Gothic
First clear of 2026! Gothic is a game I played many times in the past but never really finished - until now. It still plays and feels really good and I'm pretty happy with it for the most part, I did however completely forgot how unfinished it is. Very limited side content which doesn't really expand past chapter 2, a bunch of partially implemented or just empty areas, characters that seem like they should have something going on with them. There's a lot but it didn't really affect my enjoyment.
I played the game using OpenGothic, project technically focused on Gothic 2 Night of the Raven but it does support the first game as a bonus. Having the ability to play natively on Linux is pretty cool and the whole thing was rather promising early on but the longer I played the more issues cropped up. Some of the problems I've encountered include:
- Missing visual effects (barrier) and minor rendering issues (mostly water, especially waterfalls).
- Forests feel less threatening due to longer draw distance and lighter ambiance inside.
- Static rivers - when swimming in rivers in the original water current moves player appropriately, this isn't the case in OpenGothic.
- Some quests end without removing brought quest items.
- Rare quest trigger/advancement issues, ability to trigger things out of order.
- Various NPC problems, including:
- Enemies wouldn't loot player if won in combat (fixed with the latest release).
- Enemy combat AI can be really wonky.
- Two-handed weapons are stowed sideways on NPC's backs (introduced in the latest release).
- Female characters keep spinning in place.
- Not really a problem but I don't really care for the updated visuals and feel they take away from the art style at times.
I'm not sure how many of these have to do with OpenGothic in general and what's the fault of me playing G1 rather than 2 (as I said, support for the first games is just a bonus). I'm sure some of them were also present in the original but I don't remember enough from G1 to pick them out. Thankfully, none of these problems were game breaking but I think I'll play Gothic 2 the normal way (whenever that happens).
All in all, it was a fun ride but it also reminded me why I spent waaaay more time with the second game in the past.
Short follow-up to last week's recap
After writing my end of the year recap I thought it could be fun to try and come up with the first completion date for as many games in my library as I can. I have a spreadsheet with all of them already so all that was left is to try and figure out the dates. It was easy with some and harder with others but I managed to come up with results for 151 games, with the oldest completion date going as far back as 2003.
Why bother? It'll make another recap easier to write, simple as that. I also like organising things so the process was fun in its own way and gave me a chance to look back at my gaming habits throughout the years.