Gothic 1 and 2 are some of my favorite games of all time, being some of the most deeply satisfying and immersive action-adventure-RPGs that I've ever played. While most people in the early 2000s were raving about how great Morrowind was, I was busy playing Gothic, and my experience with those games fundamentally altered my ability to appreciate other, similar types of games because the early Gothic games were truly ahead of their time and did some really impressive things that other developers weren't doing at the time, and still aren't doing to this day. I sometimes struggle, however, to decide which of the two Gothic games I like better. With Gothic 2 being a direct sequel to the first game, directly continuing the story with many of the exact same characters in the exact same world, and being built on the exact same game engine, they're about as similar as two games in a series can be, and so I often like to think of them as essentially one game broken into two parts. At the end of the day, however, they are separate games with some key differences, so I thought I'd take some time to review the two games against one another and discuss the relative pro's and con's of each game.
Common wisdom argues that Gothic 2 is the definitively better game, since it had the opportunity to build and improve upon the successful foundation set by the first game, which was not only the first game in the series, but also Piranha Bytes' very first game. Whereas Piranha Bytes had to build the entire concept of the Gothic series from scratch with the first game, they had all the important pieces already in place for the sequel and could therefore focus on improving the overall quality of the gameplay while also expanding the breadth and depth of its content. After playing the two games back-to-back it's clear that Gothic 1 is a little unrefined and a little lacking in overall content compared to its sequel, but it does actually do a few things better than Gothic 2.
Gothic 1
A more unique atmosphere
Whereas Gothic 2 takes place in a relatively generic (albeit incredibly well-realized) medieval fantasy setting which is ultimately more similar to other fantasy-RPGs than it is dissimilar, Gothic 1 is set inside a magically-encapsulated prison colony run in total anarchy by the convicts. That's really all I should have to say, since so few games have ever been set inside a prison, and as far as I'm aware, none other than Gothic have been fantasy-RPGs. While it doesn't really resemble a modern prison, it definitely gives off that prison-esque feeling in terms of the way the other convicts treat you. This is truly a dog-eat-dog world where the strongest make the rules and everyone else falls in line. The game really drives this aspect home, with the opening cutscene showing you getting punched in the face as you're welcomed to the colony, and then as other convicts try to beat you up, lure you into traps, force you into doing repetitive mundane chores, and extort money from you.
The video version of this article.
Then you've got the way the convicts have split into three factions, each with their own lifestyle and ideologies, from the Old Camp where the ore barons are content to live as kings inside the barrier by mining magic ore and negotiating the ore trade for outside goods, to the New Camp where they farm rice and brew schnapps while the water mages work to find a way to blow up the barrier, to the Sect Camp where they harvest and smoke swampweed while praying to a god known as the Sleeper, who they believe will set them free. The whole world, in fact, is relatively dark and dangerous, filled with exotic, dangerous beasts, ancient crumbling ruins, savage orc lands, and a weird sense of the occult. Gothic 2, in contrast, consists of a more conventional harbor city and neighboring farmlands, which isn't all that unique, and the faction system with the town militia, the farmers' mercenaries, and the magicians of fire, don't play as interesting of a role in establishing the world's lore and backstory like the factions from Gothic 1.
A better story
Gothic 2's story is more of a broad concept ("defeat the dragons") with a bunch of preliminary road blocks and unrelated sub-goals for other people before you can actually fight the dragons ("find a way into town, get into the upper quarter, retrieve Garond's situation report for Lord Hagen, get the ore reports for Garond, retrieve the Eye of Innos, recharge the Eye of Innos"). It does have a few twists and turns in the story -- notably, when the seekers are sent to hunt you down, and when the Eye of Innos is stolen and subsequently destroyed, plus the ending cutscene where we get to see Xardas's true motives -- but it doesn't really feel like a story. Rather, it's more like a series of video game objectives pieced together in a linear fashion vaguely resembling a story. It's enough to keep you engaged and to keep the gameplay moving forward, but the story is more about setting up gameplay scenarios than telling a story.
