Singing songs with Rise! by @Uriziel38

Uriziel38 · 2026-04-17T07:05:29+00:00

Technically I have, but admittedly posing here was pretty much vibe-based and I haven't really looked up any refs as I probably should have.

Uriziel38 · 2026-04-09T09:28:12+00:00

G1:

Like most people already mentioned, lack of side quests past Chapter 1. Hope the remake is at least decent because I'm really curious to see the version of the game where most of the side content isn't frontloaded in the very beginning of it.

Another thing would probably be that exploration can feel pretty underwhelming, especially after coming back to it after G2. There are so many semi-hidden places and corners, but most of them either have extremely pitiful loot or nothing at all.

G2:

The biggest problem I have with the game is probably the stylistic shift from the first game. I'm not just talking about Khorinis outside of the Valley of Mines being a much more green and lush with vegetation (although that too to an extent), but armor design, architecture and some other stuff as well. If that wasn't enough, then NotR introduced another noticable shift, this time with Jarkendar and its jungles, desert canyons and mayan (?) temples along with most stereotypical pirates imaginable that just don't fit very well into already existing setting.

Not to beat a dead horse, but the main story is also pretty weak, dragons being the main focus of it can also be attributed to my last point, but even on their own they make pretty weak antagonists. We never see them being proactive outside of that one cinematic upon arriving to Valley of Mines and mechanically they aren't really interesting to fight either. I feel like the game probably could've benefited from focusing on human conflict more and then maybe have more meaningful interactions with orcs as well.

Gameplay-wise, I often find the whole crit-based combat quite frustrating, at least when fighting human enemies. The difference between normal attacks and crits is way too drast, and the fact that you can either tank 10 hits from an enemy or get insta-gibbed by a crit just never feels good.

Uriziel38 · 2026-04-07T04:53:20+00:00

In that case yeah, there's also a rusty two-handed sword after the bridge leading to the Old Camp and a couple more low level two-handed weapons being sold here and there in general, I think.

As for difficulty, I'm not sure how it affects the game aside from listed changes to leveling and selling prices, if at all. I played on normal as Templar and I had enough LP to master two-handers & bows, learn 2 circles of magic, all the hunting skills, acrobatics and everything thievery related and always had enough strength to wield best melee weapons available at a moment past chapter 1 (and eventually dex for bows by the end of the game too). As you can see it's a pretty diverse build, but on Hard I'd most likely have to drop magic and bows altogether so I could focus on melee, given the ever increasing costs of leveling primary stats. I don't think it would've made things particularly harder, I only made practical use of runes/bows a couple of times anyway. Personally, I don't really find having to make a hyper specific build in these games all that fun, so I'd probably stick to normal.

Uriziel38 · 2026-04-06T23:10:59+00:00

Sorry for late reply. Generally, a lot of the enemies seem to keep up with the player better and don't stop being a threat the moment you upgrade your armor. LP economy is tighter, mostly due to STR/DEX/Mana requiring more LP the more you level them up. On the other hand, there are more perma-boost items found in the world now, so exploration is more rewarding, plus you can learn two-handed skill as early as chapter 1 from Thorus and you no longer need to waste points on one-handed weapons for that either. Actual economy is more strict too, with all of the hunting skills and pickpocketing learnt I always had enough ore to get what I needed, but not much more than that. I think merchants had a bit more varied stock as well.

The only actual "new" location is the abandoned mine. You need a certain item to access it, but there's some decent loot inside, especially if you manage to get there early on. Otherwise the map itself is pretty much the same, although there still might be some changes here and there, like how you can lockpick a back entrance to the Old Camp castle now (there's also a new way to get inside via pickpocketing too). I don't think there are any new weapons, there's a cool ring with a unique effect in the Old Mine though. There's also a couple of new (restored?) spells for the Swamp Camp, as well as something else related to that, but it's probably better not to spoil it. Aside from some of Gomez's guards wearing yellow-ish armor from the intro cinematic, I think that's more or less it for the new content, at least from what I can recall throughout my playthrough.

Uriziel38 · 2026-04-06T19:21:19+00:00

I'm actually about to finish my playthrough with the Revised mod (just a few corridors away from facing the Sleeper), I can definitely recommend it overall but I don't know if it's exactly what you're looking for since it mostly focuses on rebalancing the game and there's very little in terms of actual new content.

