Let's Play Gothic - 01 - The Weirdest Prison Drama

A live-streamed playthrough of the original Gothic, a foundational open world RPG developed by Pirahna Bytes and released in 2001.
Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at / sorcererdave

[@nev9266]

As a German, I can confirm that Gothic is a very accurate simulation of living in rural Germany

[@RuSosan]

Even _Mud?_

[@krotan3845]

yup, can also confirm.

[@nev9266]

@@RuSosan tbf, it's not rural, but have you ever been to Frankfurt?

[@pascalschulz5894]

@@nev9266 ew

[@PeskyRaven]

No way. I’m old AF. I (aka my parents) bought this when it was brand new. It boasted being one of the first RPGs where NPCs had a day and night routine, moved around, interacted with the environment. I remember walking around the camps watching them cook and being all amazed lol. Holy crap the intro just started playing. I haven’t heard those lines in 20 years. So freaking cool. Thanks for this playthrough. New subber here, glad to have found such a treasure trove of great content with all the games I love.

[@Slyveblub]

The English dub for Gothic is an adventure in and off itself. Still, i love this game to death.

[@ChristianCTaken]

@GiRayne The problem is if you're unfamiliar, the earlygame looks like a lot of Nothing, where actually playing it lets you feel the good parts much more directly compared to something like Morrowind.

[@DIEGhostfish]

The dub for 2 is the best.

[@miguelbranquinho7235]

I love the English voices, incredible acting for the time. But then again, the early 2000's had incredible voice acting: Twisted Metal Black, Thief 1 and 2.

[@Blisterdude123]

You tackling Gothic is everything I never knew I wanted and...who knows. What a ride!

[@RuSosan]

1:15:30 Oh yeah, Two Worlds is damn good. It has a great fanbase too and I can guarantee both of it's members are perfectly sane. Edit: I am one of the two fans. I frigging love Two Worlds. Both 1 & 2.

[@timh.7169]

best comment 😂

[@yuza1032]

Oh damn, you always talk about this game and I bought it out of interest for older RPGs but never actually played it or seen anyone else play it! Looking forward to this series. Whenever you play an older game I enjoy your enthusiasm for it.

[@Brizioss]

Just play it. Game is amazing once you get used to the keybindings

[@gardner81234]

God i love this. Gothic 1 & 2 are one of my all time favorite games. I remember seeing gothic 1 in a pc magazine in high school and buying it since it looked so damn amazing at the time too me.

[@the6ofdiamonds]

You know, it's games like this that make me realise how much i dodged control bullets. I played console games, UT99, and C&C. I missed tank controls entirely, through some miracle.

[@griffon2-6]

TYVM to the fine individual who mentioned Chronicles of Myrtana, and made me aware to the existence of that mod! Chatter of the highest caliber.

[@battlemageblitz82]

Good morning from the East Coast, Dave! ☕ You can do it, Gothic Guy! We're rooting for you! 💪

[@Xene4Games]

To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if brownies actually were a thing in Myrtana. I mean, there's beer and blueberries and SCHNAPS.

[@Ancientreapers]

Quiet a few games from the 90's have that video size issue with their cut scenes. 19:29 You don't need 'em? You take 'em and sell 'em. Take everything that's not nailed down and sell for currency is my moto. Especially in these RPGs where things get very expensive real fast and you can use ever single penny. 21:39 It always amazed me at how valuable ore nuggets can be and you find them laying around in well visited areas. 25:25 Again passing up on sellable items? Are you using a money hack or something? 31:40 I don't seem to recall any Computer game that was never free from bugs. Even going all the way back to one of my first favorite space RPG games Starflight in 1986. Another game I still love to this day.

[@kirkwallmage]

Love the pinwheely arms when you jump

[@Phoenixdown0]

Fun fact I learned about this game, and The Witcher before it was translated or made into any games google translating German star trek fan site post and trying to convince myself I'm not a nerd back in grade school.

[@lurchvater2387]

Its so weird to see the game in english, translation is quite ok tho. Here in germany everyoneg from a certain age played it. There is a well and alive modding scene, also challenge runs are well liked. Im really looking forward to this 😁 Also i can recommend the steam controller to play this, works great.

[@photographerleia]

Conversations about Witcher 1 AND Two Worlds on top of Gothic? Now this is good content.