The story in Gothic 1 plays out more like an actual story, with the Nameless Hero arriving in the colony simply trying to find a way to survive before getting wrapped up in a plot to stop the orcs from summoning a god that will destroy all human life inside the barrier. Except for one moment when you're sent to retrieve five Focus Stones, it never really feels like cliche video game objectives in place of plot, since the story flows logically and organically from gaining admission to a camp, to being sent on your first mission, to investigating the curious goings-on at the swamp camp, to helping them prepare for a ritual to commune with their god, to seeking out the orcish graveyard seen in the ritual's vision, and to realizing that the swamp camp's Sleeper is really an orcish god and that you have to stop him from awakening. There's a lot more exposition and buildup to the main plot in Gothic 1, and it has a way stronger progression as you go through the various stages of the story and uncover new information.
More interesting quests
Gothic 2 has a ton of quests, and they're all pretty good, mechanically, but the subject matter of those quests isn't always the most interesting. A lot of them are usually pretty mundane ("Harvest turnips for Lobart," "get Matteo's money from Gritta," "chase down the thief Rengaru," "kill the bandits at Jack's lighthouse," etc) or devolve into tedious busy work ("purify all the shrines," "kill all the orc warlords"). Even more important quests that seem like they should be interesting come off feeling a little simple. Recharging the Eye of Innos, for example, just amounts to fetching a book from Sekob's farm, gathering some swampweed, and telling Pyrokar, Vatras, and Xardas to meet at the Sun Circle. You don't actively do anything -- you just fetch items and talk to people. Even fighting the dragons is a little underwhelming, since the Eye of Innos really only lets you talk to them, and forces them to tell you the truth, while the actual fights are kind of broken -- getting to the dragons is ultimately more interesting than fighting them.
Gothic 1 certainly has its share of utterly banal quests, but its main quests almost always have some element of spectacle to them, which makes them far more interesting. Obtaining the focus stones, for instance, has you bumping into Diego, Milten, Lester, and Gorn, who're all out minding their own business, and tag-teaming the task with them and usually using some type of spell to do something -- like Telekinesis to grab the stone from an unreachable ledge, or Shrink Monster to reduce a gargantuan troll down to a more diminutive size, or Transform Into Meatbug to fit under the crack in the wall. Crafting the Ulu-Mulu lets you roam freely around the orc camp, which is interesting in and of itself, while other things, like exploring the orcish cemetery with Baal Lukor and witnessing his descent into madness when he realizes there's nothing there and that the Sleeper has led them astray, or having the entire Old Camp turn hostile when the old mine collapses, are all genuinely interesting things. Whereas Gothic 2's quests generally happen in the ordinary context of ordinary gameplay (which is great for immersion), Gothic 1 creates more unique scenarios for its quests, thereby making them truly stand out.
More dungeons
Both Gothic games are open world and offer a lot of freedom to explore wherever you want, at your own pace, and they both feature what I consider "dungeons," a bit similar to those in a typical Zelda game, where you have to enter a contained space with a more linear structure to solve puzzles so that you can advance through the level to complete an objective. The problem with Gothic 2 is it really only has one of these dungeons, and that's the Halls of Irdorath which happens at the very end of the game, in the last chapter. If you include the Night of the Raven expansion, it has two with the Temple of Adanos in Jharkendar. Meanwhile, Gothic 1 has four in the Old Mine, the New Mine, the Orc Cemetery, and the Temple of the Sleeper, the latter of which is the biggest and most elaborate in the entire series. As much as I love exploring the open world, I find these dungeons are good for providing balance, since a more structured environment to explore with more concrete goals to solve can be more directly engaging than aimlessly meandering through forests or open fields, and Gothic 1 strikes a better balance in this department.
Less and less side content
The Gothic games use a chapter progression system tied to the main quest -- as you advance the main quest, you advance the game into new chapters where the state of the world can be dynamically altered, opening up new areas for exploration, introducing new threats and challenges, and changing the circumstances around certain NPCs. While Gothic 1 has a lot of content in its first chapter, the amount of side content becomes practically zero once you advance to chapter two and beyond, leaving you with no choice but to progress through the main quest, which becomes a matter of running back and forth across the map to get to your next objective. It's fine because the main story is solid, and the main quests are all pretty interesting, with unique gameplay scenarios and fun situations, but it doesn't really take advantage of the open world format when, for the bulk of the game, you can only really go through a linear sequence of main quests.
