ToEE vs. Gothic II vs. Arcanum

[extarbags]

Amazon has all of them for $10 each, and I'm trying to use up the last $10 of a gift certificate.

Which?

[Anaxagoras]

I thought Arcanum was awful... it had an atrocious combat system. Some people claimed that the role playing and PC/NPC interactions became really excellent later in the game, but I couldn't stand the lousy graphics and boring combat long enough to really get into the story. And all the reviews I read said that those two elements (graphics and combat) didn't get any better.


As for TOEE vs. Gothic II, I'm sure you've read the posts about TOEE, so there's no need to go into that one again. Although Gothic II wasn't my cup of tea (I really preferred TOEE) it seemed to have high production qualities and everyone else seems very happy with it. So.... go with Gothic II?

[Ben Sones]

Of those I liked Arcanum the best. It's a slow starter, but a fantastic game once it gets going--as good as the Fallouts in terms of writing, story, and quests. Make sure you use the turn-based combat option--the realtime combat isn't very good.

[Kevin Grey]

I liked Gothic II the most but I also loved Arcanum. ToEE would be a distant third on my list.

[John Reynolds]

Never played Arcanum, but of the remaining two I'd go with Gothic 2.

[curst]

Gothic 2 > ToEE > Arcanum

[Gendal]

(Gothic 2 == ToEE) > Arcanum

ToEE just had far to fantastic of a combat engine for me not to rate it as high as Gothic 2, which otherwise kicked it in the keister. Arcanum just never sucked me in.

[Mehrunes]

I'd rate Arcanum higher than ToEE, despite the greatness of ToEE's combat system I don't think a fairly basic dungeon crawl can compare to having whole world to explore with tons of interesting and unusual quests with multiple solutions like Fallout. Arcanum's much more difficult to get into however, because of it's poor combat and how unorthodox it's theme is. I never played Gothic II, so I can't comment on that.

[Jonathan Blow]

Gothic 2.

[xahlt]

Gothic 2 for me, but I'd almost hesitate recommending Gothic 2 if you haven't played Gothic 1, just because the best moments in the game come from seeing and feeling how much the world has changed since the first.

I don't think I've seen any other RPG series do that nearly as well; even the Ultimas changed the basic tech and land layout too much between versions for me to feel like I was really in the same world beyond town names and companions.

[Silverlight]

I haven't played Gothic 2, but if you don't want it, then just save your money. Arcanum looks dated and plays lousily; it's solely saved by the backstory and world design. Most of the time I can play through pretty much any game two to four times and still get enjoyment and interest out of it, but not Arcanum. And the moment I left chargen, ToEE started seriously repulsing me to the point where I uninstalled it and never looked back.

EDIT: Just to be perfectly clear on this point. Arcanum looked dated on RELEASE DAY. Its graphical prowess would comfortably fit on a DOS machine, or alternatively a Super Nintendo.

If you don't want Gothic 2, and yet can't save your money, buy it and give it to a friend or something.

[Lunch of Kong]

Gothic 2 was very nice. The first time I booted it up, it took my breath away. I didn't get that feeling from either TOEE or Arcanum.

[Idar Thorvaldsen]

Gothic 2 if you like exploration, somewhat skill-based combat, and a third-persony actionish feel combined with quests, exploration and stuff.

Arcanum if you can tolerate unfinishedness, bugs, no balance and uglyness (not just oldness) in order to experience an at times interesting story and world.

Have just barely tried TOEE, so won't comment on it. Is there any style of RPG you prefer?

Personally I'd recommend Gothic II unreservedly. Anyone have any news on the expansion, BTW?

[Bwah]

Heh, am I the only one that isn't bothered by the graphics in Arcanum?
They aren't great, but they never bothered me.

Anyway, out of the three I've only played Arcanum, but I still think it's safe to recommend getting it. I had a blast playing through. The combat system might be bad, but the setting and quests definitively makes up for it.

