I liked there past games well enough, quirkiness, bugs and all. But it gets stale.
I want to believe, because I loved gothic 1 and 2, but I’ll wait for reviews, because of gothic 3 + risen.
Risen was decent. Risen 2 was bad. Risen 3 was down-right awful. I just don’t get it. The older the games they made, the better it was. This is like those people who made the stronghold series. The earlier you go, the better the games are.
If Piranha Bytes follows its trend, then this game will be epically bad. It would be a real shame because the trailers look really good.
I mean, I can be a sword wielding dude, casting spells and shooting guns fighting some kind of robot menace in an open world setting? SOLD!! Except for who is making it. Much potential sadness.
This is what’s sad about them. Gothic 1 was very good. 2 was great. 3 was the start of the downturn, but still good enough to play through (the first I didn’t finish, but got my money’s worth.)
Risen was pretty good for the first 2/3 of the game (about gothic 3 level), then went downhill at the end…but the next ones, man…did they replace the entire studio? I’m not quite sure what happened, but it was terrible. I hope they got fresh blood in for ELEX, or got the older designers back.
Wasn’t one of the Risen sequels just all about pirates? Not having played any of them I thought that seemed kind of random but also kind of interesting. Always figured I’d try it one day. Maybe when I retire.
Except for the endgame slog, I really liked Risen. But while pirates were a fun digression in earlier Piranha Bytes games, I just haven’t been all that interested in a whole game around them.
Gothic 2 was an amazing high point. I still remember getting lost in the woods outside Khorinis, with the sun going down, running like hell back to safety before it got dark. The sense of real relief when I came galloping down the trail and saw the town gates…
Can you roll around in other Action RPGs too? I know there was a lot of rolling in Witcher 2. What about Dark Souls?
One of my biggest regrets is missing the boat on Gothic 2. I hadn’t really heard of either game, and a friend showed up at my door step in Seattle, thrust his copy of Gothic at me, and said “you have to play this game, and when you’re done with it, let me know because Gothic 2 just came out and it’s even more amazing”.
It took me a few months, but I got through Gothic. It was indeed, very good. And I bought Gothic 2, but it kept getting pushed in the backlog because I had so much trouble at the beginning.of the game.
Eventually, a few years ago, I tried installing it again, but again, I had too much trouble, the game felt clunky and ugly, and I finally resigned myself to having missed the window when this would have been a great experience. The graphics look pretty dated now, the keyboard interface feels so backward now. And I don’t know if I have the patience to slog through a long game like that anymore.
Yeah, Gothic 2 was difficult right out of the gate. And the controls were idiosyncratic and weird, and combat was frustrating as hell until you got familiar with the mechanics, and the game wasn’t remotely shy about letting you turn the wrong corner and run into something horribly fatal. There were a lot of hurdles.
Sadly, I think you’re right about the window. I came to really love the world, but I suspect it would be hard to return to. At the time, though, it was extraordinary. So densely populated, and so many rich details.
This is all you need to know about combat in Dark Souls.
IIRC, I hooked up my gamepad to the game using Joy2Key, and it worked pretty well. They could have easily ported this game to console if they wanted.
I loved the original Gothic. It remains one of my favorite RPGs ever. But after the first game, the worlds just keep getting bigger and bigger, which is the exact opposite of what I want. So I doubt this will be for me.
Should be out on Tuesday. Plenty of streamers on Youtube already…
A random one:
This game has tons of cheese in it (e.g. manly macho voice acting). Hopefully the rest of the game makes up for it.
The first German review (Gamestar.de) - and the first Polish review agrees, I’ve been told - basically says:
Elex is the best PB game since Gothic 2. Very close to G2 in spirit. Good quests, deeply rewarding exploration, their best world yet. Big open world, hand-crafted and with high interaction density. As detailed as G2 but bigger than G3 and more varied than ever. Game mechanics as expected, minus the hand-holding and the QTEs. All the typical PB strengths.
Great soundtrack, no crashes, no serious bugs, but some minor issues. (Release patch is announced.)
The game’s profile seems to be comparable to G2. Weak and slow beginning, the first 5 hours have the trademark PB learning wall. Then you’ll get a never ending upward trend for 50+ hours. The 3 Gamestar editors who played Elex say the game got better and better. The interface is as clunky as alway, combat feels unpolished, main story is thin, tech is average.
This was worth 85% to Gamestar and some award. The Polish site enjoyed it but thought 75% sounds more correct.
This sounds like the new G2 to me, with the exception of the combat, which doesn’t convince me yet. It also seems much more hardcore than the Risens, especially 2 & 3. And if the world is as good as Gamestar wrote, the rest doesn’t matter.
This sounds so great… I will risk it. Pre-order is a go.
I’m quite tempted as well. The inevitable bugs concern me though, they are usually numerous enough in PB games that waiting for a patch or 6 is the smarter choice.
Yeah, I myself would never pre-order one of their games, but I suggest others do! Take one for the team guys! :)
I want this to be good! It remains high on my wishlist!
Bugs are always a worry. The video review specifically mentions that they did not encounter any significant bugs so I am hopeful. But there are some AI issues and of course a release day patch. At this point in time everyone should know what awaits you if you buy a game from these guys.
Already pre-ordered a month ago. Finally moving on from that old annoying pirate theme. I’m there on day one. Had so much fun with the Gothics, and somewhat with the Risens, I can bear through the bad graphics, animations, AI and numerous bugs that will surely enshroud the game, great fun is certainly there to be had!