Not a lot of mechanical depth
This is one of the main areas where Gothic 2 made tremendous improvements over the original, since the RPG and character-building portion of Gothic 1 was, in truth, a little simplistic since it didn't have a whole lot of skills, and some of them were kind of useless. Animal skinning is mostly only used in both games as a way to earn money, but money is incredibly easy to come by in the first game, and so it's kind of worthless; you don't need to actually learn lock-picking to be able to pick locks, and pickpocketing doesn't really work well; you can forge crude swords with the blacksmithing skill, but that's about it. So really, the only skills worth learning are combat skills, and it's pretty easy to max out your character's stats and combat skills in the early stages of the game, leaving you with nowhere else to grow over the rest of the game. Gothic 2, in contrast, expands weapon forging into something more useful, makes thieving skills actually require skill points to learn while also making them incredibly useful, makes learning magic spells and increasing combat skills a more involved process, and adds other skills like potion-making and rune-making. The expansion adds even more things to spend skill points on, and balances the pacing of the level progression to better match the chapter progression and game length.
Gothic 2
I think it's pretty easy to argue that Gothic 2 is the objectively better game, because it's basically the same thing as Gothic 1 but with way more total content and better mechanical depth. I especially love how it reuses characters and locations from the first game, since it establishes a strong sense of continuity between the two -- returning to the colony from Gothic 1 and seeing how much it's changed from the orc invasion and the dragons is truly stunning, and is one of my all-time favorite gaming memories. So here are some of the ways that Gothic 2 improved upon Gothic 1's already successful formula.
More non-linearity
As I already mentioned, Gothic 1 became pretty linear after its first chapter since there wasn't much else to do in the world but follow the main quest line. Gothic 2 also uses a linear main quest line tied to chapter progression, but more of its quests allow for non-linear progression, like when you're tasked with getting into town and have multiple ways to do that based on how you choose to explore and interact with the world, along with other quests like doing the stone circles, or exploring the mansions of the builders, or killing dragons, or getting the blood chalices in whatever order you want. Many of its quests give you broad objectives that don't necessarily follow a step-by-step progression from Point A to Point B (or C, or D) -- they're fairly open-ended in terms how you arrive at the solution, even if there is only one intended solution. Meanwhile, the world itself is a lot more open, with more diverse areas to explore and a less centrally-focused design, which makes it easier to get lost, literally, in its world. Plus, it also opens itself up the more you play, with the Valley of Mines, Jharkendar, and the Halls of Irdorath all being introduced in later chapters, thus providing you with constant opportunities to explore new areas and to veer off the main path.
A more dynamic game world
Gothic 1 has some strong dynamic elements, notably with how the entire Old Camp gets shut down after the old mine collapses, and how the water mages turn hostile after you drain the magical energy from the ore mound, but Gothic 2 takes this concept one step further by more radically altering the world and changing the situation of various areas and characters as the chapters advance. Normally in Gothic 1, all advancing a chapter does is cause a few enemies to respawn while allowing the main quest to advance to the next stage; in Gothic 2, returning to Khorinis in Chapter 3 adds Seekers -- the black mage henchmen of Beliar -- all over the map, and the various farmers and townsfolk have all new quests and interactions related to the appearance of these Seekers. In Chapter 4, when you return to the Valley of Mines, the paladins have been further decimated while the dragon hunters have now arrived, thus introducing new quests and interactions with them. In Chapter 5, when you return to Khorinis again, orcs and/or lizardmen have invaded the outskirts of town, once again introducing new threats and new quests/character interactions. The effect is that the world feels more alive because of how much it changes and reacts to the main story.
More intricate questing networks
Many of Gothic 2's quests overlap with some other quest, or have NPC's involved with multiple ongoing quests. Becoming an apprentice in town, for instance, involves gaining the favor of the various master craftsmen, which means doing quests for each of them to prove your worth. Gaining Matteo's favor involves getting the money he's owed from the carpenter Thorben's niece, and so you can talk to Thorben about the money, and also learn that he's indebted to Lehmar, the loan shark, which can trigger another quest to help clear Thorben's debt, and Thorben is also part of the "Missing People" quest, since his apprentice Elvrich has gone missing, in addition to having his own quest to earn his favor by proving your devotion to the god of light, Innos. By just talking to one person, you end up involved an entire network of quests. In fact, pretty much everything in town is somehow related to something else, so it's nearly impossible to talk to someone or do something without also making progress in another quest. Gothic 1 has some overlap in its quests, or situations where one quest will unexpectedly lead to another one, like when Thorus tasks you with getting rid of Mordrag (which is also part of joining the Old Camp) and you end up picking up a quest from him to visit the New Camp, but these tend to be more incidental and aren't as pervasive as the ones in Gothic 2's main hub areas.
