Kingdom Come: Deliverance

This is one of my favorites game I have ever played. Can`t wait for the KCM2!

Plot, gameplay, and artwork are great, and yet your choices never truly matter. This is a serious problem when choices are supposed to be a part of the "catch".

I don't want to get to deep into how great the narrative is. The story is great, as a general rule, if the graphics aren't bugged, they're going to be great too. All of this is also aimed at a realistic medieval experience, and it pretty much nails what it's going for. If it weren't for the bugs, I'd say that KCD is on par with a Skyrim-type experience. It's that good. The problem that I've got has to deal with huge performance issues. I have in excess of 450 hours with the app up (not all of that was actively playing it admittedly,) but just as an example, I was just trying to get through the scene in Woman's Lot where Theresa is fighting off Cumans, and in order to carry on the fight, the game will teleport the Cumans up the ladder to get to you. I get that you're not supposed to really fight the Cumans in Woman's Lot, but if realism is really your target, it shouldn't be possible for enemies to just magically pop into being on the landing with you. You got shot them with an arrow, and fell down. Either climb back up, die, or run away. A debug where the computer just puts the enemy right behind you is absurd. Woman's Lot in particular has had several weird freezes where the whole program just stops working. Even when there's basically nothing going on in-game. I've had a lot of situations where the controls just don't respond because apparently, you can't press more than two buttons at the same time. The game gets a little horrifying walking down streets before the sprites are fully loaded. A woman with a floating head and no body to speak of is really weird to see. I'm kind of wondering if War Horse's Q&A section or their tech support section is non-existent. I've been cruising forums for days now trying to find a way to cope with some of these absurdities, and posts go up on the reddit, or their home site complaining about things, and they just never get answered at all.

I played the game for about ten hours or so, all of which was in the tutorial. The game is gorgeous, well written, and the voice acting was good. I also didn't experience any bugs. That said, I ended up returning the game for two main reasons. There were aspects of the game which frankly just didn't work for me. Lockpicking is a good example. Obtaining lock picks at an early level are basically required but difficult to get. Once you can get a few, however, they are effectively worthless due to maddening lockpick mini-game. It makes Skyrim and other similar game's hard lock picking look like childs play. Add to that the very very very very limited saving available and - well - it just was not worth my time to reload from a save made many minutes before, get to the same point, fail, and then ... reload ... reload... reload. Note that while there are mods that supposedly fix the save game issue, I was unable to get these to run on the GOG version.

At first I wanted to give it 3 stars because it has frustrating moments, where not much is explained and you are expected to get what the developers want from you right away while running or fighting. Then, after a while, the whole package unfolds nicely and the heavy-tinted story and casual humor take over. Graphics are very good, as is the sound and voice acting. Movement feels responsive. It is a large game, made with a lot of feeling and I can really see and appreciate that. The overall quality is comparable with Witcher 3, just not as flashy.