Some of my own autism after second playthrough:
- Art direction is richer than in G2. The architecture, the armors. Captain Obvious
- Bigger scale than G2 overall. 80 vs 130 hours of gameplay if you go autisto.
- Has fucking telekinesis spell unlike G2
- World is more eventful. But some events feel retarded. Like the guy with a pot on his head. Something-something Mud... we get it. Ha-ha so funny.
- World feels alive because npcs change their location between chapters. You can observe Orcs increasing patrols and begin to prepare invasion. The city gets flooded with more refugees. Businesses get shut down. Many such details.
- Pretty sure the only innocent ncps you can kill in Archolos are no names.
- Crime system feels primitive and easily abused. But i guess it's better than Vatras denouncing me as Beliar in the flesh because i killed a few random peasants and Valentino.
- Additions to the lore in Archolos are welcome because all the lore for Gothic series Piranha ever wrote can probably fit on a couple A4 pages. I think the devs done solid here.
- World wise it's as good as G2. It's fun to explore and well designed with secrets and treasures.
- The city is much grander than in G2. Slums alone feel like half of the Khorinis. It's harder to navigate but you get used to it. One of the coolest cities i've seen in games.
- Vardhal > Irdorath.
- Story is... well, depends on what you prefer: Political bullshit + gotta find muh bro or generic fantasy bullshit with dragons n shiet. Gothic was never good for it's story.
- It's easier than G2 NotR and less autistic, like you don't have to build your stat enough with LP before you can drink all the potions. But to me it feels like it lost some part of fun because you don't strugge as much and not as invested.
- Both have shit economy and exploits. But it's mostly a problem for veteran players. In my second playthrough of Archolos i had like 30 thousand gold when i finished it with not much to spend it on, i was Greta and Slager apprentice. In G2 i had 40-50 thousand as a Harads apprentice with everything bought.
- Two Guilds you can join are very distinct and have interesting quests. But some quests feel way too hand holdy like in modern games.
- Archolos doesn't have a mage guild to join like G2. But who cares, nobody plays mages. You can still do wingardium leviosa like a faggot if you want, there are runes to collect.
- Marvin is a bitch boy cuck. Nameless is a chad neanderthal and much more entertaining character.
- There is cringy romantic quest where a woman sings. Wouln't be a polish game without some woman singing your ears off.
- Has general annoying femoid problem unlike Gothic games.
- Archolos got forced story dialogues where you have to make a single 'right' choice because everything else leads to Marvin's death.
- You can actually cook food other than grilled meat.
- The resource grinding feels a bit overdone.
Despite some problems i still have with Archolos. I consider this game a gift to gothic players, worthy of Gothic franchise.
the game has an awful lot of corpses for example (textures for them), so i guess that must be something with the story perhaps. it has a shit ton more NPC's than Gothic, hundreds more. Overall much bigger.. will be cool to check out.