A bigger, denser map
Some areas in Gothic 1 can be a little sparse, with not much to really see or do within them -- not many enemies to fight, not much loot to find, and not much interesting terrain to explore. Plus, the relatively small size of the world means you can easily explore most everywhere in the first chapter and have little else to discover over the rest of the game. Gothic 2's map, besides being much bigger, is also a lot more densely packed with content, with something interesting to see or do around every corner and everywhere you look. It's also full of rewarding secrets that make it really worth your while to check behind every tree and under every rock. A lot of times, they're just skeletal corpses with a few worthwhile supplies, like potions, spell scrolls, or even a weapon or jewelry, but other times you discover more elaborate areas like hidden caves and secret chambers with more valuable riches awaiting inside. The world, therefore, is a lot more engaging, rewarding, and satisfying to explore in Gothic 2, than in Gothic 1.
Some really tedious repetition
The only real criticism I can level against Gothic 2 is that some of its content, and therefore some of its total play time, can be tediously repetitive. The Valley of Mines, for instance, has orcs plastered all over the map, admittedly for good reason, since they're supposed to be laying siege to the castle, having overrun the entire colony -- it makes narrative sense, and it also serves the mechanical purpose of literally overwhelming you with tough enemies -- but that makes exploring the Valley of Mines a real chore when you have to spend hours just fighting orcs to get anywhere. Likewise, as much as I appreciate the dynamic changes to the main maps as chapters progress, it does get a bit annoying having to basically re-explore all of Khorinis in chapter three, and again in chapter five, because of the new quests and enemies introduced in those chapters. A similar thing happens in chapter four when you return to the Valley of Mines, although it's not quite as egregious. As much as I appreciate the size of the world and all the dynamic changes that occur within it as the game progresses, I got a little annoyed in the second half of my recent playthrough by feeling like I was retreading a lot of the same paths and doing the same things over and over again.
In Conclusion
Both games are really good and I like them equally -- as I said before, I like to consider them as essentially one game, indistinguishable from the other -- but if I had to pick one as the definitively better game, I think I'd have to give the nod to Gothic 2 for its superior gameplay. I really appreciate the original setting and unique atmosphere of the first game, plus its more interesting story, but you can definitely tell that Piranha Bytes were still figuring out the gameplay formula, what with it being their first game. A perfect game would essentially take the gameplay of Gothic 2, and drop it into Gothic 1's world and story. Such a game doesn't exist, however, so really the best option is just to play both games back-to-back as two parts of a single game, and enjoy each of them for their own individual strengths and the complete package they provide together.
Oh, now you have to do a comparison between Gothic 3 and Arcania. I dare you! :P
ReplyDeleteThe world must know which one is truly worse.
Well, that's incredibly easy. Even with gigantic flaws Gothic 3 is better. At everything.
DeleteWell, I have done quasi-reviews of both Gothic 3 and Arcania, but man I just don't think I have the fortitude to play through both of those games for a direct-comparison video-review. Even just getting through Gothic 3 is a chore. Still, I haven't actually played Arcania fully -- just a few hours -- so I might actually muster up the courage for that one, just to see how bad/different it really is. And even morbid curiosity won't get me to touch Forsaken Gods.
DeleteNice comparisons Nick! These are such awesome games. Quick question - how does Risen 3 compare to ELEX? Is it much much worse? I remember in your original review you said Risen 3 was almost as good as Gothic 2,but your ELEX review feels much more positive in general. I know I've heard people say ELEX is more limited in terms of builds (e.g pure caster types are not viable)
ReplyDeleteAt the time, I liked Risen 3 quite a bit -- definitely more than Gothic 3 or Risen 2, though I'd honestly forgotten a lot about the first Risen. In retrospect, I'd have to say it's not as good as Elex, however, in large part because Elex has a better world (both in terms of its physical design as well as its lore/backstory/factions), better characters, a better melee combat system, and a better difficulty. Probably better quests, too. It should say a lot that, after finishing Elex I chose to go back and immediately replay it two more times, and that now, however many years later, I barely remember Risen 3.
