Reseñas de Juegos

That idea in itself isn't necessarily bad, franchises like Deus Ex, System Shock, and Hitman have all successfully made that transition. But ArcaniA completely fails to understand what made Gothic work in the first place. The property is misused here, and the additions to the mythology and world only serve to undermine it. The beloved freedom of the earlier games is sacrificed for a more linear experience that sits in an unhappy middle ground between Fable and Oblivion.

The story takes place on an unexplored island that has no presence in any previous Gothic game, and features a new protagonist. After the events of Gothic 3 and Forsaken Gods, the Nameless Hero was crowned Rhobar III and has embarked on a campaign of conquest to unify all of humanity. But this campaign comes at a cost, including your hometown and your fiancée, who is killed off mere minutes after being introduced. You survive, and the story continues from there. Characters from earlier Gothic games make appearances, but they've been completely redesigned. Diego is now a swarthy, vaguely Spanish pirate, and Gorn is a violence obsessed brute.

What can't be excused is how the plot ultimately devolves into nonsense. Not the fun, Quantic Dream style nonsense, but the confusing, irritating kind that comes from a story written in a hurry and poorly translated. Even by the end, I only had a surface level understanding of what was actually happening.

ArcaniA ditches the Genome Engine that powered Gothic 3 in favour of the Vision 7 Engine, and at times, it can look quite nice. There are some decent lighting effects and the view distance is solid. But that's about all the nice things I can say about the tech. While Genome was buggy and unoptimised, I would have much preferred it during my time with ArcaniA. The Steam version in particular is currently broken on higher settings,lighting and shadows are miscast on character faces, to name just one issue. Framerate and framepacing were abysmal on hardware from 2016, and the game felt terrible to play. After googling my problems, I discovered that the best way to play is with a patched retail copy. So I ended up buying the game twice just to get through it, because the Steam version clearly isn't maintained. Even then, the retail version is also very broken, textures and shadows sometimes fail to load, 2D elements like the HUD and minimap become corrupted, and cutscenes refuse to play. I had to constantly switch between both versions just to experience the game in the least broken way possible. 

The overall aesthetic is also painfully plain. Spellbound was clearly inspired by the success of other console focused western RPGs, especially Oblivion, and tried to replicate that look. Expect lots of European style castles, farms, and inns. There are a few snowy temples and a giant magical tree in a swamp, but it's mostly castles and villages. The most interesting area  which had an Arabian inspired look is blocked off and you only ever see its front facade. Nothing about the art style is notable or exceptional in any way.

The combat and RPG systems have also been stripped down. Gothic's signature Learning Points system is replaced with a menu driven perk system that's completely unremarkable. The core loop is indistinguishable from most RPGs: see enemy, kill enemy, get XP, repeat. Not to say Gothic reinvented the wheel, but its systems were far more interesting than what ArcaniA offers.

Overall, ArcaniA fails in its mission. The game didn't sell well, Spellbound went under and history moved on. I can't even recommend this as a curiosity for fans of the series, or as a simple timesink, because the game is too plain, too mediocre, and too riddled with bugs to justify the effort. Spend your time elsewhere.