PS Video Games

If the Gothic series has sometimes incurred the wrath of the players (remember the controversy at the output of third installment), see a new studio take a torch abandoned by its creators is never a good sign. In the case of Arcania: Gothic 4, it takes no more than five minutes to see the extent of damage! The little guys at Spellbound announce the color from the tutorial, a real torture tester. In extension, this tutorial we propose to discover the main commands and the game interface through a mission in three parts: the father of the lovely Ivy agrees to give us his manuscript provided to perform three tests.

Tests without much interest, rather long and of course that leaves no latitude of action to the player, the ultimate goal anyway to reach the summit of a mountain in order to attend – powerless – the landing of the army Rhobar King III and the massacre of the entire village, including bride. Logically, our hero wants to swear the whole world and his gods that he will have his revenge … Aided by a certain Diego, so he sailed for the continent Argaan where he will try to clarify things, to understand why Rhobar III – normally weighted in nature – has embarked on the massacre of defenseless civilians.

Alas, in reality, there is no question of investigating or conducting his own boat and the scenario seems as frozen as the story evolves – awkwardly – along a track which provided few surprises. Probably to win more casual players, the developers have actually decided to simplify things considerably and it is as if the player was under constant frame designed by Spellbound. The main quest evolves perfectly linear, the player decides to nothing and it did not seem to see his actions affect in any manner whatsoever to the world around them.

We find of course a system of side quests that leave us the possibility to set aside the main plot, but even at this level, we feel the limits of a game that is open and false. Thus, we must regularly with crudely demarcated areas (invisible walls, impassable stretches, incorruptible guards). Worse, the game uses and abuses of quests called “factor” (retrieve an object, deliver another) and we have the impression that the developers made fun of themselves as the heroes sometimes criticized this role of delivery boy some NPCs entrusted through funny dialogue!

These little touches of humor scattered regularly trade and we regret that they are mistreated by French voices rarely convincing. It is a pity that the technical side of things is probably what is most successful in the game with varied scenery, often very pretty, and well-modeled faces. Each side to the coin, we can not forget to mention the numerous bugs that plague this beautiful production: between collision problems, management sometimes weird shadows and especially artificial intelligence completely off the plate, we can not say that Spellbound balance is impeccable.

The problems of artificial intelligence are probably the most troublesome, largely because they spoil the interest of fighting. While they ultimately represent the bulk of a title having forgotten his past role-playing, it was necessary that the clashes were beyond reproach and it is not the case: ultra-repetitive techniques and a lack of difficulty will complete even the most enthusiastic players after only a few hours. In these circumstances it is almost needless to say that everything that made the rich gothic disappeared: crafts no longer presents a problem, the notion of flight no longer exists and the character development is simplistic with a tree skills reduced to its simplest expression.

Conclude, however, with what remains in the craw of all fans of Gothic and that was sort of the specificity of the series: the principle of the factions has simply been deleted by Spellbound. Suddenly, the player has to maneuver between various allegiances to pussyfoot. The world obviously loses credibility when it no longer has the feeling of belonging to a society that lives by herself. ArcaniA: Gothic 4 loses so what was the essence of the series, his soul, then it is not even a good action-RPG combat because of little interest.

Conclusion

No miracle on the side of Gothic 4 and made to work a studio neophyte in the matter clearly does not honor one of the most ambitious series of role-playing. Let it be said, apart from the name, ArcaniA has very little to do with the Gothic series. The graphical look of things going very convincing than any small side and hack and slash is not unpleasant. However, it can not compete with the true descendants of Diablo, then he completely loses his next role play and the scenario and the player progression have virtually no interest.