DeleteI disagree about Gothic 2 the part of Valley of the Mines in regard of the Orcs. You don't take hours to finish the orcs. It means you're too early fighting them. You need to be at least at chapter 3 to be able to fight them. Because you can get better armor around that time. In early chapter 2 your armor is simply not enough. And of course it will take more time with weak equipment. You really need to take the time before you go fighting the Ore. your tactics in this game is wrong so you can't say because you didn't know better it's a bad part of this game. You went too early fighting the Orcs. Be more patient. The reason to go their was just to deliver the message and if you go in the right direction you will almost meet only weak monsters that you can kill easily around that time. You should've delivered the message and then went to the mines and then go back to Khorinis to gain more experience and better armour. I was fighting the Orcs as well when I started playing this game, but later I realised in this game the armour makes the difference and in early chapters you won't get the better armor. So why hurry? You need to have some knowledge in that regard. To me this review kinda lacks cos to me you're coming across you're a player that went too early to places you shouldn't have. No need to fight hours against the orcs. I've killed almost all orcs in just 1 or 2 hours because I was at right level and equipments and skills
ReplyDelete"I disagree about Gothic 2 the part of Valley of the Mines in regard of the Orcs. You don't take hours to finish the orcs. You really need to take the time before you go fighting the Orcs. Your tactics in this game is wrong so you can't say because you didn't know better it's a bad part of this game. You went too early fighting the Orcs. Be more patient. You need to have some knowledge in that regard. To me this review kinda lacks cos to me you're coming across you're a player that went too early to places you shouldn't have."
DeleteAnd your assessment of my experience with Gothic and how I play Gothic is wrong; you have no knowledge in that regard, and this comment criticizing my assessment of Gothic 2 is kinda lacking because you're coming across as a commenter rushing to judgment and being overly critical of a subject you know nothing about.
You simply cannot tell me that I'm wrong, that my tactics are wrong, or that I'm being too impatient, when what you describe SHOULD be done is EXACTLY what I did and how I've pretty much always played Gothic 2. Of course you're supposed to avoid orcs in Chapter 2 because you're much too weak to handle them, which is why I usually put off fighting orcs until Chapter 4, avoiding them as much as possible in Chapter 2. In my YouTube playthrough you'll find I actually DID run away from and avoid most orcs in Chapter 2, only fighting ones that I could get one-on-one near the entrance to the pass, or if they were directly on the path while getting Diego back to the pass.
I have been a die-hard Gothic fan ever since ~2003 and have routinely replayed both Gothic 1 and 2 every few years since then. I've played Gothic 2 at least six times over the last 16 years and consider it to be my favorite game of all time. So to say that I don't know what I'm talking about, or that my review lacks credibility is completely ignorant and utterly asinine. Especially when you're berating me and telling me to play the game "the correct way" when I was already playing it "the correct way" in the first place. You misinterpreted what I said, then made a false assumption about WHY I said that, and then came at me with an accusatory tone, all because of two errors in judgment that YOU made while reading my article.
And for the record, even when you come back to fight the orcs in Chapter 4, it still takes hours to fight them because there are just so many, and they're spread all over the map. Even if it only takes two hours, as you yourself admit, two hours is still "hours" of time and is therefore a completely correct assessment on my part, by your own estimation. So I REALLY don't understand why you're getting so up in arms about that claim when it's apparently entirely correct according to your own experience.
The goal in chapter 4 is to kill the dragons. Your not engaging with the bulk of the orc army at all. It's easier to kill the camping orcs as a mage with magic of the 6th circle.
DeleteThe goal of chapter 4 is to kill the dragons, but a persistent goal of the entire game is to kill all enemies so you can gain experience points so you can level up. The game doesn't explicitly command you to kill the orcs in the valley of mines in chapter four as part of a main quest objective, but the game mechanics implicitly compel you to do so in order to maximize your character's potential. And since you're already there for the second time in chapter four and are capable of killing the orcs at that time, it's a convenient opportunity to pick up a ton of extra experience that was previously inaccessible to your character or else too far out of the way to go back to.
