Where does Piranha Bytes stand among all time great studios?

I hate PB.

 

From Software releases the same game over and over, the Wizardry series didnt change its formula much as well as the Might and Magic series.

If the concept is good, who cares if there is some repetiton? The different iterations are still unique in content.

 

Yeah, Gothic 1, Gothic 2, Risen 1, and ELEX were all pretty different from each other within the overall framework of a PB game. The settings were different, the graphics, the stories and the dialogue, quests, etc.

 

Seriously?
No one went for

low hanging fruit?

 

If you don't understand this, you cannot tell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws7hiLOBdoY



tldw; is Elex actually worthwile?

tldr; Volles Pfund aufs Maul!

 

Gesundheit.

 

Easily Top 5 for me.

 

It is highly unusual to have a game studio that released three awfull trashfires but 2-4 amazing classics, depending on how edgy you feel today. And that is without any significant changes in structure or managment, they just ocassionally fucked up badly.

They are an oddball, no purchase on release because you might get a trashfire like Risen2, but if they are good they are the best in their respective niche. Straight up the highest quality of Eurojank on the market.
I am hyped for Elex 2, thought Elex was better than Risen and their best game since Gothic 2. Now if they only could fix their difficulty modes, Elex on max difficulty is an ... experience. Difficulty sliders do only lower your damage and increase damage against you, so 90% of your damage output on high difficulty are burn or poison type status effects and companions, who are not affected. Feels really stupid.

 

It doesn't stand among the great studios, it's a bunch of unimaginative, boring German hacks who have been making the same game for 20 years now.

 

ELEX is really good but I would say it speaks volumes how long they've been in the business and they haven't learned how to do anything new or even just different. If someone called PB a bunch of hacks, I wouldn't disagree. In the film industry, Luc Besson is a hack, and yet he has directed films that are good and sometimes even great, such as 1994's Leon the professional. I dont know if thats the right person to pick as an analogy to PB's oeuvre in the gaming industry, I'm possibly thinking someone much more hacky, but thats the example im going with.

 

Where have you been all my life?

 

Leon and The Fifth Element and all is forgiven. Same goes for PB.

 

Bizarely almost exactly where I stand on their games.

I thrive on Risen 2 despite it's flaws. Funny as fuck and a lot of daft fun to be had. In most of their games combat becomes an obstacle as opposed to enjoyable, but in this you could simplifying to run & gun easy enough so it wasn't a bother. The main cast & banter were fucking brilliant.



I had the same issues with Elex as I did Risen 3, it's dull as dishwank. Nice foundation, but absolutely no fun playing through it.

I like PB and think they deserve a lot of credit. However after all this time you'd think that they'd play to their strengths, and Risen 3 + Elex don't even seem to recognize those strengths, let alone embrace them.

If Elex 2 contained some of Gothic 1+2's more interesting & deeper RPG elements, and also they went for the humour, writing & cast which did them very proud in Risen 2 then it could see them come back swinging. But as it stands they've stuttered after a great start, and only briefly shown glimpses of reproducing that.

 

Damn Falksi, did you criticize Thief?

 

Don't forget La Femme Nikita.

 

Le Dernier Combat

 

PB will always be one of those mediocre studios, their titles are a textbook example of a 7/10

 

Gothic is the grandfather of all popamole cRPGs today. It shows that you can make a successful game with a shitty combat system as long as you have a giant world to explore and grind. The natural evolution of this world-building faggotry is games with better graphics, bigger teams, less challenge, less experimentation, grinding gameplay… basically all the ingredients of decline. You people should be ashamed of supporting this studio.

 

It is shit.

 

You clearly weren't around in 2000 so you have no idea what the RPG landscape was back then. G1 was utterly revolutionary in more than one respect. Afaik the first RPG of this kind ever - 3rd person, single character, 3D engine.

Also back then it looked p. great and the timing-based combat was totally innovative. Back then the best aRPGs could offer was button mashing. Oh and also the setting and premise of the game was never seen before. Prisoners and stoners in a brutal, dark fantasy world with survival elements? Whaat. Plus there was this whole PB factor X, the mathematical, logical, methodical - well, German, really - nature of their games. Hard to explain to outsiders but every single fan of PB knows what I'm talking about.

Now, to be clear, when I played it on launch I absolutely hated it, mostly because I kindda hated all non turn-based, non party-based RPGs. Back then the king of the genre was still Wizardry 7 and next to that every other RPG looked like decline, let alone one with action combat. I only came to appreciate aRPGs a decade later. Dark Souls and Gothic convinced me even action combat and single character RPGs can be done not just right, but brilliantly.

 

Ultima 9?

 

I'm tempted to say Ultima was never an RPG but ok, I stand corrected.

PS: Seems Ultima 9 wasn't an open world tho so I guess G1 was the first open-world, 3D, 3rd person RPG. Uff.

 

ok

 

You must be retarded if you really buy in this argument of yours. Diablo was released in what? 1997? How abut Morrowind? 2002? One year later? How many games had these features in the 90s?

Even the most dedicated fans will acknowledge that the combat is trash.

False.

 

Gothic was never grindy.