ArcaniA

This game has its shortcomings. For one it is not the next big thing after Gothic 3 and also the world and the character building is smaller than one would expect after having played the Gothic Trilogy.

But Arcania manages to be an immersive and fun Rpg game in the world of Gothic. I liked a lot the art direction and the intuitive environments. The story is also good and it will keep you hooked till the end.

Maybe not great, but a superfun game if you like the world of Gothic. Depsite some problems this game has a Gothic charm. Thunbs up!

junk

Mediocre. 5/10 Not a Gothic game.

A realy good german RPG

Great Play! Loved 1-3 also.

It's such a downgrade compared to other games in Gothic universe, almost everything we loved from previous releases is gone. I had a good time playing it nonetheless. It's at most a decent game.

Playing Gothic since i was a child still hits home with me with this series even though it was not produced by parana bytes. I will always enjoy the Gothic series and cannot wait for the next generation of the series to be released!

I dont know but game constantly crash.I really try to give a chance but no.Actually,playing this a disrespect for Gothlc trilogy.
So ım gonna be reasonable person, gonna watch why this game is shitty and go for Risen.

Unfortunately not working. There is an issue with loading the game as an error screen comes up stating, "ERROR: Could not switch to new screen mode, and can't restore previous one!"

As this game is rather old, has there been a fix to this issue that prevents one from having to change resolution settings to their computer?

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As someone who has enjoyed all of the Gothic and Risen games, (including the Archolos Mod for Gothic II). I did also enjoy this game. Yes, its not the same as Gothic.

-For example. there are no trainers to see when you level up, you open a menu to place points.
-No you don't level up crafting and go to workbenches or alchemy tables to craft. You just open up a menu to craft.
-No the world is not completely open for you explore on a whim, it has a set 'path' with mini hub areas in between that are open to explore.
-No there are no join-able factions. Your goal is a revenge story and making your way through the continent to reach that goal.

But you know what? its still super fun.

What we do have here is a more "arcade" version of Gothic, where you level up your character to gain skills/attributes, find loads of gear to equip, and progress from one hub area to the next while progressing the story and quests. There are plenty of side areas to go with secrets to find within each main area. While adventuring, you will see a location in the distance that gets you eager to go there. For example, in the Stewark Hills you can see Silverlake castle across the lake. You will eventually go there. Looking at the mountains in the distance you will see a fantastical looking structure that gets you curious as to what it is until you eventually get to it. While the world is streamlined to where it pushes you to go, pretty much any point of interest you see, you will eventually explore. Finally, character progression is satisfying where you feel super powerful by the end.

I recommend playing on Gothic difficulty as it will push you to use all the things the game offers to get through it comfortably. For example, I built my character to focus on the Dominance tree mixed with melee (Mettle and Discipline). Dominance tree allows you to zap enemies to stun them, and then go in for the melee attacks to kill them. You can level it up enough to where the stunning causes them to take more damage when hit in melee. I basically ignored bows to focus on zapping instead and go in for the kill. Eventually I was able to zap entire hoards of enemies with the chain lightning upgrade and come in swinging away. The game gives you the feeling of going from Zero to Hero which scratches my itch.

Of course there are cons. Just not enough to kill the game for me. See below.

-Biggest oddity for me is the terrain pathing. Your character will slide and get stuck on cliff sides or areas that are rocky because the game doesn't like you to be there.
-Some of the skill trees are pointless. At no point is sneak worth it. That whole skill section is literally pointless.
- It seems the developers ran out of ideas for some of the skill trees. For example, one tree, Vigour tree, looks like it was a shield build skill tree, but they gave up and added no perks to it after the first tick. They easily could have added a shield rush in there at least to add onto it.
-Stamina does nothing. It gets used up when you use a flurry or a charged attack, but at no point do you ever run out. It makes the Stamina stat and Stamina potions completely ignorable.
-Flurries are also pointless (except for a few select unique weapons). Especially once you get the ability to attack forever. Flurries are arguably worse then just simply spamming attack.

Special Note:
-For the love of god. And this might be the dumbest decision developers have made. If you put in side quests, that have you hunting items scattered across the entire continent, please please please have there be a way to track them on the map. Even if it requires paying an innkeep some gold for 'hint maps', or giving a small radius on the map where one might be. Hell, even a magical item that beeps at you when you are close to one would have been helpful. Sorry... but looking for literally 120 tiny artifacts (yes its that many) on a giant continent that could be behind the most obscure rock under a bush is not fun. None of the rewards are worth in. The Innos helmet is really good but its the end of the game by the time you get it. The other items are not that great. I recommend to other players to not look for them to save your sanity. You will need to look up a map online to find them all.

With that said, I really enjoyed this game. I beat it on the Xbox 360 a long time ago and just recently on PC. You may need to mess with your PC settings to get this to run good but there is a guide on steam you can use.

Decent play, frustrating interaction with the environment sometimes but overall I enjoyed the story and the game. Huge fan of Gothic series.

Wasn't a fantastic game to begin with (boring combat) but I did want to finish it. Unfortunately, 9.7 hours in I get an error "Could not switch to new screen mode, and can't restore previous one!"

I'd changed nothing. Seems to be a common bug. Ridiculous.

Let's say... hold your ale mug... just not dancing on a plank in the middle of a buggy ocean full of sharks and unknown perils, during a particularly stormy and dark night.

The game is only worth the buy/play, when/if only and only the publisher give this game a 100% (free) discount.

I enjoyed this spin off gothic romp

As a fan of Gothic III, I was really looking forward to this game. While the combat and exeprience mechanic aren't too bad for the series, for me it was the sheer linearity of the game that let me down. Each zone independently isn't too bad. But clear one and you will never make it back there, which is unfortunate when you think back at how interconnected all of the Gothic/Risen games are. If you are a fan of the series and need to scratch that itch, and have already gone through every Gothic/Risen game, this one might be the last one for you. If you are new to the series, just grab Risen 3.

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Crashes with Windows 11. Odd solutions (reduce to low quality video, shortest, roughest, slowest. Replay from well before crash location and immediately upon finishing the fight run away as fast as possible to another location and the memory error doesn't come up).

I like this game.

Doesn't launch on W11 24h2.

Amazing game. It is an old game so expect some bugs.
Totally recommend for whoever loved the gothic 1-2 games as it's in the same format but a bit less polished and less systems (no stealing mechanic as you can pick up everything you see and unlock all chests you find)

I Loved how the power trip you are on when you max out magic in this game. I picked up everything just because i could, i sold hardly anything for my retirement ;p

as many reviewer already mentioned and summarized: this title has nothing to do with the original gothic-series.
- boring story
- casual fighting, which is boring even on gothic difficulty
- linear gameplay prevents you from travelling where you want
- poor conversation choices (dont even matter) and really bad voice actors

Summarizing, there is no immersion possible.

This game was amazing, played it on 360 and turned off the hud and explored and ventured and made it my first life completely immersed, great game, not for noobs.

Why so many negative reviews? I've recently played this game for the first time, and for a game that was released in 2010 it still holds up somewhat today. Sure the gameplay mechanics is very simple, but the overall experience was enjoyable. I'm just posting this review to boost up the score a bit.

ArcaniA misses the essential freedom the Gothic games gave you. You can't explore the world as you please, instead you're surrounded with cliffs in little areas with linear paths. Invisible walls are everywhere so you can't climb the cliffs or jump into the ocean. You can't attack NPCs. You can't have your own Adventure!