Gothic 2 (Released November 29 2002)

The Story

With the defeat of the sleeper the nameless hero walks out of the temple and lives happily ever after. Or has he?

It turns out the ending of Gothic 1 when the Nameless Hero manages to escape the crumbling temple has been retconned out. Now, the hero has failed to escape and has been lying unconscious for 2 weeks in the Temple of the Sleeper until he was marginally brought back to life by the magic of his ore armor and Xarda's magic. But the only Xardas brought him back was to deal with the new threats. As the Sleeper was banished to another dimension it let out one furious scream that called the armies of Beliar to invade the world of men. Not only that, but stone sentinels have risen to life from their tombs and began attacking those who visit the ancient tombs in the island. You must defeat the dragons using a mysterious artifact called Eye of Innos but the paladins aren't just going to give it to you.

With the destruction of the magical barrier, bandits have swarmed around the countryside. A group of mercenaries from the New Camp have taken up residence with the biggest landlord in the area and are threatening war with the port city of Khorinis in rebellion. Again, it is up to you, the nameless hero to resolve these conflicts. You're so vital that you even find a wanted note with your mug on it.

Gameplay

The Atmosphere

It's a real throwback to the original game when you start with nothing and know nothing of your origins. You don't have ANY of your equipment from your time in the Valley of Mines from the first game. Not even a single ore nugget. Two weeks of unconsciousness have made you forget how to fight, sneak and steal. You're weak and cannot tell anyone of where you have come from or you will banned from the city.

There are, however many amusing ways that you can exploit the game in a cheat but not so cheat way. For example, restricted areas have NPCs stop you in a dialogue option that tell you to stop. You can however, circumvent this by strafing into those areas past the guards. The developers even reward you for doing so!

You are rewarded for your exploration with hidden goodies

All in all. It's a very threatening atmosphere with people very suspicious of you but the game gives you tools to create workarounds for yourself.

Controls

You can play the entirety of Gothic 2: NOTR without ever using your mouse. One button, that you will use to fight and interact with the environment is the control key.

Arrow keys to move. Alt to jump up. Later you can learn how to perform an acrobatic jump just like in the first game.

To pick something up you hold control and press up. To this day, I have no idea how to drop items. This doesn't matter, as you can just dump all your loot into a merchant's inventory or a random chest to make navigation of your inventory easier and there are no weight penalties for carrying too many items or even item carrying limits.

To sleep on a bed, hold control up to get a menu that allows you to time travel forward from day to night or night to day and restore both your mana and health pools.

To speak to an NPC hold control and press up.

To start lockpicking hold control and press up. You may press left or right until with lockpicks until you figure out the combination through trial and error or until you break all of your lockpicks. Save scumming is recommended.

If you disable gothic 1 controls, you can just use control to interact with the environment instead of pressing the up arrowkey all the time. The game does look and play the same as Gothic 1, this is because there was a scrapped add-on to gothic 1 and they decided to just put its assets into a sequel instead. The result is Gothic 2. Later due to complaints of the game's easiness, the NOTR add-on was released. You will find that many plants are simply renamed Hell Mushrooms and Slave's Bread.

Combat

To fight you have to get into "combat mode" which will unsheathe your weapon allowing you to attack people. This will scare people into threatening you if you do this around neutral NPCs though.

To swing while in "combat mode", press left or right. For ranged weapons including spells hold control and press up, there is an auto targetting system that locks onto your target.

The Verdict

If you enjoyed gothic 1, you're going to enjoy this game. If you didn't enjoy gothic 1, you probably won't like this game. You can check my review of gothic 1 here. They play very similarly with the controls, enemies, factions and equipment. You may appreciate the developers for not deviating from their formula in the first game or denounce them for not taking risks. It's your call. I'd recommend checking out my review of Gothic 1.

https://steemit.com/gaming/@badcaptain/gothic-1-videogame-review