Kingdom Come: Deliverance
So, anybody else playing this game? Because if not, go buy it right now because it's AWESOME!!!!
For those who have been living under a rock, it's a medieval RPG set in 15th century Bohemia (what is now the Czech Republic). I don't normally go for games where you get given a character to play but I'm making an exception here, because it's AWESOME!!!! (did I mention that it's awesome? )
It starts off very cliched JRPG - young lad wakes up after oversleeping, has to help parents with stuff, explors starting village and interacts with people, even down to the whole "starting village gets destroyed" thing, except this actually happened. It's quite cool the way they've worked your story into actual events from history, and included actual characters, and the adherence to historical accuracy was the biggest draw for me. The combat system feels clunky at first but when you get the hang of it you can do some really cool stuff - stuff based on actual real life techniques. The save system is also a bit clunky - autosave at certain points, saving only in beds and by drinking Saviour Schnapps which is really expensive but the good news is you can learn to brew your own. The alchemy system is the coolest looking one I've ever seen in a game!
The world is beautiful, the landscapes are really well made, and the buildings are really finely crafted, even down to the thatched roofs, and it's all very historically accurate. You can even learn a bit about history from it (I've learned quite a bit about Jan Hus and the Hussites).
My only real gripe is that they moved away from the beta version of "having to ask directions to places" and instead decided to do what every other modern RPG does and say "go see this person somewhere between here and Sassau!" while sticking a quest marker on the map... I HATE quest markers!
There's no magic, no monsters, no dungeon crawling, it's full-on medieval. But you can have a big sword and wear plate armour... well, you can have a longsword, which was the biggest sword around at the time. If you want hi-power fantasy stuff with crazy-fancy armour (with big pauldrons) and big FF style swords, this probably isn't for you. But if historical accuracy, realism, and medieval Europe is your thing, you won't get better than this.
For those who have been living under a rock, it's a medieval RPG set in 15th century Bohemia (what is now the Czech Republic). I don't normally go for games where you get given a character to play but I'm making an exception here, because it's AWESOME!!!! (did I mention that it's awesome? )
It starts off very cliched JRPG - young lad wakes up after oversleeping, has to help parents with stuff, explors starting village and interacts with people, even down to the whole "starting village gets destroyed" thing, except this actually happened. It's quite cool the way they've worked your story into actual events from history, and included actual characters, and the adherence to historical accuracy was the biggest draw for me. The combat system feels clunky at first but when you get the hang of it you can do some really cool stuff - stuff based on actual real life techniques. The save system is also a bit clunky - autosave at certain points, saving only in beds and by drinking Saviour Schnapps which is really expensive but the good news is you can learn to brew your own. The alchemy system is the coolest looking one I've ever seen in a game!
The world is beautiful, the landscapes are really well made, and the buildings are really finely crafted, even down to the thatched roofs, and it's all very historically accurate. You can even learn a bit about history from it (I've learned quite a bit about Jan Hus and the Hussites).
My only real gripe is that they moved away from the beta version of "having to ask directions to places" and instead decided to do what every other modern RPG does and say "go see this person somewhere between here and Sassau!" while sticking a quest marker on the map... I HATE quest markers!
There's no magic, no monsters, no dungeon crawling, it's full-on medieval. But you can have a big sword and wear plate armour... well, you can have a longsword, which was the biggest sword around at the time. If you want hi-power fantasy stuff with crazy-fancy armour (with big pauldrons) and big FF style swords, this probably isn't for you. But if historical accuracy, realism, and medieval Europe is your thing, you won't get better than this.
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Comments
One of those ways to save the game is by drinking Saviour Schnapps, a rare potion that can occasionally be bought or given as a reward. Others include sleeping and auto saving (usually happening after completing a main story mission).
How does it work for people who may unfortunately experience a crash after 1 or 2 hours of adventure? Or for those who can't let themselves play for many hours in one go?
Another question: is the current state of the game (bug-wise) ok?
Not sure about crashing yet because I haven't experienced that, tbh, but I heard in the latest patch Warhorse are considering a "save and quit" feature, which will hopefully mitigate that.
As for bugs, I haven't experienced anything gamebreaking yet. I've heard from others that have, but my experience so far has been pretty okay, the game's been quite stable, and I've played for a total of 40 hours so far (considering I've had the game for about 10 days that's a lot by my standards... like, seriously a lot!).
eta: I forgot to mention the clothing/armour system: best I've seen for a long time. Most modern RPGs oversimplify it and have you wear either a "normal clothes" outfit, or a "suit of armour" (with no adverse affects to wearing armour meaning no incentive to even have normal clothes at all). Not this game... not only are there several layers of things to wear but it also affects certain stats regarding talking to people! If you wear armour all the time your charisma will be lower, which will affect your persuade ability, but will improve your threaten/intimidate ability (especially if you're dirty and covered in blood - yes that is actually a thing in this game!). But if you wear nice clothes and wash often, your charisma and speechcraft will improve but you'll be less threatening.
As for how it works: the chest has a slot for a base layer (which is either normal clothing or a gambeson/arming jack), a slot for mail, a slot for a cuirass/bridandine, and a slot for a livery tabard or surcoat. You can fill as many, or as few, of these slots as you want. The head has a slot for a coif/hood and a slot for a helmet/hat, etc. This way, you can layer clothing and armour the way it's supposed to be (although I'd prefer it if the jack went over normal clothing as well but I guess I can't have everything! ). Everything you wear affects your protection against slashing, piercing, and blunt damage, as well as charisma, noise, conspicuousness, and visibility - honestly, those are actually stats you have, and you can be stealthy by paying attention to these stats.
Cons so far; It feels very consolified, which is BAD in my book. They are not utilizing the mouse good enough and the buttons feel very much tailored for a console control. Kinda like skyrim, but even more clunky since there are more buttons everywhere. Aiming and clicking on objects is not perfect. Often I see down in the corner I can open a container, for example, but my mouse isn't directly aimed on one specific container. When there's several containers, I have no idea which one the game thinks I am aiming at since it seems to use the character placement and cone of vision to determine that rather than the actual mouse pointer. But this is very, very early, so I assume I will get used to it. Another con is that I cannot affect the looks of the character. Sure, he's bland enough to be ok but it still takes away some of the feeling that it's "me" in the game.
Pros so far; Everything else! It's BEAUTIFUL, it's REALISTIC, it's really well made. I mean, ridiculously well made so far. Will be interesting to see what happens later on with bigger areas etc, if they can maintain the level of detail they have made in the starting village.
Looking forward to go home from work, drink a beer and continue the adventure.
Edit: Ugh.. I really do not like the save system. Just misclicked trying to go down a ladder and fell to my death and since you can't save whenever, I have to go through like 5 dialogue trees again and run around picking up stuff, do the trades again etc.. I get the realism part of the game, but a simple menu choice for skipping the semi-ironman mode would have been much prefered.
Overall, I really liked this game too. Combat is a bit too rough at first but that's also in the "you have to get used to the controls" zone. Probably the best third person melee combat I can think of ever playing.
Just don't go in thinking you'll win the tournament immediately once it becomes available. It's definitely suffers from post-game DLC syndrome, combatants are balanced to be late game challenges. It pissed me off so bad when I first joined (having killed like four or five people, just the first ragged guys you fight) and got my butt handed to me. They felt ridiculously unfair.
Anyways, I'm about 90% confident I will mod that part, hehe. "ain't nobody got time for that"