The translation is actually pretty well done! Quite a few areas it even fits well enough that if the lack of audio didn't give it away, one would think it was part of the original script.
Would love to read your impressions the further in you get. I've seen people say the mod is very lore-unfriendly, which isn't quite a deal-breaker as long as the gameplay makes it worth it. I feel like it should be the goal of any major mod built on top of an existing game world to respect that world's history as closely possible. If it's just batshit, it may be a little too blasphemous to stomach. But if it's minor stuff, I could deal with it.
Sure; I am playing off and on depending on my work schedule, so I'll post snippets as I go.
I'm about 6 hours in total and it's worth noting that this mod is more like an add-in; it's not a separate series of events from the rest of the game. It seems to borrow from NotR in that sense where you notice new stuff form the very beginning.
"Should I play it?" -- I'll try to answer this before going into details.
"yes, but only if you're an autist like me who has played this game multiple times and remembers where pretty much everything is." It mixes things up enough that it's a "new" experience, the same way NotR would have for vanilla G2. It's commendable for how large the mod is, and yeah it definitely messes with the lore of the setting (you encounter characters who claim they worked for Lord Hagen; or gave their bow shop to Bosper, or... you get the idea.) To me this isn't too much, and so far nothing has been too stupid or extreme to stomach, it seems they tried to keep things within the vague realm of plausibility in terms of who/what is where and why. The translation is good enough that you're never really lost, though some words are mixed up, and sometimes you'll read a line and parse the words slowly to figure out wtf it means.
It's more edgy/grimdark; many of the NPCs will attack you if you select the wrong dialog option (which isn't always obvious) -- this was in the base game too, but it was infrequent enough or telegraphed enough that you could see it coming. On some of these new ones it basically taught me to save before talking to everyone. There is a quick save function now, which is very nice. Also, lots of weird rape jokes, but then again it is a prison colony. I think they went overboard with the edginess, personally, cuz it comes off as a little too corny at times.
I tried to take a few screenshots but they came up all blank; and gyazo was not cooperating so I'll try to get more at a later time. I didn't use any of the graphical edit packs -- not even just upscaled textures. The grognard/autist in me actively prefers the old ones, so they'll look the way G1 vanilla was meant to in a sense.
Basically the mod adds a bunch of new NPCs, some new enemies, new areas (including camps and from what I read a whole new faction you can join), as well as new items and new "skills". Also, helmets, and man they look weird.
Mechanically some additions are crafting recipes (you can now craft multiple types of weapons -- including ore weapons; you can cook multiple types of food -- some of which have permanent stat ups, etc.). Combat skills are now more like G2 where-in you learn linearly and not in a bundle. They do increase in LP cost, but stats don't seem to increase in LP cost as you raise them (unless I just haven't hit that cap, but I'm at base 70 for STR so it should have happened already if it was going to.) If you use certain attacks enough you get a +1 to the corresponding stat (so use enough bow attacks, you get +1 dex). If you kill enough monsters of a type, you get a title "goblin slayer" or "scavenger hunter" -- no clue what those do, or if they're just little achievements.
There are 5 new areas, I think. Orc hunters, sleeper separatists, old mine camp, smugglers, and the ancients. Some of these areas are really small (smugglers and orc hunters), but still give quests and trade with you. Some are very, very large -- the old mine camp for example is big enough to be a completely separate camp/village pretty much. It's still affiliated with Gomez's old camp, but the guards wear modified armor and have their own leader. T
The 'ancients' are the last group that I haven't encountered, and unfortunately from what I gather they are the new faction you can actually join. From the dialog it seems the breakaway sect camp may be the path to join the ancients, but I'll keep looking around. It's not very easy to just look up info about the mod, and it really is quite large.
Bugs -- some new bugs are definitely in, though it's hard to tell how much of it is base gothic 1 bugging up on newer systems and how much is from the mod. The one thing that is for sure from the mod is targeting is trickier -- many items can't be highlighted until you change your vertical position, sometimes really bizarrely. Enemies below you, but in clear sight, can't be targeted by bow so you have to run around until you're far enough to target them. Weird stuff like that. Also a few NPCs got locked in an animation loop that I had to alt+f4 out of. For example if the dialog you use makes the NPC drink, you may want to wait for him to be standing up before you trigger it otherwise it will lock up.
"balance" -- the new weapons definitely make it a lot easier to get stronger, but with the changes to the combat skills they may balance out overall. I'm not 100% sure on that yet; though I did notice enemies seem tougher, and the newer enemies are stacked with higher stats. An alligator for example is as tanky as an elite orc, which is weird. There is some weird decisions about loot though -- money is even more trivial now, as you can find a lot of really good stuff, including a cache of shadowbeast horns and skins pretty early on, and you can either sell them or use them for a RNG-farming quest (there's an NPC which gives you a quest to collect X number of random trophies and turn them in for XP and ore; you can save/reload to get a different one across three difficulties). There's also some new weird items that aren't explained at all, some of which are re-usable while others are consumed.