[snowmyr]

Arcanum is pretty much the opposite of TOEE as far as RPG games go. Arcanum has an excellent plot, npc interactions, and meaningful choices to be made by the PC. It has a horrible combat engine (real time or turn based) and poor graphics. Flip that around and you have TOEE. I enjoyed Arcanum myself, and didn't like TOEE.

Gothic 2 is in the middle. The graphics are pretty good, and there are some meaningful choices to be made but combat was tedious. I spent most of the game trying to find "cheap" ledges to reach so I could shoot down on the enemies unharmed and survive the fights. Or shooting one orc in a horde, running across half the map to escape, then returning to the pack to take one more down.

That said, I'd recommend Gothic 2. The good outweighs the bad.

[JD]

I haven't played ToEE and don't remember Arcanum that well, but Gothic 2 was one of the most enjoyable and atmospheric games I played in the past 2 years. Usually I'm one of the gamers that get tired of an RPG after 20-30 hours and take a break of several weeks or even months to finish it later. Gothic 2 happens to be one of those I basically beat 'non-stop'.

[Peter Frazier]

I'm another Gothic 2 fanboy. It took a little while for it to get its hooks into me but once it did, I just wanted to play the game non-stop. A great, underrated game.

[wildpokerman]

If you're into quests and if you like to make stuff choose arcanum.
If you're into combat choose TOEE.
IF you're into story and graphics choose Gothic II

[Qenan]

Amazon has all of them for $10 each, and I'm trying to use up the last $10 of a gift certificate.

Which?

Depends on what you like. I thought ToEE had a weak story but a strong combat engine. Arcanum was the opposite. I haven't been able to maintain my interest in Gothic 2 for some reason, so no comment there.

[John Reynolds]

Depends on what you like. I thought ToEE had a weak story but a strong combat engine. Arcanum was the opposite. I haven't been able to maintain my interest in Gothic 2 for some reason, so no comment there.

Gothic 2 has a very, very slow beginning, and for someone like me who never played the first game I was a bit surprised at the number of times I died before reaching level 12 or so. In fact, I put the game down a few times for several weeks, almost uninstalling it out of frustration at one point. But when I got to around 12th level and could actually start fighting orcs in the Valley of Mines, something about the game just clicked for me and I didn't stop again until it was finished.

[Chris Nahr]

I've only played Arcanum and ToEE, and of those two I'd definitely pick Arcanum. Great settings, story & characters. Yeah, the animations suck but the background graphics were kind of nice. And while the combat system was uninteresting it did make battles go by fast if you picked the right characters, so I'm not sure why it's suppoed to be such a huge drawback.

ToEE is the opposite. It's a Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 battle simulator with the thinnest veneer of a story. Only buy if you're a huge D&D fan.

[McBain]

Haven't played Gothic II.

Arcanum -- UGH. Quite possibly the ugliest game I've ever played. Horrible combat. However, playing as a 1 or 2 intellect half-ogre is absolutely hysterical, just for the dialogue options.

ToEE -- Great game after it got patched to playability. No pretense about it, just good old-fashioned dungeon-romping madness. Great combat and loads of fun to set up a party. Plus, you can beat the game by joining up with the bad guys -- now that's just plain awexome.

[Robert Sharp]

Gothic 2 is one of the few RPGs I have played to completion. I LOVE that game and it grabbed me fairly early. The combat is tough at first, but go with the Gothic 1 settings, and you will learn to actually like getting off combos and such. There is a lot of npc interaction in the game and your choices do matter to some degree. The world remembers things you have done too, which is a nice touch. There are plenty of things to explore and collect. The world feels alive.

I liked the other two games to a point, but ToEE had no soul to it...I never had any motivation to do anything. The combat is nice though. Arcanum is the opposite: terrible combat with decent story and interaction.

[Lum]

This is almost like a "who's your favorite Beatle" question, isn't it?

