This thread is full of me, so if you’re under 18, don’t read.
I’ve been playing TQ for years, before GD, then switched to GD somewhere in 2017, right now I have 639 hours in GD, dunno how much in TQ, maybe twice or thrice the amount. I’m excluding Ragnarok here, because oh fuck please fucking no…
In my opinion, GD is a very good game, no doubt about that. The game has issues, though, for few/many/most (choose one) people, I mean every game has.
The thing I like about GD is the combat, which is not hard, not easy, but has many surprises that mostly kill players. Character development is advanced, we can focus on one skill and make many builds around that one skill, which still will be unique, thanks to damage conversion, skill modifiers and not only that. The aesthetics in the game are on a high level, it’s nice to look at monsters, effects, areas and everything because they’re well made. Visually, the game is very good, maybe even on the same level (or maybe higher) than TQ back in the day.
In comparison to TQ, only the combat has major as fuck differences. TQ is kinda slow and with some builds boring, has less character development stuff but still plays ok/nicely.
The story in the game, the main quest etc, is super old and tedious as fuck. Game areas are the same, as everything is about “apocalypse” and zombie invasion (where zombies are aetherials, then ch’thonians take care about it later on, to then let aetherials strike again). Areas look boring, because they are mostly devastated or look took dark (yes that’s the GD theme). The only areas I actually like are deserts, snowy areas, and Ugdenbog forests (not all). Oh, I like Malmouth City too. The story never kicked in when I played the game. I didn’t feel anything when playing the game for the first time, I only felt like I gotta fix the shit aetherials are doing, but then, suddenly, ch’thonians kicked in and I was like “wait, what?”, but that’s okay, it’s a funny and nice story-kick. The thing I really hated, and almost made me wanna quit the game, was Loghorrean. I had no issues with him, never died etc, the main issue was after killing it. It died, ok, I am done in this place. But wait, quests are over, there’s nothing to do anymore, did I finish the game or wtf? That moment made me wanna uninstall, like literally, but my brother said “keep playing, maybe there’ll be other cool stuff like TQ had”, so I kept on playing, discovered the advanced combat, nemesis, devotions logic and it sucked me in, but whenever I thought about the story, I’ve exited the game, that’s how I disliked it.
In comparison to TQ, the story kicked in no matter what the fuck you did, you just looked at a trader’s face, but wait a minute, I am on the Silk Road, I’m on my way to the deeps of China, finding out the secrets of the mythology, awesome monsters and other cool stuff. GD is like, oh, yeah, I’m going now there to fix the situation there, yay. O, maybe there’ll be a cool boss.
“Side stuff”:
TQ had no devotion system, which is SOMETIMES! a nice plus for GD. I’ve said sometimes because it gets boring to see so many effects on the screen or stat overload, which then gets balanced on max level.
Damage scaling is also terrible in GD. In TQ, we did have some small % damage bonuses, but our damage mostly scaled with our strength, dexterity or intelligence. Not only we needed them to equip gear, but we had to choose wisely what damage type we want to focus on if we played a half-half damage type character (for example, physical and vitality). GD just doesn’t care, here, get physique, if you lack spirit or cunning to equip something, just add it somehow and it’s done. Stats in GD just don’t have ANY impact on your character, aside of physique, which is the only impactful stat. If GD had the same idea of damage that TQ had, I’d enjoy it way more.
Crafting system is also better in TQ, because you cannot do anything aside of artifacts and this is why you know this paragraph is just a joke to say that GD has way fucking better crafting. Component system also goes to GD, although I really loved the completion bonuses in TQ.
Another slight stuff is gear requirement, which is not impactful at most, but still kinda is. GD has physique only requirements for armors, you see spirit there sometimes, but you don’t generally pick a robe for a fighter, so we can exclude spirit as a requirement there, I’ll tell more about it a tad later on. In TQ, we had tank, fighter (assassin) and mage armors, which required us to get either strength, dexterity or intelligence to equip them. In GD, if we play a fighter (or assassin), we go for physique, and sometimes a touch of cunning to wield a weapon we want. If we go with a caster build, where we mostly use an off-hand, we just pick spirit to equip that off-hand, and this is why spirit requirements don’t exist in armors, even when we see them. And if we don’t go for an off-hand, we still gonna only put a point or two to get that armor, or just find another, better one. So, if I had to choose, TQ has better requirement system.
Additional monsters unlocked on each difficulty. You know GD has nothing like that, TQ has. I LOVE this feature, sadly, GD hates it.
I believe that’s everything. In general, I like TQ more than GD, but GD has way better combat. I don’t hate on GD here.
