Risen VS Gothic (Pros & Cons)

[xShapelessx]

Which series is technically better? I recently bought both series, yet I find Gothic quite redundant at times. (Gothic 3 in particular, as I have yet to try the previous titles.) I'm about to try Risen for the first time. What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear everyones opinions.

[7 4 17 0 17 _twelvetwenty-one]

I'm ignorant, only ever having heard of Gothic; just now considering getting the first Risen.

From what I've read, Gothic 3 was an absolute ♥♥♥♥-up. It was made without the direction of the original dev's - Risen is the original dev's (I think "Piranha Bytes" or somethin') attempting to take Gothic back in the direction it was originally meant to go, without infringing on the namesake that they don't own anymore(?).

Again, I don't know anything about it, just tryin' to get the most basic ♥♥♥♥ out the way 'fore some douche comes in and tries to insult you unnecessarily. I’ve also heard that Risen 2 is terrible, 3 is meh. Of course there are other opinions that disagree, *shrug*.

[xShapelessx]

Okay, so I can safely say I prefer Risen over Gothic 3. There IS a huge year gap so it makes sense, but wasn't expecting it to be this good. I find the combat surprisingly well done, despite what many say.

[7 4 17 0 17 _twelvetwenty-one]

I appreciate that!!! I'm hesitant to hit the "Purchase" button because I remember reading somewhere (I think) that your character in Risen (I forget which, actually) is very tanky, i.e. slow moving with no dodging. Other aspects of the combat have been criticized too. Your sayin' you can dig it, though, plus the $2.50 price tag has sold me on it, noice

[xShapelessx]

Originally posted by Tynon_1221:

I appreciate that!!! I'm hesitant to hit the "Purchase" button because I remember reading somewhere (I think) that your character in Risen (I forget which, actually) is very tanky, i.e. slow moving with no dodging. Other aspects of the combat have been criticized too. Your sayin' you can dig it, though, plus the $2.50 price tag has sold me on it, noice

Yeah man, I'm pleasantly surprised so far. Stoked to try the 3rd as I have heard great things.

[xShapelessx]

Originally posted by Adolf Stalin:

The first Risen is basically Gothic 2, only better in technical and mechanics departments. It plays just the same, but better.

Gothic 3 is garbage. The studio was obsessed with making "their own Oblivion" (which was ♥♥♥♥ game itself). Trying to compete with a ♥♥♥♥ game had to end with making a ♥♥♥♥ game also, mystery solved. It had few strong points, but the overall it was a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mess.

After playing Risen all night (The 3rd) I can safely say...♥♥♥♥ GOTHIC haha. This game is amazing. (The first isn't bad either.)

[Vazoth]

Without personal preferences, I'd say that the Gothic series is far superior to Risen. When I talk about the Gothic series then I'm mainly talking about Gothic 1 and 2, including the Night of the Raven addon. Gothic 3 feels more like a stand alone title, considering that it doesn't make any good use of the ending from Gothic 2.
Although the first two Gothics are obsolescent in terms of graphics and controls, their story and background lore are much more consistent than in the Risen series.

In my opinion Risen 1 has almost perfect controls and it feels much better than the old Gothic days. However, although Risen 1 started out decently storywise it became a complete mess filled with plotholes. I clearly remember, how the last sentence after the credits of Risen 1 got me really excited for part 2. In the end it turned out that Risen 2 took a turn I really dislike. Risen 3 looks similar to Risen 2, so I haven't tried it yet.


Btw. Gothic 3 was entirely developed by Piranha Bytes. It was just that the publisher wanted it released, even so it wasn't finished.
The stand alone addon Forsaken Gods has been developed by a completely new studio though. It was "Gothic 4" titled as Arcania - A Gothic Tale, which has nothing to do with the original series and Piranha Bytes. After some back and forth concerning the rights for the Gothic series Arcania lost its subheading and is now referred to simply as Arcania.

[xShapelessx]

Originally posted by Vazoth:

Without personal preferences, I'd say that the Gothic series is far superior to Risen. When I talk about the Gothic series then I'm mainly talking about Gothic 1 and 2, including the Night of the Raven addon. Gothic 3 feels more like a stand alone title, considering that it doesn't make any good use of the ending from Gothic 2.
Although the first two Gothics are obsolescent in terms of graphics and controls, their story and background lore are much more consistent than in the Risen series.

In my opinion Risen 1 has almost perfect controls and it feels much better than the old Gothic days. However, although Risen 1 started out decently storywise it became a complete mess filled with plotholes. I clearly remember, how the last sentence after the credits of Risen 1 got me really excited for part 2. In the end it turned out that Risen 2 took a turn I really dislike. Risen 3 looks similar to Risen 2, so I haven't tried it yet.


Btw. Gothic 3 was entirely developed by Piranha Bytes. It was just that the publisher wanted it released, even so it wasn't finished.
The stand alone addon Forsaken Gods has been developed by a completely new studio though. It was "Gothic 4" titled as Arcania - A Gothic Tale, which has nothing to do with the original series and Piranha Bytes. After some back and forth concerning the rights for the Gothic series Arcania lost its subheading and is now referred to simply as Arcania.

I am unable to get the first two Gothic games to work on my pc, so my only comparisons between Risen and Gothic would be from Arcania, and Gothic 3, which are both kind of garbage. I suggest giving Risen 3 a shot, it really surprised me, as I did not love the second installment due to it's linearity and lack of in depth rpg elements.

