demo? Goblins, Golems, skelton warriors and spider looking things in a cave. You also get to hunt deer and wolves with a bow.

[swphreak]

I saw the demo on Live and added it to my queue. I still haven't gotten around to giving it a try. I've never played any of the previous Gothic games, so we'll see how well I like it.

[DarthParametric]

IGN has a review of it - http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/112/1127303p1.html

[Darth Payne]

Ooh, nice.

 

I even stumbled accross a cinematic from TFU II i hadn't seen before. Starkiller surrounded by Troopers asking where 'she' is. Shortly afterwards Vader arrives on the scene.

[Darth Payne]

As the previous posts of this thread was mostly about the Demo, i'm gonna chance this post.

 

Anyway...

 

Well, got the game in the mail early yesterday.

 

It seems that while you can pick up some outfits in various lootable locations and shops, you also get the choice between three outfits(plate, leather, robe) after every main game event.

 

You also only get three level-up points for every time you level up.

 

Exploration level seems like a mix of Dragon Age/Kotor and Oblivion.

[Ser'eck]

I just got this demo on my new OXM disc, have not tried it out yet but I am interested.

[Darth Payne]

I reccomend it.

 

There are a few differences between the demo and the full game though.

[Canaan Sadow]

Oh sweet! I asked for this game for Christmas... I can't wait another week to play it... but I guess I have to. -_-

 

Anyway... are there any romance options in the game?

[Darth Payne]

Haven't found any romances yet, other than the *very* short one at the beginning.

 

There are a couple of pretty ladies you can talk to though.

[Canaan Sadow]

Ah. Well I like games that have a bit of a romance subplot, but I guess it'll be fine. I looked at the game when I went to reserve Cataclysm and it looked pretty epic, so I called my mom and told her. (:

 

>.> Who said I wanted to romance a lady?

[Darth Payne]

I said nothing about the ladies being female.

[Canaan Sadow]

-_- But a lady is a female. A gentleman is a male. So therefore, it's implied that ladies are female.

[Darth Payne]

Was just on Wikipedia, and it turns out that the first addon will be realeased sometime in 2011.

 

Summary: ArcaniA: Fall of Setarrif ties up the loose ends of the main game´s story and adds yet another chapter to the epic tale. After the demon that possessed King Robar III was exorcised, it made its way to Setarrif to find a new host. In Setarrif, which is cut-off from the rest of the island, chaos and anarchy spread rapidly!

 

King Robar III is troubled by these facts and is afraid of losing the city and some of his companions, which are in Setarrif at that very moment. The nameless hero therefore is sent by the king and must journey to Setarrif… but he has no idea of what lies before him.

 

This addon will add several hours of gameplay, new monsters, locations and quests, the addon will introduce a new feature - the possibility to play as known characters from the Gothic series.

[Slayer93]

hmmmm,

 

I heard this game was not very good... I'll have to revisit this now... cheers!

 

*** ah, here's the review, maybe its different on the PC?

 

Review by Phil on 7th December, 2010

 

"A Gothic game in name only."

 

If I was to rate this game based purely on its own merits I'd say it was passable, unremarkable but playable. But as a Gothic title I think it's abysmal.

 

It may have Gothic in the title but it has little in common with those old classics. I wonder why these devs in particular wanted to make a Gothic game, because they obviously have no love for the original. All the cool and unique things that help make the Gothic games so fun and endearing have been completely ignored. People don't get upset when you steal from them, you can waltz right into someone's house and rifle through their chests and they don't bat an eye. You don't need to find a trainer to raise your skills you just apply points when you level up. You don't need to actually use a fire or cooking pot to cook up your food or roast your meat, or an alchemy bench to brew potions, or a blacksmiths bench to craft equipment. You just do it all from your inventory screen. The funny thing is all those things are in the game, and you can use them, but using them doesn't do anything. You can't even sleep to pass the time. If you select a bed your character will lay down... And that's it. Nothing. It's just for show.

 

The skill sheet bears no similarity to any of the other three games. Gone are the skills to gut and skin animals, you no longer have to learn how to do that. Lock picking is no longer a skill, you can do it (by means of a stupid minigame) when you acquire a lock pick set, but sneaking is still a learned skill, thankfully. Most of the other skills simply automatically boost your combat prowess, making you do more damage, generate more mana or stamina or be able to take more punishment. Strength and dexterity have gone, so have weapons that require them. That and the unimaginative skill tree make levelling up boring. I felt there is very little impetus to level up.