For me, definitely Arcanum. Gothic 2 left me completely meh, but then again I didn't have the patience to make it past the newbie stage. ToEE also left me completely meh once I realized there literally was nothing in the game besides combat. It was really really good combat, mind you.

Arcanum on the other hand is a LOT like Fallout, so it's kind of ironic that on the one hand we have people going literally insane, spittle flying, defending the One True Fallout Faith against The Wicked Bethesda, and on the other hand decrying an even MORE original game with a similar game system because "the graphics are too ugly".

In fact this thread inspired me to dig Arcanum back up and replay it. Damn you all!

[snowmyr]

Arcanum on the other hand is a LOT like Fallout, so it's kind of ironic that on the one hand we have people going literally insane, spittle flying, defending the One True Fallout Faith against The Wicked Bethesda, and on the other hand decrying an even MORE original game with a similar game system because "the graphics are too ugly".


Too be fair, most of them were insane to begin with. Now they are just getting attention.

[Silverlight]

Arcanum on the other hand is a LOT like Fallout, so it's kind of ironic that on the one hand we have people going literally insane, spittle flying, defending the One True Fallout Faith against The Wicked Bethesda, and on the other hand decrying an even MORE original game with a similar game system because "the graphics are too ugly".


Too be fair, most of them were insane to begin with. Now they are just getting attention.
Arcanum has DOS-age graphics - and so does Fallout - but that has no real relation to why I like Fallout and dislike Arcanum. (And don't you dare call me a Fallout Fanboy!)

With most games there's a certain, nearly invisible statistic that I like to call friction. Friction is when you constantly have to go through three or four screens to do what you want. It's when you are constantly getting frustrated with the battle system for no apparent reason. Friction is when the automapper is so useless that you make your own maps out of screenshots and refer to those instead. You could also say that grind is a form of friction. Friction is essentially the little design quirks that constantly trip you up and annoy you while you're trying to have fun.

Arcanum has a lot of friction, and Fallout doesn't have nearly as much (although it has some). I know that I could probably install and launch Fallout 2 right now, grind my way past the silly tutorial dungeon, and then start having fun running around the wastes. With Arcanum the design flaws just constantly get in the way, and I can't have fun with it anymore.

It's not a very objective concept, and I don't really expect to answer any counter-arguments you might make. I'm being vague because my memory doesn't allow more and the concept is vague by its nature. It doesn't apply just in these cases, but I'm not going to trot out a huge list of games. :)

[mr.white]

Gothic 2 outclasses the other games. Good graphics, nice story, good dialogue, lots of sidequests...I could go on all day about this game. When you play it you don't have to tolerate serious flaws like you do with Arcanum(you spent WAY too much time in combat to ignore that it was bad) and ToEE(I just stopped playing at one point and never looked back. There was nothing to suck me in.)

The only reason not to pick Gothic 2 is if you're one of those guys who bitch about twitch gamers, because it does rely on your personal skill in combat. Of course, you can deal with that simply by going for ranged combat, but that takes some of the fun out of it too.

[extarbags]

I was going to go for Gothic II, but turns out that was one of those "pay us and you'll get it from someone else" deals, which aren't eligible for the gift certificate. So I went with Arcanum.

[Dirt]

TOEE reminded me why I don't and shouldn't pay full price for a game.

[JJ86]

Arcanum is very interesting and I would give it a 4 star rating. I still haven't finished it but have got pretty far in the game. Gothic 2 is never tried and just for the hell of it on a reccomendatio nI bought TOEE last month for $10 even though I don't much care for fantasy. I played a little but maybe because it is fantasy I couldn't get into it. It seems faithful to D&D rules so if that excites you then get it. Arcanum isn't as graphically cutting-edge but I would be hard pressed to say it sucks. Give me an immersive playing experience any day over "kewl fx". Especially in a CRPG, good overall game design will always be avant-garde.

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