best game everrrrr

Now, my review comes from a very weird point - I tried to play this game multiple times over the past years, and being typical Gothic 1 and 2 zealot I had A LOT of issues with the game.
I am also a player with very purist way of approaching mods beside those that improve technical aspect of the game like fps or stability - any additional content on said game turns it more into a fan's interpretation of tittle than anything else.

To break through this game, I had to broke that rule and I've got the modpack, that game offers, along with other stability fixes. I won't be reviewing it's contents nor I judge alternate AI (which is prety bad) or alternative balance.
In it's core the game suffers from one thing - and it's visible release crunch + hurried release. It has scale, but lacks depth. In a chase of being "more" game implements a "checklist" kind of a progression with quests, which will be visible once you know what mcgubbins you have to seek through the lands. Simple reputation system making player being able to gain a favour of faction of player's choice, then there's a faction wars system... sort of. Settlement fights for a controll do have nice scale, but lack depth with what's after said fight - city is taken but it hardly has any content afterwards, unless modded.
Character building is... ok? Feels kind of flat somehow, but at the very least magic is now scalling with its coresponding stat, which is nice. Some hidden perks here, some cheesy stuff there.
Soundtrack is good, so I have nothing to add to that part.
Story itself is hard from the most thrilling part, it just happens - but doesn't annoy much. I cannot put my finger on why it feels better in previous games from the series, maybe it's just more climatic worldbuilding? Who knows.

What saves this game in my eyes is the fact, that for 2006 is impressive that more or less it had a skeleton of a modern rpg open world game in a form, that resembles what we're playing now. Given more time it could be something better and bigger.

Still, grab the game on a sale and only during that. Dont bother with Forsaken Gods.

gothic right u can't not played