Gothic - The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos - Part 39 - Parkour master

After what seems to be an endless amount of waiting we actually get our first real job as a blacksmith's apprentice. It's not a bad gig but I expected more gold.
We also explore the other half of the sewers and towards the end we parkour towards the water mage's monastery to stea- I mean, bask in the beauty of their architecture.
Share a coffee together to help Marvin and Jorn and support the channel?
www.buymeacoff...
The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos is a full game modification made by an amazing team and released in december 2021. It's basically an entire game by itself that acts as the true spiritual successor to Gothic 2: Night of the Raven. It's also fully voice acted in Polish and the English subtitles are on a professional level.
The story takes place many years before the events of Gothic 1. We play as Marvin, a refugee escaping the winds of war to an island called Archolos. It's here that Marvin's fate will be tested. Will he simply manage to survive or will he carve out his own destiny, helping others along the way and overcoming all the dangers Archolos will throw at him?
The mod is great and if you want to check our more information and support the modding team, here's the link to their main website: kronikimyrtany...
Also I've got a patreon if you wanna check it out right here.
/ gamesandstories

[@agielagielando4593]

I am proud that someone from foreign country plays 'our' mod. Have a good time ^.^ Also how You rate dubbing, story, music, gameplay 1-10?

[@ElKyox]

as possibly the only gothic player in Colombia because no one knows the game haha I give it a 9, it's what gothic 3 should have been, it's just that it's complicated to create such an interesting main story and it also has to be somewhat realistic since the main character It's not some chosen one of a god, it still works very well, it is compensated by a living world and many things to do and explore, as well as great mechanics

[@Adrians_Stories]

I love the game. For me it's the true spiritual successor to Gothic 2.
The gameplay I'd rate as a 8/10 ( it still suffers from the jankyness of the ZEngine) and it's mostly easier than Gothic 2, difficulty wise. Gothic 2's gameplay I'd rate as a 6/10, mostly because it has the same systems (and issues) from G1.
I love the quality of life additions like expanded cooking, more crafting recipes, the ability to make your own ammo, improve your armor, harvesting and all of that.
The music is a 10/10, it sounds like it was made by Kai Rosenkranz himself, but it has its own accents, both at times epic but also with its own identity.
I don't speak Polish but from what I hear the voice actors did a great job, they do put emotion in their lines which is actually more than I can say from the English voice acting in Gothic 1 and 2.
The ingame economy and balancing is great, you never feel like you have too much gold, there's always something to invest in.
I like how the story is basically Marvin's connection to all the characters, his choices, how they develop and the consequences of his actions. It's a breathe of fresh air instead of the classic "the world is ending" video game trope.
A few minuses I have observed are:
a) quest items that are no longer usable/ valid can't be sold
b) inventory overload
c) game seems to railroad the player at times to force him in a certain direction
d) the main story is about Marvin trying to find his brother Jorn but the issue is that we as a player have zero emotional attachment to Jorn. This is a general issue to most games that follow this path.
The best example I can give is the main quest in Fallout 3. There the main quest is about finding your father, a character that the player only interacts with for about 5 minutes. 5 minutes is not enough to develop an emotional connection to anyone. Archolos suffers from the same issue. We understand that Jorn is important to Marvin, but simultaneously he is not important to the player. We spend about 10 minutes with Jorn, get drunk with him and go fishing with him once and that's about it.
If Jorn was kidnapped say, halfway through chapter 3 after we went through 100 different shenanigans and adventures with him, it would have hit different to the player. The Dragon Age series, especially Origins really hit the mark on how to handle character - player connections. We slowly start to love people like Alistair, Morrigan, Oghren because we spend most of the game with them.
Jorn is Marvin's raison for adventure but not the player's. Which is why there's this dissonance between Marvin wanting to find his brother but we, as the player, want to explore the island of Archolos, do funny sidequests and get into all sorts of fights, completely unrelated to finding Jorn.
One way you could potentially "fix" this issue is by applying a narrative or storytelling bandaid so Marvin starts to care about Jorn. There are two ways of doing this through a patch.
a) Either add a series of flashbacks once every few days after Jorn gets kidnapped. These flashbacks can be naturally woven in as dreams when Marvin sleeps. Or perhaps nightmares. In the flashbacks we play regularly as Marvin, as a kid, getting into all sorts of trouble on Londram, with Jorn alongside us. It's basically character development in a different direction. Depending on how we behave in those flashbacks, Marvin can get different in game rewards when he wakes up. Either minor stat boosts, maybe even remembering an old friend in Archolos who owes Marvin's dad some favours.
The best reward is if it's done right, we spend more time with Jorn and can develop an emotional connection with him.
b) Add Jorn in the story as a ghost, but not haunting Marvin, rather, trying to protect him from an evil trying to stamp out everyone connected to Marvin. Maybe Jorn pissed off a necromancer, maybe he got recruited by the king's spy corps or the circle of water and someone is trying to tie up all loose ends connected to Jorn. That also means Marvin. This way, Jorn can act as a guide, brother, friend and we develop a relationship to Jorn as the player. Maybe you can even add Jorn as a summonable ghost character similar to the will-o-the-wisp.
That being said, the random encounters are awesome and the easter eggs as well.
There's a lot to say about Archolos but for me it's an adventure that I want to replay more than once and that is probably the best compliment anyone can give to a work of art.
I hope Archolos hardcore mode comes out soon so I can get a challenge hehe.
I take it you are from Poland, but not part of the OG dev team, correct?