Since moving on from both the Gothic and Risen series, Piranha Bytes are now working on their third ELEX game, a series that I’ve had a mixed opinion of, especially because of the game-breaking bugs I encountered when reviewing ELEX 2 last year.
Through all of this though, Gothic 2 is held as somewhat of a high watermark of their games in terms of narrative, quest design and atmosphere. Playing it on the Switch was my first time with the game, and whilst it is certainly showing its age in many areas, that janky charm and idiosyncratic approach to quests and dialogue does still feel fun and fresh, and kept me coming back for more, each evening.
Following the events of the first game, Gothic 2 is somewhat of a ‘reset’ in that your character gets stripped of all equipment and powers and must once again build himself up to take out the evils that are sweeping the world.
The first thing that hit me were the controls. The turning takes a bit of getting used to, and isn’t helped by the fiddly size of the Joy-Cons, but the mapping of all of the PC-centric buttons to the controller does become second nature after a while, this is a game throughout which you’ll find yourself spending some time in menus and your inventory – it is an RPG after all – so I was pleased with the speed that it all made sense to me.
What is a constant irritation however, is the melee combat which feels weightless and ‘swipey’. The first enemy I came across was a goblin, naturally - I rushed him with a tree branch and immediately had no idea if I was connecting or not, as his slowly-depleting health bar didn’t seem to be in time with my swings, and, whilst this eases as you level up and get more powerful weaponry, it never feels entirely satisfactory, and I found myself wearing down enemies with ranged attacks - not to mix up the combat, or because I’m drawn to bows and spells – but just to avoid the tedious (and often unfair) slugfest that melee combat quickly becomes.
Admittedly melee combat is a big part of RPGs such as this, but I really did find myself drawn to the odd characters, amusing dialogue and locations (locations that are filled with hidden areas and collectibles). The music is a huge part of this, and the shifts in tone from gentle, exploratory whimsy and key melodies to rousing battle themes continued to impress as I made my way through the world.
In terms of the animations and frame rate – I was extremely pleased with how Gothic 2 ran on the Switch (especially in handheld mode, in which I spent most of my time), and – as this is a notedly buggy game that is usually stuffed with mods on PC to get a steady run out of it, the ability to simply pick up and play with modern comforts is a huge boon.
These once PC-only re-releases of classic C/RPGs are an absolute goldmine, and I sincerely hope we see a rush of them over the coming years. If Gothic 2 was priced a touch lower, it would absolutely shine for those of us that love getting hips deep into games that we thought had gotten swallowed up by the sheer number of console releases and would never again see the light of day on modern consoles, warts and all.
SUMMARY
This isn’t a perfect game, but that showing of age and clunkiness is also part of the charm for this era of RPG action on PC and it deserves to be celebrated.
The game runs well, and the only faults here were built in to the original and are to be expected – that said, I’d feel a lot more comfortable if this was released at a £15-£18 price-point.
Still, it’s a thumbs up from me, and you will get a good 30-40 hours of esoteric gold from Gothic 2, just don’t expect meaty combat.
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