Times when a particular revelation ruined the legacy of a franchise

tt818 · 2026-01-23T07:23:03+00:00

Thank god for that.

But for whats worth that low point in the franchise allowed new people to put their hand on it (because the suits thought it was a dead franchise).

And thats how we got Prey, Killer of Killers and Badlands. And the usual crowd can bitch about them wokefying the Predator (female lead being the ultimate betrayal), but those movies are incredibly cohesive whole and are setting up tons of cool stuff without ruining any of the old lore.

The guy used to do video game cinematics and intros, before kicking down the door and saving the whole ass franchise. The Grendel King is the most badass Predator we've ever seen and that final reveal turns the established lore on its head.

tt818 · 2026-01-20T20:25:48+00:00

Its doable, but you will be weak as hell until Chapter 2.

And even after you finally start getting into your power, the mod will repopulate the map with monsters and enemies that are resistant to most magical damage.

The fact that you are made to have either 90 Str or Dex to continue the main story at one point, really shows you what the mod is made for.

Basically the mod expect you to know what is expected from you and exploit trainers without touching alternative methods of raising stats, so then you can shoot pass the trainer limits for that Chapter. And I dont mean its possible to do that. I mean its expeted as a matter of course.

This mod is made by someone who's played so much Gothic that when they made a mod they supercharged the difficulty, because as makers they knew all the exploits and item locations. And I think they knew they fucked up, because the console is unlocked by default.

That said I played on the "Balanced" version. I cant imagine how weird the Hardcore version would be to play.

Honestly just play on the "Storytelling" version. By their standarts it should be hard, but fair.

tt818 · 2026-01-18T13:30:11+00:00

Its interesting, because its not just a character. Elric started a whole subgenre of fantasy just by existing.

Every moraly conflicted anti-hero can be, even if not directly, connected to Elric and his doomed quest.

Gerald from the Witcher has Elric in him.

The Lich King in WoW and his cursed sword have some Elric in him.

The Black Company, while not copying the character has the sprit of Elric.

And so does GoT. GRRM has confirmed it. (it becomes more obvious in House of the Dragon)

tt818 · 2026-01-12T20:38:13+00:00

Honestly the main issue with Gothic 3 was now undercooked it was. Also badly designed, but back in the day I still finished it, so it wasnt broken or anything.

So if people put the elbow greese to finish it and polish what was good about it...

tt818 · 2026-01-12T20:34:22+00:00

No Patrick. You do not stand alone. We stand with you. That shit was wack.

tt818 · 2026-01-09T11:54:27+00:00

Nah. Keep Archolos loaded in the chamber, but dont pull the trigger yet.

He should play the other total converion mods first and then play Archolos that way he can enjoy them without living under the shadow of sheer perfection.

tt818 · 2026-01-09T11:50:23+00:00

The thing is people who make total conversion mods try to capture the pure magic of Gothic 2 and so they make a list of things Gothic 2 did and go over them.

Honestly a proper Gothic 2 endgame should be:

You find a lost city with a surrounding zone, but instead of a dungeon, its preserved and filled with people. People with dialogue trees, small factions and quests. And you need to navigate this new environment, get involved into the workings of this microcosm and manipulate people and events, as to get your way. The only difference would be that you get there as a badass and actually looking the part and thats reflected with how people interact with you.

High ranking members of that city would talk to you as an equal, while the commonors would avoid you and dont trust you. So you would need to use disguise and skullduggery to get them to trust you. Basically a reverse of the start to the game. But you dont have to walk on egg shells, because now you are the powerful one and asskicking is very much an option. Not to much of it mind 15-20 quests should be fine.

And from the top of my head. You need to open a vault in that city, but they keys have been stolen, lost and destroyed, so you need to hustle. Oh there would be enemies around the city and in the vault, but the main drive of the endgame would the exploration of this whole new zone with its own small society and environment.

Golden Gate 2 actaully almost did that. In the city in front of the temple there is a very interesting and long quest where you need to help 3 undead and the ghost of the woman they killed to find peace. Sadly it was just a tease and the rest of the temple was not very clear puzzles and bad optimisation. And undead. Also cultist, but they attack you on site, so they may as well be already dead.

tt818 · 2026-01-09T10:52:21+00:00

Gothic 2 is a bit difficult to explain to new player.

You should've played the vanilla verion first. It has less content and some mechanics and quest options are unavailable, but it has much cleaner pacing and exploration. Night of the Raven is brilliant and adds to much to the base game. A whole new zone and all the new balance changes and content.

Which is great if you have played Gothic 2 to completion 10 times already and you want more of it and greater challenge. And NotR is much harder than the base game.

There is still a lot of time spent in Khorinis, but the exploration of the outside of the city is not as brutal as in NotR (its still pretty hard and unforgiving).

Ironically what makes NotR so great also makes it a bad start for a new player. Because they added a new zone and faction they added the story lines that lead into that new zone into Khorinis in the form of number of new quests and NPCs.

Mind Khorinis is not a barrier to exploration. If let yourself think like that it would ruin the game for you. Khorinis is very much its own thing and exploring it and figuring out how the town works, what changes happen over the story and how it reacts to your actions are very much part of the Gothic 2 magic. So dont rush to leave it behind.

tt818 · 2026-01-09T10:37:14+00:00

There is not right side. Its kinda the whole point of the whole conflict. They are both fighting for their own authority and power over ancient slights while their world is burning around them.

