Review Arcania: Gothic 4 Review

[ChristofferC]

I have a love-hate relationship with that key.

On one hand, it has caused me a lot of pain in multiplayer since I occasionally hit it when microing at lightning-fast speed.

On the other, it has saved my ass from rebooting the PC when Alt+Tab and Ctrl+Alt+Del failed to produce any effect after a crash.

Ctrl+Esc

 

[simonheffer]

On PC, the combat blends mouse-based, two button real-time combat with standard hotkey item selection. Players familiar with the genre will feel right at home with the default control scheme, which sticks to WASD controls and smooth mouse aim. You can break into your inventory at any time by hitting start.

Where is the start button in my PC?

They've changed that line now.

"You can break into your inventory at any time, which pauses the action, allowing you to buff yourself with potions and consumable items..."

 

[MicoSelva]

There's no proofreader better than the internet collective itself. And it works for free too!

 

[commie]

I'm amazed at how it runs so poorly. Yes I have an old rig with 2 gb RAM, Core 2 2.13ghz and an ATI 4770 512 mb card, yet it still ran Risen flawlessly on max resolution I could have on the CRT (16x12) with all details maxed out and it didn't look much worse than Arcania(if at all)since Arcania looks like it's made on an improved G3 engine anyway.

With this thing, it makes no difference if I have everything maxed out at the highest resolution or every setting low at the lowest res, well maybe a couple of FPS max, but still that constant stuttering.

Seems that it manages memory terribly as that seems to be the limiting factor.

 

[DalekFlay]

It's your processor, sooooo many games now are designed around the multi-core craziness of the consoles.

 

[Sergiu64]

I'm really enjoying this game so far. Nice to see old characters from Gothics without the bugfest that was Gothic 3. No crashes after a day of playing, they've really learned their lesson!

Conversation is a bit silly in places, but the quests themselves are pretty decent. There's a couple of branching quests here and there, dunno if there's consequences for doing one path or the other though (other then clearing a different section of the map for the quest items required). The level up system is a bit simplified since you don't need to find trainers anymore (or pay em). But it's not bad if you choose to forget about how cool the original system was.

The characters from earlier Gothics are back, but they're aged and its fun to find out what happened to them. For example Diego has turned completely gray and went back to being a smuggler.

The difficulty level on Normal is too easy, but then again I found out that I don't really play Gothic games for the difficulty as I don't seem to care and just embrace the easy fights as it means I can explore the world faster.

The areas I've done so far seem to be blocked from the next by story quests ala Gothic 1/ and to lesser extent Gothic 2. So no total freedom like Gothic 3 had. Maybe the areas will open up more later though.

Anyway, I would give this 8.5/10 so far. Definitely a step up from Gothic 3.

 

[StrangeCase]

But it's not bad if you choose to forget about how cool the original system was.

Man, that's bleak as hell.

Codexer 1: "Hey, remember how awesome the original games were? Well if you forget all about how awesome they were, this new entry seems so much less disappointing! Isn't that super?!"

Codexer 2: ...

 

[Darth Roxor]

Though the bad thing is that it sucks even if you wipe your memory clean of other Gothic games.

 

[CampbellDH]

People don't seem to protect their belongings anymore I've been looting chests everywhere with no reaction from anyone. Could show up further in the game I guess.

 

[lordfrikk]

I don't know if it was in the demo, but here is a nice example of the Arcania's master writers' prowess:

Are you pregnant?!
Who told you?
Halwen!
The idiot!
So you really are?!
I have always wanted a baby... haven't you?
Yes, but that... it's all so sudden...
Fair enough... was there anything else you wanted from me?

Thing I don't understand, what's the point of having a dialogue window where you have to confirm your choice even though there is only one (1) "choice" (I don't count "END" as a choice..."). Even ME just selected the line for you if there was no other to choose from (IIRC). Problem is: if Arcania did that you would just watch NPCs yapping all by themselves because there are no fuckin choices 90% of the time (the rest 10% is when there are 2 choices).

The combat was already mentioned. If you selected higher difficulty than Normal (which was the highest possible in demo) the enemies are faster in a way that they attack without (longer) pauses. In reality they just use their charged attack all the time one after another which is annoying as fuck and doesn't present any challenge whatsoever (maybe if you consider game testing your speed and reflexes in such a shitty way). Also, they hit hard as hell, so if you somehow get between four bloodflies you either run or roll around like there was no tomorrow and hope that their stop spitting for a second so you won't actually die when you get too close to avoid their spit attack.

