If you’ve heard anything about this game, it’s probably something along the lines of “It’s not a real Gothic game!“. That’s a lie, as it absolutely is a successor to Gothic 3 in just about every way… albeit a simplified one.
Leveling-up has been reduced to raising combat abilities alone (as non-combat ones have been removed); three each for melee/magic and two for ranged. The spell system has also been simplified into three 3-tier main spells and four or so rune varieties, which act like infinite-use scrolls. While these changes are drastic, they’re perfectly in-line with the simplifications made between Gothic II & 3 (and nothing much is lost with the spell count reduction besides summoning, as only a handful were ever any good anyway).
Two less severe changes are the switch from giant open maps to a mix of large maps and dungeon/corridor-like areas, and the flattening of the difficulty curve. The map change will be an issue of personal taste, and personally I felt Gothic 3‘s huge map quickly wore out its welcome while the sequential large maps to explore in here ended up more manageable (though the dungeon sequences are pretty bad). The difficulty change is what I suspect caused the most wailing and gnashing of teeth, as no longer can you wander into an enemy that will one-shot-kill you with no warning (unless you’re playing on the hardest difficulty with a glass canon equipment setup). However, melee is still king at early levels while magic still ends up more efficient late-game.
Things that haven’t changed, despite some of the baseless complaints that I’ve seen to the contrary, include the protagonist personality (still sarcastic), the character depth (the side-characters are exactly the same as they were in the two prequels… Lester might actually have more of a personality here), and the voice acting quality. Some other things that haven’t changed are the quests (decently varied and most of the main ones give you multiple ways of completing them) and the combo->dodge->combo melee style.
Notes:
– Use a guide to find the collectibles, as some are hidden maliciously.
– Don’t sell anything that doesn’t have ‘Loot’ in its description; keep a scythe if you want the Belial reward.
– Sold items disappear the moment you close the dialog.
– Oddly enough, the Belial Scythe is only useful for Ranged builds.
– There does not seem to be any sort of respec option.
– Once you hit a Magic Power of 85+ you can switch over to a Firebolt-first strategy.
– Inferno deals the best magic damage while Slay-enhanced lightning is a good finisher.
– Raising both Ranged and Magic is somewhat redundant.
– Blocking is pointless.
– Locked doors are tied to quests, and some of the tunnels in the North Stewark area will remain inaccessible depending on which main path you choose.