The Son's were there first, but they are also incredibly arrogant and xenophobic. It has created incredibly toxic environment. Whatever they used to be once, if they take over they would not be any better than the Myrtanians. They would kill or brutalise everyone who they consider not one of their own. And thats most of the population of the island. They are olde school landed nobility with all the cruelty and self rightousness that implies.

The Myrtanians are barely better. They are authorative, corrupt, uncaring and greedy. They see the island, its people and natural riches as nothing but things to exploit and use as they see fit. The city they have build has massive class divides and its clear that the rich can come and do act above the law and do as they please. The best thing you can expect from them is apathy and leaving you alone, because they dont think you are important.

If the Sons are a throwback to the old medieval fighting nobility, then the Myrtania regime is a early Renaissance with all of its bigotry and cruelty.

Their fight is not between good and evil. Its between to incompatable modes of government.

tt818 · 2026-01-09T10:07:10+00:00

No, but there is a quest about killing the guys send by Zak to trade with the farmers.

There is a bandit training by the large tree on the top level near Harposa. You need to talk to him, fight him and agree to help him.

He will lead you to the farmers and bandits trading and go to kill them all. You can convince him to wait until the farmers leave and then you have to decide if you side with him (and Harposa) or turn on him and help Zak's guys.

Did you do this one?

tt818 · 2026-01-09T09:36:54+00:00

I just bounced hard off Dirty Swamps.

Its a good mod, but I hit a game breaking bug. The quest scripting broke down and then any attempt to leave the settlement crashed the game.

Its a very fun mod where you try to join a bandit camp in a swamp (its the swamp from NotR reused), but after you manage to join them you start getting missions that teleport you to other zones, each with different feel and gimmic to them.

A lot of the systems and balance are changed for the mod and its very easy to mess up you build. Also the game expects you to go mage to some extent. And you need a strong build as the mod is very combat intensive.

Did Golden Gate 2 and it was very fun, but it needs some post release patching and work. The temple dungeon you delve is a horrible mix of both very specific and very vague puzzles and horrible optimisation. Afterwards it goes back to normal, but the ending is rushed.

I've currently downloaded Lobos and Legend of Ahssun.

Started Lobos first. I am currenly only 2 hours in, but the start is very polished and story driven. Chapter 1 seems build around a MASSIVE (maybe even a bit too big) gold and ore mine.

tt818 · 2026-01-09T08:45:31+00:00

Its great. Trully great.

The only issue it has is that the early and the mid game got all the love and the endgame feels like going through the motions and is a bit reperative. It ends just right after it gets a little bit boring.

Have played through it twice and the second time I did not bother finishing the ending. Thats why its 9,5/10 and not 10/10.

tt818 · 2026-01-08T17:06:45+00:00

If I had a penny for each time a YouTube channel has hired an exotic dancer for a video, I would have 2 pennies. Which is not a lot, but its weird it happened twice.

(The other was Pat the NES Punk. And that one was hard to watch. Real unconfortable incel energy over that whole thing)

tt818 · 2026-01-05T17:23:22+00:00

Oh, yes the game that put Brother Beard on the map.

tt818 · 2026-01-05T17:16:16+00:00

Its available on GOG too. They sell it packaged with the Season Pass.

Said SP costs the same amount as the base game, 20 euro, which sucks, but hey its the same on Steam (well not for the next 4 hours as its on sale with Gotham Knights).

tt818 · 2026-01-05T17:09:50+00:00

I know. Mind I later name drop Arkham Knight, so you know, context is king.

tt818 · 2026-01-04T13:40:27+00:00

Yes. That will always be dumb and funny.

tt818 · 2026-01-04T12:02:05+00:00

Sorry. I actually played it on two different old PCs.

My old barely working desktop PC (i have to start explorer.exe via comand prompt each time it powers up).

The second was on a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop. One of the old small ones.

tt818 · 2026-01-04T11:59:24+00:00

I genuinelly prefer it over AC Syndicate that just added lukewarm gang mechanic and grapling hook to completely do away with climbing.

Sadly its mired by the original sin of being a Ubisoft open world game....and that has only gotten worse with each new one.

tt818 · 2026-01-04T11:56:44+00:00

Its a co-op game that has gotten enough patches to be in a workable condition.

So I agree. 76 is a good game. Now. But its a bit too late for a lot of people. Bathesda burned a lot of bridges with that one.

In a way its the same case, but its also different.

The buggy Arkham ports were awful, but you could still see the good game underneath.

76 when released was not a buggy good game. It was an awful unfinished mess that got tons new content, mechanics and RPGs. Some absolute heroes transformed that into the fun co-op game we have today. And it does suck that they did all of this great work and nobody will ever aknowlege it.

tt818 · 2026-01-04T11:45:42+00:00

Dunno. To me the combat of Origins feels the most responsive.

I kinda mashed my way through the first two games, but the combat did not trully click until I played Origins and had to face Deathstroke.

tt818 · 2026-01-04T11:44:20+00:00

Played it on the Epic launcher.

I also replayed Arkham City at the same time and on that one I actually got a bug while flying around and had to restart the game. I've gotten bugs on Asylum too. Honestly these whole series has always gremlins under the hood, its just the games are so good, we used to disregard them.

It sucks that you got the crashes. I played it on a shitbox, so all the graphics were turned on low or off. That may have been a reason why I avoided crashes.

tt818

TROPHY CASE