To those who have played both games, which do you prefer and why or are both worthy of a play through?

I prefer Risen by far. Not because it's so good but it feels like playing Gothic and that can't be said for Gothic 3. Gothic 3 is closer to TES than to Gothic/Gothic 2 and i hate TES with a passion.
By all means Gothic 3 isn't actually that bad. Especilly nowadays after most bugs were fixed. It's just different.

Even so i really dislike Gothic 3 i'd still recommend playing it if you enjoyed Gothic/Gothic 2. It's lacking but it continues the story worthy. Risen on the other hand continues the gameplay.

Which is probably good. Sequels stale over time and one can see this with III plus story is limited by the old story. People will continually compare to the older ones and any change will be contested. Look at the combat system in III - better then I and II in many respects but condemned because it was different. I haven't yet played risen but I'm looking forward to it.

I think we've been there allready. ;)
I don't see where the combat system of Gothic 3 is better than the one of Gothic or Gothic 2(i'm talking solely about melee) and that's not because it's diffrent. Risen has also a different combat system and it is really good.

edit: Well, it's a religious war. In my opinion changing the overallway a game in a series "feels" is one of the greatest crimes you can commit with your series. It's like the Dead Space sequels i think no one minds some more simple action games butdon't write Dead Space on the cover if Dead Space isn't in there. Think of Might and Magic it has a hell of a lot of spin-offs in what ever genre you can think of. That's absolutely ok, because Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is'nt called Might and Magic 17.(I think Dark Messiah picked up the story after Heroes 5 who cares you get my meaning :))

I personally prefer Risen as it's much more of a Gothic game than Gothic 3 was. Gothic 3 was very ambitious, but it lacked the focus of the previous two games and was more an open-world game in the style of the TES games. There were also quite a few balance issues with combat, with melee being all over the place in terms of difficulty (pretty much any humanoid opponent could be beaten just by doing figure-eights with a sword, while some animals had such tiny hit-boxes that it was very difficult to land even a single hit), and magic being incredibly overpowered. Risen was much more in the style of the previous two Gothic games with two (well, technically 3) different factions offering two different paths through the game, a more structured story divided into chapters, and a world that while mostly open still had soft barriers due to creature strength in certain areas. Combat was also quite a bit more balanced and relied heavily on good timing like the first two Gothic games.

Now, Gothic 3 is still a good game and with the community path I'd still recommend it (and depending on preferences some people do like it more than the more "Gothic" Gothic games), but I'd consider Risen the better game overall and would recommend it more highly to those looking for a game along the lines of the first two Gothic games.

I'm repeating myself but I am on record as saying that my favorite of the three that I've played is Gothic II and that I disliked Gothic III at first. If I had to rank them, I'd probably pick Gothic III at the bottom but, and its a big but, I feel that Gothic III has the most replay appeal and I've been having fun with it for quite the time. That's the good part of lack of structure. I never saw the appeal of practicing for hours to master a combat (melee) system so resorted to fast clicking to beat opponents in I and II. I was quite happy to see that I could quickly master the system in III and that fast clicking was all but impossible - one has to time the blows. To be fair - I've only played with the CP 1.74/5 patches so know not what the game was like prior to them (it repairs the said balance issues but the strike point of some beasts is still very small and missing something with a sword inches in front of you is quite frustrating).

I guess the bottom line is that I find the criticism of III to be very out of proportion. Yes, its not quite as good as the other two and I'd expect any subsequent sequels to decline as they most always do, but it is still an immensely fun game and very challanging. Guess I'm just not cut out to be a purist.

I would argue both are worthy of a play through for different reasons.

Gothic 3 is a large, open world where exploration is a key factor - expect to do a lot of roaming about. The bugs are irritating, but can be dealt with via the Community patches. It is a beautiful game, the combat is easy enough to pick up and you soon become used to it. It continues the narrative of Gothic II and attempts to take the faction element to a different dimension. For instance, in Gothic 3 you can take over entire towns and cities dependent upon which faction you choose. The scale of the game is immense.

