Hello everyone and welcome back to Kralizec Gaming.Today we are going to do something different. We are looking at a playable teaser for one of my all-time favorite old-school RPGs – Gothic. Piranha Bytes recently released this to get information about whether there would be interest in this and in what way would people like to see the gameplay unfold if it gets released. So let's do exactly that – give them information. The Gothic playable teaser is available for free on Steam

With this review you have a choice of either reading it here in text form or listening to the video review. They both contain the same content.

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Video Review

Gameplay

And without any time to spare let's get straight into it and we will start with my notes on to the most fundamental part of any game – the gameplay.

Honestly, this was probably the part of the teaser I enjoyed the most. The old Gothic games were somewhat simplistic when it came to the gameplay, especially when it came to the combat and once you figured out how to defeat an enemy you pretty much knew how to deal with it every single time in the future. Here, its a bit different – I really like the way attacks and defending is done though it is obviously “copied” from games like Kingdom Come. But that doesn't matter – as long as it is fun – good. Though, the does need to be a bit more responsive, sometimes it feels a bit sloppy, like you push a button and it takes a little while before anything starts happening. That part needs improvement.

One thing I am very grateful that was kept from the old Gothic series is the fact that enemies are hard. Even the first wolf you fight actually puts up a fight and I do certainly hope that this will be a feature that is kept even in the final game. DO NOT DO LEVEL SCALING. Level scaling sounds fun – the game is a “challenge” at any level. But for me, one of the truly beautiful things about old RPGs is the fact that your character evolves. I don't care about having many different abilities – I care about how the ones I have feel. And at the start I want to feel week, I want to feel like I need to work for every single kill. But as I progress the things that posed a huge threat in the past are now something I can just look at and they fall over. That gives me the fantasy of actually becoming a powerful hero – not the fact that the creatures (especiallythe animals) level with me. I started as a weakling and become essentially a demigod and it makes no sense that the wolf that I beat at the start was going to the gym and suddenly is a demigod as well.

One thing that I really didn't like when it came to the “combat” part of the teaser is the fact that eating the items was instantaneous. I always felt the fact that eating an item and healing from it actually took a bit of time was one of the main things that differentiated Gothic games from its main competitors at that time (The Elder Scrolls games) where that took effect straight off. It changes how combat flows to a huge degree – now instead of having to be strategic about your approach, trying to lure enemies one by one you can jump in take a bunch of damage and just eat. Do not do this – keep it “real” by eating actually taking some time. Tactical combat is great and being able to heal all of your health mid-combat without using magic is just bullshit.

A lot of the gameplay when it came to the Gothic games wasn't in the combat – it was about exploring the world and figuring out the relations between people and finding your own path in those relations. And I love the fact that Piranha Bytes kept that – even in the playable teaser – the fact that your actions have consequences – like, when talking to someone you decide to lie to them and when they find out in the future they will be angry with you (or at least not look as positively at you) is something that needs to be kept in the game. It is something that I personally think Gothic games somewhat brought to the gaming world before it became the norm so be sure to honor your own legacy.

And before we move away from the gameplay “advice” I need to mention the UI. The UI in the teaser was abysmal. Seriously horrific. Parts of it didn't work, I constantly kept pushing buttons that did something else from what I expected. Obviously (or at least I hope obviously) the UI needs to be made more user-friendly are easier to navigate.

Story

Story was always huge in Gothic games. While obviously, you do not want to change to story much if you are making a remake some things need to be changed to better fit the modern audience you are aiming at.

But overall, I suggest you keep the story as close to the original as you can – primarily your target audience will be people who loved the original games and they will expect to see their favorite characters and I am glad to see that you understand that.

There are a few things that need to change from the playable teaser though – starting with the most important one: Stop with all the exposition through unskippable cutscenes – PLEASE! I can read faster than your characters speak and especially since this was just a teaser the amount of time I spent listening to exposition was ridiculous. I wanted to play the game not watch the game talk! Be sure you avoid this trap in the real game by making cutscenes skippable – at least the ones that happen when you talk to people otherwise it just gets irritating and people will not speak to NPCs.

Graphics & Music

Graphically, the new teaser looks pretty good. Not awesome though but I am sure that if this gets made into a game many things will be added. Better texture quality, facial animations that actually are in sync with the voice over, movement that seems natural and not like somebody running through water. Yeah, all of that needs to be solved – but mostly what needs to be looked at when it comes to the graphics is the feel.

When I played the teaser I just felt like in a generic RPG. Not like in Gothic. The game just needs something which I cannot give another name than soul. Find something that would distinguish the world of Gothic from all the other generic fantasy games out there and I even have a suggestion – you have the barrier – make it more visible, give it a distinctive glow that affects how the sky feels all the time switching the sky during day into a bit of a purplish color and at night into the sky having a bit of a red glow to it. That would instantly change the whole feeling of the world.

The music in RPGs needs to be epic and Gothic games always had awesomely epic music. And so did the teaser thus just keep at it and I think you will do fine in this department.

Performance

Now, the big thing – Piranha Bytes have been famous for one thing in particular – buggy games. Awesome, but still buggy games. Make sure you test the crap out of your Gothic remake. Make sure the game actually works this time because times have changed – no longer are people happy to sacrifice performance to the gods of good gameplay. Unless the god of good gameplay and the god of non-glitchiness cooperate the game will suck.

And everything needs to be included in this – gameplay glitches must not be a thing, graphical glitches must not be a thing. To this day I remember how I could just run past the guards into the castle in the first Gothic game and once I got out of their “aggro” radius I was in even though I was supposed to spend several dozens of hours playing the game before I even got to peek inside. And I remember going to that one chest with great equipment with a SINGLE! picklock and just saving the game and loading repeatedly until I got into the chest and got a huge power-spike trivializing the game. Make sure that none of this happens or people will be angry.

Remember, even though now you can actually easily update your game, fix bugs that you didn't find during beta-testing, people will be still angry if they find them early on in the game and there was a good number of good games that died before they got the chance to succeed simply because the developers skipped on testing the game thoroughly.

Conclusion

So… in conclusion: I could not be more excited about a remake of a game. Gothic was the RPG of choice for me. I played every single one and I loved them. But the old games did have their problems without a doubt – overly simplistic combat, tons and tons of glitches and more. But yet I loved them. So I am hoping that a Gothic remake will actually happen and that you guys will not screw it up.

So, that’s it for today guys. Hope you like the review and if you did, please consider upvoting the review and following my blog. And comment, if you have something you would like to add. See you guys later with more gaming content.