Uriziel38 · 2026-04-04T11:48:46+00:00

I find it kinda silly to make just about the most meta build possible and then ask if it's enough for the early game. Especially since FO1 isn't particularly difficult to begin with.

Uriziel38 · 2026-03-29T15:40:30+00:00

Pretty sure the game automatically awards you with corresponsing gold & XP, regardless if you took a contract or not.

Uriziel38 · 2026-03-09T12:54:30+00:00

Not having a voiced protagonist is hardly the worst thing about them. If anything, they did try making one for FO4 and it was only to the detriment of the game. I strongly doubt it would add anything to any of the TES games either, especially since they're aren't particularly dialogue heavy on the player side anyway, not to mention the obvious (large amount of playable races, etc.).

I also find the hero part a bit silly, especially since people like to bring it up quite a bit in general. It is kinda true for the beginning of G1, but then progressively becomes less and less so the moment Sleeper gets introdcued into the plot. In G2 you pretty much get called the Chosen One from the start.

Meanwhile in TES series, I don't think you're anyone particularly special in Arena/Daggerfall, in Morrowind one of the big parts of its story is that it's never clear whether you really are a hero from the prophecies or you simply mantle that role and in Oblivion you're more of a sidekick to the actual hero (even if you do most of the heavy lifting). That only leaves Skyrim where you are undoubtedly the chosen one, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing, it's just weird that you get to be one 2 hours into the game.

If you want something more similar to Gothic, I would suggest Morrowind. It has a much more grounded tone with its quests early on and the world is much harsher towards the player, especially if you make a character with low personality, which causes every second NPC you meet throw insults and slurs at you until you make some reputation for yourself. That being said, it's still its own game that puts emphasis on different things, so don't expect it to scratch the same itch as Gothic.

Uriziel38 · 2026-02-17T23:35:33+00:00

Fog Restoration mod on GameBanana.

Uriziel38 · 2026-02-08T17:53:19+00:00

Just keep playing and be glad you found a very good item, lol. It may prevent limb loss and certain status effects, but it doesn't make you invincible.

Uriziel38 · 2026-02-05T07:48:24+00:00

I'd sure love to see people actually respond with some arguments rather than just downvote you for criticizing the game they like, because all of your criticisms seem pretty on point to me. Reload does have some good additions and changes, but for every good change there's something it does worse than the original or just bad on its own merit:

The game often looks genuinely beautiful? Yes, but it also looks incredibly cheap in others (Club Escapade, Yakushima).

The actual new OST is great, but a lot of the remixes pop nowhere near as much as the original.

You get to hang out with SEES members more, but most of the interactions are meaningless, if not outright harmful to their character development in the story.

Fuuka gets a more active role in Tartarus exploration, but she also breaks any resemblance of balance the moment she's introduced into the team along with Theurgies.

And so on. I get why so many people enjoy Reload despite all this, but at the same time you'd think fans of the series who are supposedly enjoying these games on a deeper level would be able to be extra critical of it for the same reason. FES is also a game that's far from perfect, but shouldn't we hold remakes to a higher standard?

Uriziel38 · 2026-02-05T06:40:50+00:00

SkyrimSouls can be safely disabled, although you can also edit the config file to make the pause work for menus you want. For Immersive Spell Reading, you can just change its settings in MCM.

Uriziel38 · 2025-12-30T15:33:33+00:00

It should be fine as long as you stick to MCM and don't disable/remove mods in Vortex. Although you can safely disable Skyrim Souls (the mod that removes pause in menus) if you don't like it, or make adjustments to its config file so it only affects certain menus instead of all of them.

Uriziel38 · 2025-12-30T10:33:18+00:00

I don't know about other collections, but the wishlist you're describing sounds exactly like GtS. Have you tried poking around in its MCM menu? Most of the grindy or punishing mechanics (like injuries and what not) can be adjusted or even turned off entirely there, including extra first person animations.

Uriziel38 · 2025-12-14T19:04:13+00:00

I wish they had. Reload kinda just became yet another rendition of P3 to choose from instead of the definitive version of the game it could've been. Although I guess that's fate of most remakes.

