I'm don't know why but I always avoided the Gothic and Risen games. On the behest of the Codex top 70 Rpg's I started playing Gothic 1 with the plan to move onto Gothic 2 asap.
Gothic 1 was clunky to begin with but once I got into the swing of things I found myself in one of the most interesting and cleverly handcrafted single player open world RPGs I had ever played. There's not enough mention made of the fact one of the three factions you can join is a weed smoking commune of cultists who seem to be trying to awaken some kind of Cthulhu type figure. The feeling of isolation from the rest of the world, and the corrupt, anarchistic power struggles that erupt in the dome are very well done and a very refreshing setting. The world is well designed and feels alive, much more so than the boring randomly generated land masses of other games.
Annoyingly Gothic 1 had a habit of crashing and wiping my save games. I had to restart the game after about 5 hours of gameplay and my save was wiped another 10 hours or so in. I decided to come back later after a breather and moved on to Gothic 2.
About 15 hours into Gothic 2 something clicked and I thought to myself "Jesus fucking christ this game is brilliant". It was the pacing and the general building up of player power that did it. At the beginning of the game you're terrified by a wolf, and find yourself lost and scared on a huge island. Gradually you find yourself able to take on more and more of the monsters, and through natural investigation of the world (not through artificial fanfare or marker) your able to teleport and magically move faster over an island you now know like the back of your hand. Gothic 2 does a great job of keeping the pressure on you, you may feel bad ass because you can take on the bandits, but run into an Orc and you will be taken down a couple of pegs. It also gives you plenty of tools to overcome obstacles, if you can't defeat a foe with straight up combat, there's always scrolls and potions to help you. The game makes potions and scrolls rare and valuable, not just inventory stuffing. Just like the original Gothic, Gothic 2 has fantastic handcrafted world, that's much more of a pleasure to explore than other, more bland, open world games. Going out in to the forest is always a dangerous, exciting adventure, not just a quick grind for XP or a trudge from one quest giver to the next.
I was devastated when as I begun exploring Jharkendar (The Night of The Raven's landmass) ALL FOUR of my saved games (I had learned to have backups) become corrupted and I had to start again. It's a testament to Gothic 2 that I was willing to just boot up for the start and it all over again. I played for a good couple of hours, but decided again to give it a break for a month, so everything was fresher when I came back to it.
I wanted to try some of Piranha Bytes's newer stuff, so I got hold of Risen.
I had tried Risen when it first came out, but stopped playing when I got trapped in the Port City. The game just didn't click for me. Now, after playing G1 and G2, I "get" it. Its got a lot of the same charm as the original Gothics with an updated UI and graphics. It seems a little simplified, or it could just be things are presented clearer and it's easier to work out how things work. The world SEEMS smaller than Gothic 2, but I'm not that far in.
What I do like in Risen is the return of the ambivalent NPC groups. No one is cut and dry "good" or "evil", everyone seem to just trying to survive and thrive in their own little way. The isolation and corrupt group dynamics are present, but isn't as pronounced as the original Gothic.
I've come to really enjoy the hamminess of Piranha Byte games. Something weird happens between the german to english translation and voice acting which really gives the Gothic and Risen games their own little charm and kind of add to the "aliveness" of the world in a subtle way. They have an interesting tone that isn't present in any other game, a mix of grimey, gritty, humorous, up beat, weird and dangerous all at the same time.
I caught myself laughing every time I dug a buried treasure up in Gothic 2 and the protagonist weirdly proclaims "Ummmmm I THINK I found something", like a catchphrase from a sit com.
I feel like if From Software and Piranha Bytes got together they could possibly make the best video game of all eternity.