Needs a neutral rating. I never played Gothic so I don't have any nostalgia coloring my experience. There is a lot of good on offer here. The story I liked. The exploration is sometimes surprising and interesting and the scope of the game expands further than you might expect at first glance. The things I dislike are the combat and the quest structure.

The combat: slow and shallow. Enemies come in two varieties, dead in one hit, or kills you in one or two. You want to add a swing to your sword combo? Well time to scour the game looking for the 3 NPC's who know the mysterious art of stabbing. You might have to pay this person for the pleasure of learning, or you might have to do hours of quests and join their faction locking you off from half the content in the game. Oh and you didnt save enough of your learning points because you wanted to learn lock picking? Well screw you then player, you should have never considered leveling once these past few hours. There are also plenty of enemies that act like they are from an entirely different game with an entirely different combat system and dont seem to be restricted to the poor stamina system, just showing me how fun the game could have been.

The quest structures: At first I didn't mind the vague af quest descriptions (ie head west until blah blah blah) because the world isnt THAT big and finding what you need typically isn't much of a hassle. That is until the devs decided to make large sections of the map into mazes with plenty of dead ends and ambush after ambush because you were stupid enough not to memorize the forrest/mine/cave layout. Adding even something as simple as a large circle on the map to designate that your objective is SOMEWHERE in this vicinity would have made this game a lot easier to come back to after a break. Instead you get nothing and are told its a feature.

Smaller gripes: I can steal in front of most NPCS and they wont care at all, hell I can start a fight with almost anyone, beat them unconcious and just take their stuff with 0 repercussions. It just makes the world feel dead and dumb. Also everyone has the same laugh and laugh animation that takes too long and I cant skip. Smug laughers wasting my time.

Positives: No carry weight limit.

i lik

punishing, tons of secrets and areas, loot - great rpg

Not since Morrowind have I been able to maintain such wonderment at the presentation of a fantasy world. If you are thirsty for that rare drink of well balanced "challenging yet rewarding" combat and discovery, prepare to feel not a single moment of your time has been wasted. If you want engaging characters, written by adults who respect your intelligence and understand the difference between "genuinely entertaining" and "petty bitchiness which causes needless, weak, or unjustified plot developments", get ready to actually care. Get lost exploring the land of legends, stumbling upon powerful artifacts, and killing (or running from) the many enemies who stay dead upon defeating them (welcome to Drova's unique "collectathon" mechanics), And as you go, take time to appreciate the situations you so happily (and sometimes traumatically) keep finding yourself to be the cause of.

Genuinely the best RPGs I've played in a long time. I put 30 hours into the game over 3 days.

----The great: the story/art----
Drova has a solid story arc with plenty of content and interactions that will keep you engaged for hours. Playing through from the perspective of both camps and even opting for the higher difficulty on the second run was well worth it. I was surprised at how many distinct areas I had missed the first time through. The puzzles and quest locations were always found organically, and I only used the assistance of external walkthroughs sparingly for completionism.

----The Okay: combat----
Even after two runs, there are still plenty of combat methods that I did not try - namely the craftable items. While resources were generally plentiful, at times it felt like it did not make sense to use these mechanics because the process of restocking would break the flow of exploration. The main weapons worked well, although they all fall into the "mash at a specific steady rhythm, dodge/block, and repeat". I think an alternate move set or different combos would help improve this. Similarly, the ranged options always felt too slow in combat to be useful. They never felt practical outside of drawing the attention of an enemy to lure it out of a group. Perhaps this is all just a skill issue and would be solved by pursuing it more aggressively in a different run, idk.

----The Bad: nada---

Regardless of any nitpicking on the combat, this is a fun game and is worth the purchase. Great job devs!

This game has brought back something I've missed for a long time; a sense of wonder, being lost, and a general immensity of a world. I believe this is all lent to the game by the lack of waypoints, a compass, or any sort of map markers that you don't create yourself. You're left to discover through exploration, discussions with NPCs, and the resulting journal entries.

There is no level scaling for enemies which makes the feeling of player power wonderful.

Highly recommend this game.

Every choice matters in this game.
I made a "wrong" decision at the end of the game thinking I could somehow turn it somewhere else during the quest. But once you decide how will you finish the game there is no turning back!
If you love well curated rpg's you can't really go wrong with this one.
There is also Iron mode for those who wan't even bigger challenge.

Just like the Gothic standalone game Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos, this game brings you right back to the good old days of everything wants to kill you and the world is an unforgiving place.
The gameplay was engaging, the variety a bit shallow but still enough for my taste and the roleplay elements were a lot of fun. My thiefing heart was missing a bit of pickpocketing or harder to steal items but still, I deeply enjoyed this game and recommend it to every Gothic veteran out there.

A great game where everything just feels right, loved it.

Only thing i felt bit disappointed about was the weapons were not very special and i felt i should get more rewarded with loot in secret area’s.

We really need more of this type of game where you want to play more and more.