[@RoinDanton]

Oh my, that is something that brings pure nostalgia.

[@RoinDanton]

I am really looking forward to see how this performs. Gothic 1-3 used to be really f*cking unstable on my old PC, back in the day.

[@greywolf6443]

Oh my god, here is my childhood. The Game that got me into RPGs, it's such a cult classic. Gothic II with DNR was even better, hope you play that to. But... hell, that english dub is terrible. And kinda tame in comparison to the german one... The controlls are kinda interesting, but work surprisingly well once you get used to them. You can play it with the keyboard only, because mouse controls were only added in the last minute after some complains before release. EDIT: Oh jear, the release of Gothic III. That was a time, where a game releasing in a buggy state was still a minor scandal rather than industry standard. It wasn't all that bad once it was fixed, but it biggest problem in my opinion was, that the developers attemted to much and ran out of time in the end.

[@Generalligator]

Which if i remember correctly was mostly due to JoWood, the publisher, running out of money and pushing Gothic 3 on the market despite Piranha Bytes saying it wasn't ready.

It's fun to remember those days. When Gothic III came out it was a scandal, nowadays when a AAA game comes out unfinished and basically unplayable state, it's called a Tuesday.

[@Arcin321]

Problem with gothic 3 is it came out the same year oblivion came out. Gothic 3 was absolute garbage compared to oblivion. 1&2 were good. 3 was unfortunately god awful.

@@Arcin321 Yeah, when your game is buggier than a Bethesda title, you question your life choices.

[@antonisauren8998]

The day has come and so it begins! You know that holding alt/shift/ctrl, makes you transfer items by tens or hundreds, right? Looks strange with graphics mod. Distant terrain results in popups that didn't happened in original, while specular lighting shows lack of terrain smoothing.

[@JasonX909]

Just started. Thanks for teaching me how to lockpick Dave

[@williampope3761]

Dang game looks kinda cool AND I’ve never heard of it! Can’t wait to see more of it

[@matthew700]

Now I want to replay gothic for the nths time. Probably novice/mage since the meta way would be melee, max strength. I actually played so much gothic in my teens that I remember most chest combinations. Lovely nostalgia

[@ecliptix1]

I've been eagerly anticipating this, praise be to Jingles

[@lucasbertram4739]

the english dub is fun in all the worng ways and I love it, but nothing can compare to the beautiful voice of Xardas in the german version. Bodo Henkel is a God of voice

[@DamnedM]

Am I thinking of re-installing this game? Maybe....

[@Geraduss]

I'm just waiting to see how the remake will fuck it up. Have little faith in it but we'll see.

[@Chrisfragger1]

Just checked Steam, there is a Gothic 1 Remake that is up there, cannot buy it yet, but it's available for wishlist.

[@Chrisfragger1]

IIRC nothing you kill in this game respawns. Once it's dead, it's dead forever.

[@dirtybrokkoli]

This game is a gem, keybindings are a mess, it's hard as fuck (gothic 2 dnr is practically dark souls for me) and i needed a guide to complete it. But 10/10. Also german VA is muy Bueno.

[@perandersson3977]

Oh man, this takes me back :D

[@thecrowatnight]

Been looking forward to this!

[@Kai-er4yh]

Didn't expect to hear vesemir as diego.

[@darkranger116]

Woohoo another game series!

[@WojtTec]

Woohoo! Game of my youth, and yeah... I'm from Poland so it only proves this game being popular here for some unknown reason :P Shieeet, hearing english dubb instead of polish is unnerving for me

[@FretboardToAsh]

Hope you'll finish this one, great game.

[@TheNomade5]

Looking forward to more!

[@mytelly4573]

Just curious, does anybody know that there is a way to skip chapter 4 in the game?

[@bulanet271]

If you are using the DX 11 mod, I think it sometimes causes some save game or loading issues

[@legion999]

Wtf are you talking about Dave it plays perfectly fine with mouse

[@Archivvve]

yup, dunno, it's great with mouse since my first gameplay in 2001 :)

[@iceomistar4302]

Could you do a let's play of the old Star Wars games like Dark forces, Jedi Knight, Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy some day?

