Posted March 12, 2018
So, as I have starting this game many many maaaaaaany times since I bought it for the first time so many years ago, observations:
- Magic is cool, but it is extremely punished: you have to invest in mana, in circles and in runes. I took that path with generous cheating because the monastery looked more interesting than the rest, but it is not anything groundbreaking. And you can buy some spells.
- The thing with cheating is that, on one hand, it takes away a lot of saving/loading/drinking/resting but in any way I didn't feel like the magic runes were extreeeemely needed, because there are some wonderful summoning spells and offensive ones that you can use for the final bosses.
- Archery >>>>> melee. With melee you can only hit one guy, with archery, whoever steps in the front. Of course, this being Gothic, it means that in the first levels you still need melee because bows and crossbows do basically nothing.
- But archery takes DEX, and DEX is fantastic because it allows you to pickpocket, and pickpocket gives you money and exp. It is a fantastic investment.
- You know what they say that it is only useful to learn how to get skins and forget about any other hunting skills? True.
- The game is done in a way than doing the Paladin way is the proper one and the mage and the mercenaries are the outcasts. So joining the paladins is easier, they give you fine weapons and fantastic armor and you have some magic even. Also, for what I saw, the quests are more interesting than the never ending attack of the seekers.
- Use marvin mode if only for the teleportation. It is nice to explore during the first 10, 20, 30 hours even, but after that... and it takes a while to get the teleportation runes.
- The writing is FANTASTIC. The world building is so solid and there are great characters that define themselves with only one or two lines of text. I guess that Piranha went a bit downhill after this, but really, this is one of the better written cRPGs I've played.
- And it is full of humorous details of people reacting to you advancing in the plot or in the guilds. There is a lot of love in here.
- Not too convinced by the jump in difficulty in NOTR. I don't like how it relies on you finding bonuses to overcome the difficulty.
- The ending is a feast of lever puzzles, just when the game was light on that respect.
- You will hate orcs.
- No trick of "just put yourself behind a door, the enemies won't reach you" works.
- Invest in DEX, again. With acrobatics you can escape fights easily.
- I hate this game
- I love this game
- Magic is cool, but it is extremely punished: you have to invest in mana, in circles and in runes. I took that path with generous cheating because the monastery looked more interesting than the rest, but it is not anything groundbreaking. And you can buy some spells.
- The thing with cheating is that, on one hand, it takes away a lot of saving/loading/drinking/resting but in any way I didn't feel like the magic runes were extreeeemely needed, because there are some wonderful summoning spells and offensive ones that you can use for the final bosses.
- Archery >>>>> melee. With melee you can only hit one guy, with archery, whoever steps in the front. Of course, this being Gothic, it means that in the first levels you still need melee because bows and crossbows do basically nothing.
- But archery takes DEX, and DEX is fantastic because it allows you to pickpocket, and pickpocket gives you money and exp. It is a fantastic investment.
- You know what they say that it is only useful to learn how to get skins and forget about any other hunting skills? True.
- The game is done in a way than doing the Paladin way is the proper one and the mage and the mercenaries are the outcasts. So joining the paladins is easier, they give you fine weapons and fantastic armor and you have some magic even. Also, for what I saw, the quests are more interesting than the never ending attack of the seekers.
- Use marvin mode if only for the teleportation. It is nice to explore during the first 10, 20, 30 hours even, but after that... and it takes a while to get the teleportation runes.
- The writing is FANTASTIC. The world building is so solid and there are great characters that define themselves with only one or two lines of text. I guess that Piranha went a bit downhill after this, but really, this is one of the better written cRPGs I've played.
- And it is full of humorous details of people reacting to you advancing in the plot or in the guilds. There is a lot of love in here.
- Not too convinced by the jump in difficulty in NOTR. I don't like how it relies on you finding bonuses to overcome the difficulty.
- The ending is a feast of lever puzzles, just when the game was light on that respect.
- You will hate orcs.
- No trick of "just put yourself behind a door, the enemies won't reach you" works.
- Invest in DEX, again. With acrobatics you can escape fights easily.
- I hate this game
- I love this game