There is no sense of gettin new/better items whatsoever. It reminds me of Fallout 3 when you had inventory full of fuckin useless crap (TM) within first hour. Also, you can steal anything and everything, which makes it even worse.

Crafting is done without any tools. That means even making grilled meat requires no fire... maybe our hero can fry the meat with magic? I didn't get to make any sword or armor but I'm pretty sure you can make that out of thin air as well.

Apart from the WoW-esque "bring me 60 dirty socks" quests there's not much else and if there is it's dumb as fuck.

Last thing... there are like 5 faces for NPCs in total. When you see your GF's father you're gonna see his face for the rest of the game (even though he's dead) because like every other male NPC has it. It's pretty much the same for women (not to mention they're fuckin ugly).

P.S.: Voice acting also sucks, if you perhaps though otherwise.

P.S.2: Teleports suck as well. AFAIK they're linked in some mysterious way so you never know where you'll end up (you definitely don't get to choose... that would be outright crazy to even think of!).

P.S.3: You can't train lockipicking, you get it as a part of the main "story"line and you get it in two parts if I'm not mistaken (didn't get the second yet). That means you can only open chests first but doord sometime later. Stealth is a complete joke and I can't see why anyone in their right mind would want to level it up.

 

[commie]

I don't know if it was in the demo, but here is a nice example of the Arcania's master writers' prowess:

Are you pregnant?!
Who told you?
Halwen!
The idiot!
So you really are?!
I have always wanted a baby... haven't you?
Yes, but that... it's all so sudden...
Fair enough... was there anything else you wanted from me?

Thing I don't understand, what's the point of having a dialogue window where you have to confirm your choice even though there is only one (1) "choice" (I don't count "END" as a choice..."). Even ME just selected the line for you if there was no other to choose from (IIRC). Problem is: if Arcania did that you would just watch NPCs yapping all by themselves because there are no fuckin choices 90% of the time (the rest 10% is when there are 2 choices).

The combat was already mentioned. If you selected higher difficulty than Normal (which was the highest possible in demo) the enemies are faster in a way that they attack without (longer) pauses. In reality they just use their charged attack all the time one after another which is annoying as fuck and doesn't present any challenge whatsoever (maybe if you consider game testing your speed and reflexes in such a shitty way). Also, they hit hard as hell, so if you somehow get between four bloodflies you either run or roll around like there was no tomorrow and hope that their stop spitting for a second so you won't actually die when you get too close to avoid their spit attack.

There is no sense of gettin new/better items whatsoever. It reminds me of Fallout 3 when you had inventory full of fuckin useless crap (TM) within first hour. Also, you can steal anything and everything, which makes it even worse.

Crafting is done without any tools. That means even making grilled meat requires no fire... maybe our hero can fry the meat with magic? I didn't get to make any sword or armor but I'm pretty sure you can make that out of thin air as well.

Apart from the WoW-esque "bring me 60 dirty socks" quests there's not much else and if there is it's dumb as fuck.

Last thing... there are like 5 faces for NPCs in total. When you see your GF's father you're gonna see his face for the rest of the game (even though he's dead) because like every other male NPC has it. It's pretty much the same for women (not to mention they're fuckin ugly).

P.S.: Voice acting also sucks, if you perhaps though otherwise.

P.S.2: Teleports suck as well. AFAIK they're linked in some mysterious way so you never know where you'll end up (you definitely don't get to choose... that would be outright crazy to even think of!).

P.S.3: You can't train lockipicking, you get it as a part of the main "story"line and you get it in two parts if I'm not mistaken (didn't get the second yet). That means you can only open chests first but doord sometime later. Stealth is a complete joke and I can't see why anyone in their right mind would want to level it up.

Apart from this though it's great, right?

 

[Drakron]

I don't know if it was in the demo, but here is a nice example of the Arcania's master writers' prowess:

Are you pregnant?!
...
Fair enough... was there anything else you wanted from me?

Oh come on, you know the best part of that exchange comes after.

 

[lordfrikk]

So the haircut wasn't just for the looks after all...

http://imgur.com/WmUF7.jpg