[@metetural9140]

I don't want to alarm you but I think Diego is just German Vesemir

[@08andylee]

I haven't played Gothic since 2002. The premise is very Escape from New York. Pity they couldn't get Kurt Russell for the English Dub

[@geraltgrey-mane695]

Bought G2 never played G1 will be fun to see ya play? I hope it will be a mage run :D

[@lettnecker13]

So in that cave in gothic 2 you'll find something there

[@Generalligator]

Ah yes, my childhood!

[@KorbinX]

This game is truly a gem.

[@griffon2-6]

Nostalgia hits like a freight train, still one of my fav. G II & its expansion are very good also, but lost some in the charm department imo. Still, prefer both with polish dub Well looks like its time to spool new Wine prefix and reinstall this gem once again

[@juanzorzopulos5922]

Happy new year dave

[@jebise1126]

wow intro is super old... says "khorinis was under control of convicts" when valley was... guess some changes in story after intro or something?

[@DaimeneX]

As a person who was born and raised and lives in Poland, listening to English dubbing is surreal. 😅 Glad to see you tackle the game, I'm hoping to see Gothic 2 in the future, and perhaps even Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos mod!

[@cameron-yo6zp]

German made games in my experience are very odd feeling, all great concepts and ideas, but often plagued with weird, unattractive design choices that throw me off sometimes. I've always meant to play the Gothic series, but Arcania was my first and I hated it, so I've always put the others off. This seems like a great game if not a bit dated, so maybe Arcania was just a bad installment. EDIT: One of the "weird design choices" I mentioned as an example is the music, in most of the German made games there was either no music or it didn't play often. Games like Elex, Arcania Gothic 4, and Divinity 2 all had music but it didn't play consistently and the games felt very silent, so my ears always felt neglected, but I like Divinity 2 and disliked Elex and Arcania.

[@Azog12]

"weird design choices" are as weird as life in germany itself. we just dont have time for music all the time.

[@cameron-yo6zp]

@@Azog12 I had considered life in Germany at one point, seems like a great place, but if no one has time for music there then I think that's not possible.

[@Azog12]

@@cameron-yo6zp well musicians have time for music.

Add Drakensang: The Dark Eye to the list. Though IMHO in that game the rule system (Das Schwarze Auge, literally the black eye) takes the most time to learn. By the way (please don't burn me at the stake :D) I think that Risen is quite good, those game were a positive surprise for me.

[@a.g.r.v.3144]

@@cameron-yo6zp iirc Arcania is regarded as the worst game in the series, while Gothic 1 & 2 are the best.

[@DIEGhostfish]

Beer mighth be a trade good/quest item.

[@Raben-schwarz]

I don't think that the english Dub is bad, but the people are way to nice. In the german Dub even the friendlier guys insult you anytime they can at least in some way and the hero is more sarcastic, there is also way more cursing. Everyone is very on egde with eachother and generally it is more rough. They also used real german dialects, (the pirates have a northern dialect because thats were the sea borders on germany) wich I never realy seen again in any other german Dub. The personalitys are rough, straighforward, mistrusting (at first) but also fun and endearing if you are used to it. As a german you feel righ at home. But these days it would be probaly too blunt or "problematic" for the market.

[@toddthegod2196]

NICE this is one of my favorites voice acting and all

[@buddyweiz]

More of "great" yanky games are "the temple of elemental evil" and "pool of radiance: the Ruins of Myth drannor " and "arcanum" and "arx fatalis" good times;)

[@wolfi2896]

hello from germany thank you for playing this masterpiece and yeah english dont sound so good like german

[@McFluffyification]

Oh,Gothic is a classic game in my opinion, it's really good for it's time and it still holds up today.

[@rusi6219]

​@GiRayne compare it's map to open world games today, you'll see how bland everything is these days

[@Skyfox94]

I guess you could re-render the old videos in a new resolution. It'd look like horseshit at modern resolutions of course but it'd probably work. Re-render the cutscenes, convert them into whatever format the game uses (probably Bink or something) and replace the old cutscene files.

[@SplitMyBrains]

🖤

[@gideonevans9717]

Hi Dave

[@timh.7169]

English voice acting my dude 😂

[@sakurikunikai7564]

ok this voice acting is awful i cant watch

[@Azog12]

ohhh no dont play it in english :(

[@jadominek7116]

The worst RPG ever made - loved in my country for some reason :P