Where does Piranha Bytes stand among all time great studios?

[Deleted Member 22431]

Combat is fun, engaging and pretty damn punishing if you try to just spam buttons. Yeah it's clunky, but who fucking cares if it's fun?

PB games are up there when it comes to open, hand crafted worlds and exploration that's genuinely rewarding and satisfying.

It feels like I'm reading those steam reviews praising Skyirm. Jesus.

PB stands on top of all others RPG studios.

Above Black Isle, Troika and Iron Tower.

Their games are that good. I fear nothing will ever come close to Gothic in my lifetime. Nothing has in almost 20 years already.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Easily Top 5 for me.

 

[Silly Germans]

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

nope

in fact gothic combat is p. great and also a good way of identifying scrublords who suffer from palsy

Agreed.

Although if you are the kind of person that likes to play mages... the combat can get a bit tiring...

Edit:

Gothic is literally an Oblivion but with worse camera, graphics, art direction, controls, and gameplay.

Politician, we might never agree on anything. But still I can't help but admire you for roleplaying your user name so thorougly.

Real politicians try their best to hide their imbecility and idiocy. So either he sucks at roleplaying or the real depths of retardation that await us are unimaginable ...

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Level 0 character beating one of the toughest creatures of the game with fists. No grinding here. State of the art combat system!

 

[JarlFrank]

Gothic is literally an Oblivion but with worse camera, graphics, art direction, controls, and gameplay.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[JDR13]

Gothic is literally an Oblivion but with worse camera, graphics, art direction, controls, and gameplay.

 

[502]

People love FromSoft because Souls games are objectively good and widely praised by critics

 

[cvv]

1. Crafting that's both fun to use and actually matters (neither of which is true in your average crpg despite all of them having crafting).

They declined heavily over time, but I still had decent, honest fun with every single one. Excluding G3, I never played it to this day.

In reality crafting is useless in most of their games.
- there's barely any in G1
- in G3 is as half-assed as the rest of the game
- in Risen it's shit because it doesn't matter
- can't remember crafting in R2 and R3 but it was probably shit
Afaik crafting is only ok in G2 and Elex.

Also I wouldn't say their games declined over time. G1 and G2 are phenomenal, G3 is an unfinished first pass of a game with great potential, Risen 1 is on par with G1/G2. Risen 2 is actually p. good in the first half where you explore the nicely sized, handcrafted island, sadly the second half is a complete garbage. It's actually breathtaking how fast this game goes into the shitter. Risen 3 is an irredeemable dumpster fire, feels like outsourced to a Chink contractor. And Elex is absolutely a return to form.

There's this idea that G1 and G2 are god tier and everything else is meh at best but that's just pure nostalgia speaking. Risen 1 and Elex are just as good in most aspects that made G1/G2 great.

 

[J_C]

Level 0 character beating one of the toughest creatures of the game with fists. No grinding here. State of the art combat system!

That's not what fucking grinding means FFS!

 

[moon knight]

The only good game they made was Gothic 2.

 

[Doktor Best]

Behead those who insult Gothic.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

In reality crafting is useless in most of their games.

Compared to what titles?

Not sure why you would call crafting in R1 meaningless, investing in it allowed you to get very good weapons super early and create plethora of useful jewelry before it could be found exploring. Not to mention the potions. Also, money. In R2-3 it was declined (like pretty much everything), but still allowed to get some good stuff and potions that were actually useful. And it all combined with the economy, which up until Elex remains head and shoulders above average crpg level.

Also I wouldn't say their games declined over time. G1 and G2 are phenomenal, G3 is an unfinished first pass of a game with great potential, Risen 1 is on par with G1/G2. Risen 2 is actually p. good in the first half where you explore the nicely sized, handcrafted island, sadly the second half is a complete garbage. It's actually breathtaking how fast this game goes into the shitter. Risen 3 is an irredeemable dumpster fire, feels like outsourced to a Chink contractor. And Elex is absolutely a return to form.

To me the gap between G1-2, R1 and R2-3, Elex is very visible (reiterating that I've never played G3). And I actually liked R3 the most of the latter three, but they all fall into a similar "good for what it is category".

Risen 1 and Elex are just as good in most aspects that made G1/G2 great.

R1 has the best controls and UI by far, which is a huge thing when you consider how big of an obstacle G1-2 controls can be to some people. But I would disagree overall, Elex was pretty disappointing to me when it comes to exploration and hand crafted feel (things like high tier enemies guarding absolute trash while you could stumble upon top weapons completely unchallenged) and had a strong "quantity over quality" vibe with regards to pretty much everything. And a lot of the charm was gone, too. It's good for what it is, but not on G1-2, R1 level.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I understand some of the criticisms of Elex, in some ways it's definitely worse than G1/G2, but in some ways it's better too. The sheer amount of quests and the C&C in them for example, and the vertical exploration. Overall, it's a pretty damn good game.