Gothic II: Complete Classic – Nintendo Switch version review

For the review of a mammoth game like Gothic II: Complete Classic it is necessary to enter a mental time machine to step back a few years and remember what made us dream eyes focused on the monitora long time ago, taking out some of the best memories of our gamer pool and even whispering a tender “wooow” to ourselves.

But if this is the feeling that everyone who remembers can feel never too old version of original game from 2005, the feeling of those who didn’t experience that thrill the first time should not be underestimated at all. Maybe due to lack of a concrete possibility or simply due to registry issues. Rediscover such a title today it will make your vision more aware of titles of the caliber of Skyrim or The Witcher 3.

The work done by Piranha Bytes is full of love and very profound ideas. An RPG that we could define hands down “old school” and which, unraveling its events a few weeks after what happened in the first Gothic, it catapults us into a great sea of ​​activity not so much in terms of the size of the map, but in terms of the contents that it offers us. A philosophy that today should be embraced on several occasions.

The porting to Switch

The porting of Gothic II on Switch that is proposed to us by THQ puts Piranha Bytes’ work within reach of a wider audience and enriches it with unpublished content that they offer new possibilities of approaching the game.

First of all in it Also included is the DLC: “The Night of the Crow”, which adds extra content regarding the game’s guilds and also new spells. But certainly the most delicious treat is the possibility of disconnecting joycon from our hybrid Nintendo Switch e move them in the air for cast spells. A playfulness not to be underestimated given the potential of the Japanese console.

Besides these not at all trivial gameplay changesthe Switch version of Gothic II has also been improved under the technical profile. Cleaning up the graphics and textures and bringing the framerate to the desired levels 60fps. All this comes to us without leaving out two problems which afflicted the work upon its release, and which finally have been resolved: L’interface tidier and clearer (for example in the inventory) and a better readability of the texts on the screen, essential if we imagine playing it in portable mode.

In short, all technical expedients that make the title perfectly playable even on the small one from the Kyoto company, and that modernize it of some imperfections that we have become unaccustomed to with modern RPGs.

A living world, but full of dangers

Exploring the world of Gothic II is by no means a walk in the park, although the general difficulty of the game is not at all considered prohibitive. The type of unconscious exploration that we have in the early stages of the game is probably one of its most fascinating elements, also taken up by today’s games as we saw in the recent and highly appreciated Dragon’s Dogma 2.

The game world will be right away at our disposal, and we will be able to explore it as we make our way in our career as an adventurer, perhaps working in the fields to be able to earn some money. At a certain point in the plot we will instead be forced to choose our guild to be able to continue our fight against evil.

Initially the base game only featured three, namely i Paladinsi Mercenaries hey Fire Guardians. However, thanks to the presence of the DLC, there will be very interesting new guilds ready to welcome us in new raids… for example that of Pirates! Also interesting is the fact that we can carry on two careers in two different guildsagain thanks to the presence of the DLC (a guild from the DLC and one from the base game).

Not only the presence of the guilds it will direct us towards a coherent path with their identity, but will also lead us to face different missions that we would otherwise never have found. All this makes Gothic II not only very varied, but also extremely replayable.

A cauldron of the fantastic

To find yourself in your hands today is a pearl of this kind definitely remember where love comes from for the fantasy genre, and although visually you might find it certainly aged not very well, Gothic II has a depth to its gameplay which is still capable of bewitching and creating cult moments that will make us feel fully immersed in its context.

Like the first time a dragon lands in front of us outside of Whiterun in TES: Skyrim, or the fight against the griffin in The Witcher 3, Gothic II will also make us experience those magical and unforgettable moments of a ground that trembles beneath our feet at the arrival of a dragon. A dragon that represents an element of wonder not only because we are looking at it, but also because we know we can defeat it.