Gothic/YMMV

The series provides examples of:

Demonic Spiders - In the unpatched G3, several animals (most notably boars) had the tendency to stunlock and kill within seconds even experienced characters. It reached Memetic Mutation levels before later patches reduced their attack frequency.
Crowning Music of Awesome - The main refrain of Gothic I/II is awesome, and the whole soundtrack of Gothic III is this in a nutshell.
- Concert of In Extremo in Gothic I
- Showdown, which played in Gothic 3 whenever the hero engaged one of the faction leaders.
Excuse Plot - Forsaken Gods' plot is essentially an excuse to explore Myrtana for another twenty hours.
- It's also a bridge (albeit a weak one) to Gothic 4.
Fan Dumb - Maybe not the English ones, but as somebody regularly visiting the forums, this troper can tell you that the German fan community is an extremely vicious Broken Base. Generally, most of them can agree that the first two games and the Expansion Pack were awesome, but when Gothic 3 came out, everything went to hell, especially when the developers, Piranha Bytes, and the publisher, Jowood, separated. Jowood kept the license and went on to make Forsaken Gods and now Arcania. Piranha Bytes instead went on to make Risen. Most members of the community side with PB and consider Risen a worthy Spiritual Successor, but prepare for a flame war when you're not implying that Gothic 3 didn't suck (yet PB, of course, had no fault in that, according to them) or that any of the games made without Piranha Bytes might actually be worthy of the name Gothic. Even if you do agree with the general opinion, expect someone to call you a fanboy. Flame War ensues either way.
- The vitriol over Gothic III isn't nearly as bad with some fans due to the fact the Community Patches cleaned up a lot of the bugs and fans have been working on reintroducing the dark atmosphere back into Gothic III via modding, but Forsaken Gods and Arcania still drawn not entirely unreasonable utter hatred.
Fanon Discontinuity - The release of Gothic III and the following games made under the license owned by Jowood all created some backlash and led many of the hardcore fans to declare this. Some felt the franchise was Ruined FOREVER, others simply pretended the Gothic series never got a sequel after Gothic II's Expansion Pack.
Game Breaker - Hunting skills in Gothic I, exploitation of monster patrol patterns and the Insurmountable Waist High Fence aversions in Gothic III.
- Summoning Magic in Gothic II could get pretty close at times, too.
- Ranged Weapons becomes one in Gothic 4, thanks to bugs with monsters spawning, at least in the demo.
Good Bad Bugs - All the Gothic games have these, and many are used by players to make the games far more enjoyable.
- Gothic I has the unlimited Roast Meat bug, and the strafe off cliffs with no damage bug.
- Gothic II allows for the economy to be exploited via an AI programming glitch in which you beat the crap out of a merchant, take his crap, wake till he gets up, sell him what you took off him, and repeat.
- Gothic III allows you to beat up people for their stuff (which respawns), and when done in towns where everyone is your friend, you can make a small fortune in less than ten minutes.
Magnificent Bastard - Xardas, especially in Gothic II/III.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks - Gothic III did away with the context-sensitive jumping system from the earlier installments, making the Insurmountable Waist High Fence aversion much more difficult and less awesome.
- Especially in the German community, Gothic I and II were often considered the ideal of how a German RPG should look, a dark, dirty world with an incredibly thick atmosphere (the main reason why you can perform entirely pointless animations) where one has to work his way up to become a Badass. Fans generally refer to this as the Gothic Feeling. The huge changes made by Gothic III and the following games have often been criticized by the fanbase for lacking that particular feeling around them. Risen, on the other hand, was quickly considered to be possessing the Gothic Feeling and therefore, a worthy Spiritual Successor by most.
- Arcania in particular suffers from this. The general consensus is that that it would have at least gotten a few more So Okay It's Average reviews more had it not claimed to be a successor to the Gothic series, yet done away with most traditions and features the games were notable for, like the ability to attack anyone or pass time by sleeping in beds.
Uncanny Valley - The Seekers in Gothic II are made incredibly creepy by taking advantage of this.