Every Gothic game needs some level of undeserved tedium and this one has plenty. Unfortunately, it’s not all roses and sunshine. Rings, belts and swords are all equal opportunity stat-boosters while elixirs increase your stats permanently, even if by a smaller margin. Ancient stone tablets can increase every one of your attributes and combat skills once you can find and read them. To counter this yet again, NotR throws in a few extra boosters to aid stat-building. As such, raising your attributes beyond a certain limit just isn’t feasible. This means that getting to 120 Str doesn’t cost 120 LP’s (or 12 Levels), but 300 LP’s (30 Levels). What’s worse is the way LP requirements double for each allocated point over a certain threshold (eg: 5 Strength points cost 10 LP’s instead of the usual 5 after you hit 30 Strength). Some of the most powerful swords do 200 Damage but have equally insane Strength or Dexterity requirements, often equal to their damage output. In exchange, numerous items and weapons have been added while old equipment had their damage doubled. Difficulty has been upped in numerous other ways as well – enemies have more HP’s, Dragons regenerate health faster, skills and attributes cost more to raise, your items nab less gold and stat-boosting elixirs are notably weaker.Ī lovely evening stroll down the pirate beach. Because Gothic 2 Gold is more punishing to stat misalocation, specifically when raising stats and proficiencies toward higher levels, you’re better off building specialized classes. A mage specialized in double-handed combat? Better not. This was done to appease fans who cried over Gothic 2 being too easy, but it seems a bit much, and you’ll need to put in some extra thought when creating your character.
Although there are no level restrictions, you will need a strong character just to finish the initial quests given by Vatras concerning the missing people (you’ll have to wipe out a bandit camp in that quest).Īs you play you’ll doubtless notice the difficulty has been beefed up quite a lot.
The quests unlocking Jharkendar involve interacting with many new characters. The order of your actions will be completely up to you – wrapping things up in Jharkendar means smooth sailing in the Valley of Mines and viceversa. You’ll have a chance to enter Jharkendar as early as Chapter 1, just after completing several initiation quests from the Water Mages. Jharkendar, the isolated Aztec-themed world mentioned above, has most of the new content native to Gothic 2 Gold. You can befriend bandits and sneak into their camp by wearing their telltale rags. The only catch is finding the person with the right know-how to teach you his or her trade. Each advancement in level rewards players with 10 LP’s (Learning Points), which you can then allocate to your base attributes (Strenght, Dexterity, Magic) or learn any number of skills (eg: sneaking, lockpicking, skinning animals, brewing potions, double-handed swordplay, etc.). Your quest will ultimately take you on an expedition to an entirely unknown land of Jharkendar, a place once inhabited by an ancient civilization but which is now teeming with thugs, pirates and treasure hunters.įor those new to the series, gameplay is your typical role-playing stew with an added focus on non-linear adventures and broad dialog. The Water Mages, which you may remember from the first game, have some clue as to what’s going on but you’ll need to earn their trust before they can help. A shadowy feller with an eyepatch roams the land, bandits have taken over parts of the island and townspeople are mysteriously vanishing without a trace. Arriving in Khorinis to face a new threat, you find things are strangely out of place. The story of NotR is neatly folded into the overall plot of Gothic 2. It goes without saying that Gothic II Gold takes much longer to complete and is considerably difficult, but is also superior to Gothic 2 in almost every way.
Easily the best reason to pick this up is the fully translated NotR expansion pack, adding not only a new Aztec-themed island to explore but also numerous characters, quests and monsters to the original world of Khorinis. In 2003 Pyranha Bytes pieced together a decent expansion pack for Gothic 2 called Night of The Raven, at first in its native German but then in English courtesy of the release of Gothic 2 Gold. Doubled in size and difficulty, this excellent add-on isn’t for the faint of heart.
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