Recent reviews by Tekky

First of all, I'm giving this attempt a thumbs up because I appreciate any effort to revive the most influential game of my childhood. I don't believe the original was perfect, but it had an essence that deserves to be brought over to the next era.


From the technical side: my PC is pretty poor at this point, so I can't say anything about the graphics. The UI, howerver, is poorly thought out and very noticeably a controller port. The fact that random buttons (E, Enter, Z, Space) control what should all a single interact key is really bad, and traversing the menu is also made for shoulder buttons and a D-pad, it's really unintuitive with a keyboard. There is no way to use the mouse cursor either, which is faithful to the original game, but also not acceptable these days.

The combat is a lot better, taking all its cues from For Honor, it replicates what the original system tried to be with directional attacks. It is, however, not nearly lethal enough. Taking on multiple opponents like a fool should be a death sentence at level 0, and a scavenger should be a feat to carefully kill. Enemies as a whole seem to be not aggressive enough, taking hits is forgiving, and the final weapon deals massive damage.

Dialogue is fine at spots, but I think the wheel UI is again the wrong choice. It writes out the full reply, props for that, but its controls are meant for gamepads, and it just lacks the space to fit the branching dialogue this game wants to employ. Diego is pretty fun, but he really needs to talk a bit faster, and hold fewer pauses for effect. Oh, and on that note, obviously dialogue needs to be skippable, but it shouldn't be this easy to miss vital things because characters talk during walking around. I kinda like the first person hand gesture bits though, and as an aside, found it super cool that we had Xardas' perspective in the intro cinematic.

The hero himself could work, but he keeps voicing his every thought, while events, animations, and the environment could do the same thing. Similarly, he wrenches control away from the player in cinematics for no real reason, all those should be natural moments of exploration.

Exploration has issues, partly because of the UI again - interaction prompts show from really far away, through walls, making thorough searching unnecessary. There's also a bit less clutter than I would have preferred to be. The greatest problem is, however, that the hidden spots are not hidden or optional anymore. I feel like it's considered wasted development time nowadays if most players don't see a secret spot, and so a quest takes them to every nook of the map. I think that's just a mistake, and the original game rewarded exploration with unique sights, and it defintiely didn't force most of them on the player, areas could be skipped easily. On the other hand, invisible walls are everywhere, preventing grave mistakes. I immediately tried walking towards the Barrier at the start, to die the same way I first did in the original game, but I couldn't, and I think that takes away from the risk and excitement. Same with many long drops.

I also find that there's too many quests at the start here, the long talk with Diego and the exploration towards the Camp with minimal handholding really gave the original game its feeling of abandonment. Here, you're being directed and babysat every moment. I did like that one of the first quests is just everyone double-crossing the other, that was fun.

All this stems from the fact that the original Gothic was a hardcore depowerment fantasy - you weren't important enough to receive an explosive entry into the Colony, a guy punched you in the face for fun, Diego shooed them away, gave you some advice, then left you alone. He didn't really care about you, you were just one of the new guys he gave a speech to. Combat was unforgiving, nobody was there to save you, the game gave you hard lessons really fast, so you could break the rules later on. Here, the hero is already empowered with a decent sword, fighting prowess, and friends to look after him, and no real enemies.


I tried to approach the remake with an open mind, and I think there is potential, the technical part and the combat system is there, and some of the writing is pretty good. The remake, however, really needs to take a lot more cues from what made Gothic, well, Gothic: depowerment and lethality. The world is deadly, and events don't revolve around the hero, not until later chapters.

I bought the game after watching Beagle play it for a few hours. I got pretty deep into XCOM as well, so it semed like the right idea. The combat is familiar yet fresh, and there is a lot of depth to explore. Performance and combat stage speed is somewhat lacking (though my rig is two generations outdated by now), but it's not a disaster, just lacks buttery smoothness, something that I hope will be improved upon soon.

I don't commonly leave reviews, but I care enough about this game to counteract the twenty-minute-playtime spam about pronouns. Jesus Christ people, buy some empathy.

Amazing soundtrack, quippy headmate, over the top story, lots of customization, and a tight dual stick shooter gameplay are the main merits of this little gem. If any of those interest you the least, you owe it to yourself to try it.

Even after all this time, Nero's attitude and the tunes stuck with me.