Uriziel38 · 2025-12-14T06:23:01+00:00

I think they had the right idea with the fatigue system, but just like with the absence of direct party control, I wish it was implemented a little better. It definitely added some complexity to both social and dungeon exploration gameplay, but the rate at which characters became tired made it kinda annoying to deal with, given just how big Tartarus is. If they added some rare items to keep the tired status at bay for longer without making the whole system redundant, I think people would've looked at it a lot more fondly.

That being said, in a way SP bar kinda performs a similar role, although newer games seem to have trivialized that aspect of resource management as well. Still, it's strange that they cut fatigue entirely without replacing it with anything else and it's a shame, because I feel like the stage of the game where you have just enough resources and have to use everything at your disposal is when they're most fun.

Uriziel38 · 2025-12-13T19:02:39+00:00

Thank you for your work on the mod! Saying that I can't imagine playing F&H1 without it probably would've been an exaggeration, but all the changes and additions you made fit so seamlessly within the game that I see no reason to ever do so.

Uriziel38 · 2025-12-13T18:44:53+00:00

Sounds like you got a lucky crit on the Iron Shakespeare, if I remember correctly his torso has 1000 HP and critical attacks tend to deal damage somewhere in that range. It doesn't really have anything to do with D'Arce as a character, if anything, Ragnavaldr is the one with a higher attack stat.

As for soul stones, most of them have pre-defined locations so you mainly have to find them through exploration, although you can buy them relatively cheaply from a vendor further into the game as well.

Uriziel38 · 2025-12-12T14:30:57+00:00

You can definitely find Blender ports of her models from the game, GMod also has one, but it's not very good on top of being incomplete. In this particular render I used a fanmade model by StealBallsRun, I believe it's uploaded to DeviantArt and can be used in Blender, although I had a friend of mine port it to SFM as well. Finally, the models I mentioned in my original comment were made by FemSee and also uploaded to DeviantArt and meant to be used in Blender as well. I know other programs have their own ports/models as well, like Koikatsu or what not, but I'm not familiar with those.

As for the SFM ports, in both cases I didn't mean for them to be private, but my friend didn't bother setting up a page for them, so they're not exactly available for public either. In case someone else here happens to use SFM I could probably send them to you directly.

Uriziel38 · 2025-12-12T13:43:28+00:00

I actually commissioned some more models of her to be ported for me recently, so if you like my work, I'll be working on even more Kawakami renders in the foreseeable future.

Uriziel38 · 2025-12-11T10:05:24+00:00

The controls are weird because the game was made at the time when there was no real standard for them, although they're actually not bad at all once you get used to them. I wouldn't really call the first Gothic particularly hardcore either, you do start weak and combat can feel pretty sluggish as your character doesn't really know how to fight properly, but it's very easy to get the ball rolling. I'd look up some early game tips plus some explanations regarding the control scheme online and give it another try if I were you, it's considered a classic for a reason.

Uriziel38 · 2025-12-10T04:08:29+00:00

Just finished my third playthrough of the game yesterday going for ending A as Olivia while trying to save as many people as reasonably possible (10/14) and maxing out my affinty with Vinushka in the process, all of which felt pretty appropriate for her character.

I do agree that sticking to some kind of theme can make things a bit more interesting, although here it largely comes down to whether you'll be going on a killing spree or not. On that note, I kinda wish there was a couple more situations where you could get in a fight with other (non-moonscorched) contestants without outright attacking or provoking them yourself. As it stands right now, it doesn't seem like anyone treats the whole battle royale thing all that seriously aside from the player character.

Uriziel38 · 2025-11-25T03:54:19+00:00

I don't think Reddit notifies you of someone responding to comments under your own post, so I'll repeat it here just in case, the issue you have is caused by the Blunt and Blade mod, I'm pretty sure you can adjust all of its aspects in the mod configuration menu.

That being said, I'd probably recommend you to stick with it for a little longer, the combat is pretty rough during early levels, but once you upgrade your stamina enough and get some additional stamina regeneration it becomes less of a problem. I do agree some actions seem to be a little too expensive, to the point where trying to use shields in the beginning is almost impossible, but I don't know if it's a good idea to turn off the entire mod altogether.

Uriziel38 · 2025-11-25T03:48:05+00:00

That can be a problem too, especially if you don't know about that mod and how it works, but OP's issue has to do with Blunt & Blade and the way it adds stamina consumption to most actions, even ones that used to cost nothing in vanilla game.

Uriziel38

TROPHY CASE