 

Combat is boring. You look pretty cool while you execute your flurries and spinning attacks and whatnot but that's all automatic. All you have to do is time your attacks to keep your rhythm going. You can execute a couple of moves but combat basically comes down to a boring button mash. It's not even as good as Gothic 3 which was watered down considerably from the previous two games. The combat isn't particularly challenging either. You will likely only get into trouble if you're heavily outnumbered, but you can always run away. Plus you can heal yourself during combat by quaffing health potions which is another major deviation from the original games and was something I really liked about them. There is a serious flaw with the enemy AI that if you exploit you will be able to kill nearly anything very easily. And supplies are so plentiful you never have to worry about running out of bandages or food or arrows or potions, you won't even have to buy any most likely (you won't have to buy anything for that matter since the best equipment is given as quest rewards so gold is more or less redundant).

 

The production values of the game are a mixed bag. There are some gorgeous graphics in there, lush environs and beautiful lighting, but they seem to have been nerfed for the 360. I don't know what they've done but everything is sort of ... Fuzzy. Presumably they've done it to attain reasonable performance on the 360. Trouble is it hasn't worked. The frame rate is atrocious. I've never known a game run this badly on my 360. The background music is good but there's an annoying audio cracking on the tracks. The voice acting is ok most of the time but it would be better if the actors didn't try to put on stupid accents. The writing is adequate but totally lackluster, and I would have preferred it if they didn't say things like "hay-wire" and "no can do".

 

I think the biggest and most disappointing fault is that the game is so linear. There is a large land to roam but you can't just go anywhere you want. You progress through a series of fairly small, linked regions. The path to the next region is always blocked by a rockslide or gate or something, and you have to do a few story missions to allow you access to the next region where you do it all again. You never have to travel back to regions you've already explored. As a result the game has a transitory feel to it. You never get to know any of the regions or characters very well because you're just passing through. It's repetitive and very linear, and almost an insult to the awesome free roaming gameplay of the previous games.

 

If you couldn't care less about the previous games, and just really love this kind of thing then the game is quite playable. You do get used to the graphics and performance with time. The character screens are attractive and function well with a radial menu system. The controls work fine and you can adjust stick sensitivity. I liked the art design and the monsters. Animations are done very well. There don't appear to be any bugs and all the quests seem to work as they are supposed to (and one or two are even fun). The chase camera isn't adjustable but it follows at a distance I was quite comfortable with. There is no monster respawn (always a blessing), and something I was particularly pleased about is you can turn off quest markers, and unlike a lot of other games that use them this game gives you directions in the journal so you can still find your way to your objective without the marker.

 

The story is ok in concept but in practice it's laid out very poorly. You spend the first half of the game seeking an ancient temple to find a magic hammer, which ends up being totally pointless! There's no need for the damn thing at all! That's half the game and it's a total waste of time! The second half of the game is trying to save the king from a demon that's possessing him (sounds fine), but it's written so poorly and lacks any impetus. It's just bad storytelling and poor writing. And there seems to be very few side quests which was a let down for me because I'm a quest-a-holic.

 

So an ok game if you don't expect too much from it and it'll at least keep you busy for a couple of weeks, but it's definitely the weakest game in the series and I'll be very surprised if it isn't the last. If you want to play a Gothic-like game I recommend Risen. It's way more Gothic-like than this.

[Darth Payne]

One of the biggest downsides to this game is the fact that to use magic you have to 'holster' your weapon, 'activate' your magic, and *then* you can cast spells.

 

Switching between the three spell(Fire, Frost, Lightning) is also slower and more cumbersome that it could've been.

 

And the inventory menu? It reminds me of K1s menu system, due to the fact that it can be time consuming to find one thing(weapon, equipment, consumable) if you collect a *lot* of stuff(like i tend to do).

 

Edit:

Just thought i should mention that i've found a german forum that has a GREAT collection of maps for this games collectables.

 

http://www.gothic4arcania.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=271&Itemid=64

 

Unfortunately there are a few maps that haven't been added yet.

 

Edit: Found what seems like a much better guide as it is in english, and it also seems far more complete than the german one.

 

http://guides.gamepressure.com/arcaniagothic4/guide.asp?ID=10251