I didn't use a walkthrough and I did a lot of exploring. Easily over 95% of the game world. Probably 20 hours tops or so. And as for the boss fight, sure it might have been consoley but it was definitely a step up from boss fights in G I & II.

I used a walkthrough a few times when I was stuck and just couldn't figure out how to proceed. Still logged way more than 30 hours. I don't know the total, but I'd have to say it's pushing 50 hours.

Final boss fight wasn't anything spectacular, but I did find it okay. Took me a few tries and when i finally beat him, I was happy but felt it could have been more epic.

Absolutely agreed. Supposedly the Gothic I Boss is supposed to fight back, but he never did for me, he just stood there, so I took out the demons easily with no outside interference. With Gothic II, I made bad choices in leveling and had real trouble killing any of the dragons, so I had to Marvin-kill all of them (including the boss).

I've messed around with the ultra ini as well, as all I wanted was to get rid of that bubble :) luckily anytime I increase that number, the game crashed when teleporting or doing something difficult - so I went back to the original ini and said "oh well", the game still looks nice and plays twice as good ;)

EDIT: also sorry for the misinformation about the engine, it really IS capable of some spectacular graphic quality!