DeleteHi, I wanted to make a suggestion. I'm playing right now Gothic 2 with the 'Yet Another Unofficial Patch' and it's really good. It doesn't add (apparently) stupid armors or filler quests, just Gothic 2 polished, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I played Gothic 1 too, after 4 years of abstinence. And my old feelings are yet again confirmed; Gothic 2 is the better game (quest design-narrative flow, reactivity/consequences...). This time Gothic 1 felt really easy and exploitable, I reached level 38 or something so cor kalom and the novices at the end barely hurted me... I feel the beginning of the game, chapter 1, should try to sell better an identity (one of the three camps) showing you what you would do or what kind of big quest they look for. The brotherhood and the new camp have the same goal of getting out, which is nice though not really well presented. The Old Camp doesn't even have such a goal. Besides the player doesn't feel the need to get out of there, on the contrary, I bet most of us would like to stay in. That could be mitigated presenting a real direct threat instead of the vague menace of the wakening of the sleeper. It could be the orcs attacking the camps or cor kalom's templars (like the seekers in G2 I guess).
Also, choosing a camp is kind of irrelevant since the story and some of the protagonist dialogues can directly contradict that choosing. If you choose the brotherhood you are wrong. If you choose the old camp you are wrong. It could be said that the new camp is also wrong regarding its plan (explode the ore mound) but narratively it's the correct option. I was thinking; since freedom is the main theme of the game you could present the 3 camps with philosophical options to achieve that freedom: old camp through power (maybe they get stuck there forever but it's a big enough place and maybe with an immense power they can even break the barrier?
Brotherhood through their redeemer, very much like in monotheism. And the new camp through 'Modernity' (humans on their own). I guess to make all the options viable the story would have to change or at least make all of them wrong.
Final note: there is a lot of attention to detail in Gothic 1 and at the same time flagrant absences like not showing the old mine collapsed or all the people who still say the same thing even after you've done something (like joining an opposite faction) which invalidates it.
Anyway, sorry for my ramblings.
These are interesting thoughts and observations.
DeleteI definitely agree that Gothic 1 is really easy and exploitable, especially once you've already played and have figured out some of its strategies. As thematically and immersively appropriate as it is to be able to beat up a merchant and steal their entire stock from them, for instance, it's pretty game-breaking how much money and awesome gear you can get without having to work or pay for it. Consequently, it's really easy to get good gear early on in that game, and with a lot of weapons having low skill costs (mastering two-handed weapon training only takes, what, 20 skill points?) you can master one-handed and have the best one-hander in the game by the end of the chapter 1. I'm pretty sure I've actually done this. Some people criticize Night of the Raven's re-balancing on skill point costs and weapon attribute costs, but to me that system just works a little better to spread the leveling out over the full game, such that you almost CAN'T start feeling over-powered until chapter four at the earliest.
I also wish the three factions were a little more differentiated. As you've alluded and as someone commented on the YouTube video, Gothic 2 does a better job with its factions, since they have much stronger mechanical differences between them (they unlock completely different skills, have a more involved process of joining each faction, and chapter 1 and chapter 5 both have unique quests and changes to the world depending on which faction you join). In Gothic 1 the factions are mostly aesthetic, since Old Camp and New Camp are basically identical but with red robes instead of blue robes, red armor instead of blue armor, and the Swamp Camp despite being a hybrid mage-warrior situation I think still grants access to the normal mage spells of the other circles.
Actually, two handed costs up to 70 points (30+40). One handed is made like a weaker and prior step if one trains close combat (mastering it costs 30 points), unlike Gothic 2. Nevertheless, your point is valid, I felt that.
DeleteUnlike Gothic 2, they cared to make distinct weapons for every camp; the old camp uses swords, the new camp maces and axes. The brotherhood uses all kinds I believe, since they buy from them. However, as you put it, it makes no difference in playstyle. Besides, what I really like in rpgs is the choice of an identity with goals, not just how to accomplish those (warrior, thief, diplomat).