Risen is more of a closed world as it's set upon an island so space is more limited, but terrific use is made of the environment. So in Risen, you still explore but some of this is governed by story development rather than outright exploration. For instance, you don't get to delve into the depths of the island until you are a certain way into the game. Combat mechanics are great in Risen, the narrative has pace and the game is exciting, but in a different way to Gothic 3. Also, exploration in Risen is very similar to that of Gothic 2, where you could get to just about anywhere in the landscape around you.

Both games are immersive and both are very different. However, I'd recommend playing at least Gothic 2 before you play Gothic 3

Most well balanced and reasonable answer so far. Agree completely.

Before i brood for hours wether to post again or not i just get done with it . I think that needs some explanation. In Gothic 3 there isn't one static membership for the major factions. I don't know what it's called in english(actually i don't even remember the german phrase) i'll simply call it respect. With each fraction you have a visible respect counter. They are more or less paired, if you are too respected by one fraction of a pair the other one becomes more or less hostile.
Among others that means you can be member of multiple factions but i think there is never a "official" introduction you just pass some ammount of respect and you're allowed to certain areas and stuff.
If that's a good or bad thing is up to you. ;) True but it's done quiet poor. There are some quests in each town. You'll solve them for one or another fraction. Than the town will belong to one fraction and it's done. Wether the town belongs to this or that fraction is just another counter. After the "liberation" the town has no meaning what so ever anymore. No quests, no references you're just done with it. Well, after taking over enough towns for one fraction the other will become hostile.


Uhm... yeah, like i said i dislike Gothic 3. But let's not forget one major drawback of Risen. Its first two chapters are really on par with Gothic/Gothic 2 but the later chapters are quiet simple running around killing things. Basically no sidequests, little variety, just one dungeon with plain puzzles and the same eenemies after the other.

I remember reading about that. They weren't rushed again to finish like in III were they? It happens far too often.

Not that i am aware of.
After the too ambitiously large Gothic 3 they didn't want to make the same mistake again so they kept Risen quiet small and simple. It's somewhere between Gothic and Gothic 2 but without the unique setting.

The way I see it, Gothic 3 has one gameplay problem which creates a whole lot of other problems. Too many things to do. Too many things to kill, so they dumbed down the combat system. Too many areas to explore, it starts to feel boring. Too many NPCs, they start to feel irrelevant.

Risen on the other hand has some flaws too, like few sidequests in the later chapters which has already been mentioned. It plays like an old gothic game though, which i love. I didn't quite like the setting as much though. And when you get to the later chapters, the game feels a bit empty. No sidequests and interactions with the towns anymore, the mainquest is everything basically, and that's really something they should have done something about.

Both are worthy of a playthrough. If i had to choose, i'd take Risen because Gothic 3 really is such a load of work to go through.

Um correct me if im wrong but didn't jodowood sell gothic out from under pb mid production gothic three to dreamcatcher? So gothic 4 risen is not pb!

I have played every game in the series, I love them all, but risen! Just didn't feel like gothic at all. I first found gothic when my dads friend game me gothic 2 original us version, well no gothic has been as good, the graphic of the shadow beast from 2 were very detailed, and gothic 3 shadow beast had very little. well since jodowood sold it out from under bp and released to make pb look like they needed to lost it. Plus g2 you could use a game pad to play. They all need a patch to be able to use one!

Plus in g2 you can an have to search everywhere to find stuff, like a ring on top of a mountain! 1 ring to rule them all. Youccan't do that in 4, kinda in 3. So if its your first time start with g1 then g2 then g3 then g4 an make your post as to what you liked best!

With pleasure! ;)

Seems like you've mixed things up. We're talking about Risen developed by Piranha Bytes and published by Deep Silver.

The game called Arcania: Gothic 4 was developed by Spellbound and published by Jowood. I said i dislike Gothic 3. In comparison to Arcania i love Gothic 3 more than anything. By claiming the name Gothic it taints the whole series.
I don't give a fuck wether the game might not be that bad on it's own(In my opinion it's not only bad as a Gothic it's fucking awful as a game), it is related to Gothic and as such it is a disgrace maybe on par with Gothic 3 Forsaken Gods.