[Concaco]

I would argue that Arcania - being average/bad game overall - still beats the crap out of Gothic 3 or disney's Risens. The main protagonist had its reasons to "hey let's go explore the world and fight stuff" and the overall plot kind of made sense, expanding lore in tolerable directions. After terrible Gothic 3's uninspired story-"kill a whole orc army all by yourself LOL"-line
Still, Gothic 3 and 4 are fundamentally different games than previous installments and it is hard to really compare them in one bag all together.

Having replayed Gothic 3 lately it really strucked me how bad this game is. The worst part was stretching the gameplay time beyond any reasoning by adding two absolutely nonsensical areas and sub-plots you were forced to run A LOT through sand or looking for that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cave in the north (NPC telling you to "go the way up the mountain to find it" really didn't help).
Fortunately you could ignore the boring marathon of freeing cities/killing rebels/freeing Nordmar/desert and go straight for the optimal ending. It still requires few dozens of hours of intense gameplay (if you're not doing bug-run) and badly enough the main plot boils down to few unimaginative fetch'n'kill steps: 1) "go to the Xardas tower" 2) find and destroy 5 artefacts (killing few hundreds of zombies in the process) 3) kill Rhobar and Zuben 4) go with Xardas through the half of the game world ON FEET, while being in possesion of all teleport stones. The last part with walking was just idiotic.
At least the game tried to keep you interested with exploration and character development, presenting something new on every step you take, which is quite redeeming, and Risen 3 failed to accomplish (showing you every piece of content in first 2 hours and letting you defeat it without spending any experience on your character - and then forcing you to repeat the same ♥♥♥♥ all over again flooding you with kill X shadows main quests for 20 hours until the reskinned boss fight - it is just a bad game design).
I mean, really. Having a such vast open world area with absolutely no loading screens and make it feel so empty, boring and pointless - it requires a certain skill of being terrible.

[Nietzchan]

I've just recently played Risen as I saw a lot of recommendations from Gothic players, and I'm glad that steam put a bundle on sale. While the atmosphere was felt very close to Gothic 2, I would rather say the actual combat gameplay was closer to that of the first Fable series. It is more paced up than Gothic with emphasis on parrying and dodging even early in the game. It is quite challenging even on 'normal' settings, which could translates as 'interesting' or 'annoying', depends on your mood to mash buttons and caffeine intake that day.

I haven't played much into the game now, so I couldn't tell about the plot, but I would say the magic in Risen 1 is as good as Gothic 1, however the reticular aiming system makes it more difficult to use IMO, decreasing my effectiveness in fast paced combat since the enemy tends to dodge leap all over the place.

[xShapelessx]

I still have yet to try the first two Gothic games, as they do not run on my PC, but I am 100% sold on the Risen series. These games are solid rpg's with nice, refreshing worlds, that I am not used to in RPG games. Being able to ACTUALLY control a ship would be nice though.

[Ocsabat]

Originally posted by Raenar Valtrek:

I still have yet to try the first two Gothic games, as they do not run on my PC, but I am 100% sold on the Risen series. These games are solid rpg's with nice, refreshing worlds, that I am not used to in RPG games. Being able to ACTUALLY control a ship would be nice though.

To make Gothic 1 and 2 run you need to delete or rename GameOverlayRenderer.dll. Rename it if you want the Steam overlay to work in other games. You'll need to do this whenever Steam does an update because the file gets replaced.

[xShapelessx]

Originally posted by Ocsabat:

Originally posted by Raenar Valtrek:

I still have yet to try the first two Gothic games, as they do not run on my PC, but I am 100% sold on the Risen series. These games are solid rpg's with nice, refreshing worlds, that I am not used to in RPG games. Being able to ACTUALLY control a ship would be nice though.

To make Gothic 1 and 2 run you need to delete or rename GameOverlayRenderer.dll. Rename it if you want the Steam overlay to work in other games. You'll need to do this whenever Steam does an update because the file gets replaced.

Okay thanks for the tip. I'll try that out.

[CrimzonRazor]

Risen Pro: They still make them
Gothic Con: They dont make them anymore

Guess Risen wins

[xShapelessx]

Originally posted by CrimzonRazor:

Risen Pro: They still make them
Gothic Con: They dont make them anymore

Guess Risen wins

Gothic 3 and Arcania are ♥♥♥♥ in comparison to all 3 Risen games if you ask me. I haven't tried the first two Gothics though.

[pw1108]

Gothic 1
Biggest dungeons
better faction and lore
easier and funnier combat control(I really like air combo of G1...)

eh... super easy?
buggy


Gothic 2
NotR!!!!
better combat than Gothic 1..but I prefer Gothic 1

hard as hell.
skill system is flawed as hell.

personally, I think it's lesser than Gothic 1 if it doesn't have NotR.

Gothic 3
Best nonlinear quest
combat with human is somewhat fun
I really like it's plot especially Xardas'

lame dialogs
combat with animals are;; well..

RIsen 1
best dungeon and puzzle
better skill system than Gothic 2.

basically, it's just copy of Gothic 1 and 2.


Risen 2
best combat
graphic is good.
some island have good non-linear plot.
personally like it's skill system, it's well balanced too.

each islands maps are small
combat is hard to learn and hard to get used to it.

Risen 3
well.. it's not bad actually, but compare to other RIsen or Gothic, nothing special.
that means, everage quest design, combat isn't bad nor good, story is.. nothing notable, characters are fun though.