Arcania: Gothic 4 Review


GAME INFO publisher: JoWooD Productions developer: Spellbound genre: RPG MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS n/a	ESRB rating: T homepage: n/a release date: Oct 12, 10 (released)	Tweet

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SCREENSHOTS

COMMENTS

The developers poured most of their effort into creating a highly detailed living environment. Everywhere you go, you can enjoy the sights and sounds of nature, from dense forests to rocky beaches and wide grassy fields. The sheer amount of detail is stunning at times. However, it does beg the question: will anybody actually want to explore such a beautiful world? Will they? Sure they will... For the first hour or so maybe. Once you're done with the first 5-4 quests, the game becomes painfully generic, as you are forced to walk down the same tedious path of recurring quests, as you encounter numerous unimaginatively designed creatures and uninteresting characters.

Deer hunter.

Buurn, damn you burn!

While we're on the subject of creatures, I must say that enemies are sometimes quite capable of ganging up on you and providing a good fight, while on other occasions they just march towards the hilt of your sword like mindless sacrificial lambs led to a massive slaughter.

Okay, I may have sounded a bit harsh here, but believe me, apart from the straightforward combat and beautiful surroundings, all you have to enjoy in this game is solving a never-ending string of dull and pointless quests and errands, talking crap with dreary, unimportant characters... oh yeah, and collecting a shitload of healing plants you most probably won't need. Sure, you can collect recipes and learn to make potions and such, but it's hardly the highlight of the experience.

To make things as short as possible, Arcania: Gothic 4 needs something to pull it away from the colossal bog of generic gaming, which is its current home. There's nothing distinctive about the world we're allowed to explore. Additionally, you have rather basic combat mechanics and a crude and uninspiring character development system. This is just another action RPG, destined to get lost in the ocean of other similar-looking games (did I say ocean, I meant pond... I said pond earlier, didn't I?).

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USER SCORE
3.3
YOUR SCORE

RATE IT

0.0

ACTIONTRIP SCORE
4.9 Tolerable

HIGHS
Looks and sounds very nice, it's easy to get into and there are plenty of items to toy around with;

LOWS
Besides the lush environment, nothing motivates players to stay in this world, simple gameplay and simple quest structure, awful English subs (or voiceovers if you will), uninteresting story and characters, there's nothing challenging about this game.

RATINGS GUIDE

11 post(s)

Reader Comments

	Lazaroth	[mail] Dec 03 2010, 07:54 am EST
	Reply Since I'm a RPG-fan I give it 6/10. It's like a poor made Risen. It's ok once, but I don't think I'll ever play it again. Risen however I've finished 2 times, and it's not impossible that it gets a third playthrough at some point. Makes me sad when games like Gothic 4 is released. So much potential, so poor execution. Kinda like how I see Fallout 3 vs New Vegas. 3 is ok once, New Vegas is however fun a second time.

	Ftmch	[mail] Dec 03 2010, 09:47 am EST
	Reply I agree with the review, even though I've only played this game for a couple of hours it's just.. meh. Risen was actually better, and I was sort of expecting this to beat Risen in all departments.

	Cheddar	[mail] Dec 03 2010, 10:07 am EST
	Reply I think it's sort of amusing that a score of 4.9 'officially' = "Tolerable".... let's be frank, here -- the review scores for games are a lot like typical academic grading: a 70 or less is clearly "Dissatisfactory" , and a 60 or less is a straight up "Failure". Period, full stop.

	Doomsday.	[mail] Dec 03 2010, 10:32 am EST
	Reply oh well, The Witcher 2 better be good or i'm putting a bullet in my head!

	im_stardust	[mail] Dec 03 2010, 11:16 am EST
	Reply I want to know who are the imbeciles at Jowood, who took the decision to switch the developing team to Spellbound. And I also want to blame the clueless idiots at Piranha Bytes, who not even at this time, know, what made their Gothic somewhat popular.

	Vader	[STAFF] [mail] Dec 03 2010, 01:51 pm EST
	Reply All valid points... I think.

	Terminator	[mail] Dec 03 2010, 02:22 pm EST
	Reply 4.9? Ouch, this game sucks. My money will go elsewhere!

	Et3rnal	[mail] Dec 03 2010, 02:26 pm EST
	Reply I second Doomsday. The moment I heard about this game I knew it will fail. We need more good fantasy RPGs... Cant wait for witcher

	DmgInc	[mail] Dec 03 2010, 02:33 pm EST
	Reply Why did you even bother with this one?
	Towndrunk: He wouldn't know it would be shit until he tried it

	Ballistica	[mail] Dec 03 2010, 07:19 pm EST
	Reply I think the game is pretty cool. I haven't finished it but am fairly close I think. Vistas are amazing, and the sense of exploration is great. Buy it on sale and you can't be disappointed. 4.9? Well, on a 5 is average scale that might be viable. If a five is average I would give it a 6.5.

	kreep69	[mail] Dec 03 2010, 11:24 pm EST
	Reply i finished the game and second giving it a 6.5. read about it being to easy and the suggestion to play on 'hard' (not the hightest difficulty, one below) and it was very well balanced and challenging through the end (okay make that until i maxxed out fire and magic power close to the end). i feel the 'hard' setting should have been normal. they also should have made it play smoother .. i had to run a damn java directx hook fps limiter to get it to play right. good story and game as long as youre not expecting it to be the original gothics and can suspend any problems you have carrying unlimited inventory or being able to craft, cook, or eat things on the spot or not needing to sleep.