Kingdom Come: Deliverance

This game is both the most fun I've had in a while and the most annoying, confused creations which know not what they are or what it wants to be. The game is full of Hollywood action, despite the realistic combat. It has lots of pick up stuff of enormous quantities, yet picking up each item is a bespoke animation that gets annoying. It has excellent writing, but pads the writing with fetch quests. I know what they were trying to go for and I welcome it. Though I have a few tips about the implementation. If you want to give your users multiple ``Find X'' quests, and have the confidence to not also give them quest markers, you need to commit to it. Half of the game has a compass pointing you at the quest, the other half, follows in the best traditions of morrowind and gives you only a vague idea of what's supposed to happen or the geography. This is awesome if executed correctly, and unfortunately, KC:D makes a few vital mistakes. I particularly find that the journal entries are insufficiently detailed to give you the level of detail needed for you to just be able to turn off the compass and go at it. Warhorse have an excellent idea on their hands, and I wish them good luck on their next game. I wish I could rank it higher, but lack of polish given the attention to detail in many areas was just… for lack of a better word, killing the immersion. I enjoyed the game, more than I expected and certainly more than many other games.

I expected some kind of Witcher 3 fight system. I got a realistic fight system that is for me total crap. I get almost around every corner beaten to pulp. Bandages don't help much, food stuffs you and you always have to sleep and eat. So if you are a hardcore realist and a "one hit can kill you" fan, than the game is for you. As a casual player like me, its to much management and the fighting system not intuitive enough. I never got the blocking right and chaining doesn't rely work cause you need a very precise timing. Arrows don't help much either, one hit doesn't kill and changing weapon takes forever, so you get hit and bleed and die.

KC:D is a mix of greatness and failures, so you'll be rage quitting and coming back pretty often. The game is set in medieval Czech Republic, portraying real-life places, events, characters and customs. Attention to details is clearly noticable here, as creators tried to recreate the true look of that era, what looks not only great, but also very vivid. Hovewer, because of that, the main plotline quickly become more like educational tour to show various aspects of living in that times rather than a full fledged story on their own. Yes, those segments are still a good content, but they lacks some really memorable moments. In addition, creatore made some compromise and made some more "modern" additions like locks in every existing chest and door or very polite and well-speaking peasantry. Side quests quality vary from ok-ish quests-chains with their own story to "filling" like abundant hunting tasks. Developing character is Oblivion-like, as the more you use certain ability, the higher proficiency in it you'll have and thats important, as your ability to eg. persuade or threten someone may make things easier or harder. Unfortunately, character development goes pretty ordinary and lacks something building up story, like moral system, what could fit the setting pretty well. Fighting is hard to rate. From one hand, its far more realistic and tactical than in typical RPGs and require some time to get used to it. From the other hand, its full of absurds like every looter in ragged shirt is master fencer, who easly blocks straight strike from steel mace with knife... unless you lock aim on other guy and hit him "accidentaly", then he take all damage without reaction. Money has not a real use, since you can't invest them, most of good armors and arms can be looted or stolen and most commodities are fairly cheap. Only exception is horse, as riding on stolen mount will get you troubles everywhere you go. To sum up: a very solid game, but quite dull on long run.

I was surprised by this. It is a truly refreshing crpg in that it is not some undemanding superhero game with a vague pre-industrial veneer. It is wonderful to find a game where, the makers clearly value historicism and and demonstrate some basic understanding of medieval Europe. What is more, the game focuses far less on combat than the majority of mass-market crpgs. Where it does have combat, it is not the superhero choreographed ballet of US style games. This attempts something far closer to what fighting at that time really was. The CRPG reminds me a lot of the equally more demanding pen and paper RPG scene in the UK back in the 80s. Highly recomended. Negatives? Hmmmm ok, here goes... 1. The makers seriously need to cut down on fetch quests in their CRPGs. That really is noticeable in the game, 2. The "period" portrayal is extremely wooden and comes across as pretending that many aspects of modern society, did not exist in the initial half of the 15th Century. This is an impression but maybe I'm not alone in this. That is a common symptom of dramatisations in many places and not just the Czech Republic and the cost of this is basically "believability". Good idea to take a leaf from BBC or ITV drama. Don't forget, you are not the only person to have studied history and especially those, who appreciate this period-game, will notice things. In Summary.... Aye, it's a grand game. One of the best CRPGs of the 2020s and certainly unique in it's historical novel approach.

KCD has some of the best melee combat I've played. 1v1 fights with longswords are excellent. However, other weapon classes are much less exciting - you can see by how few combos they all have and their short range. The combat is designed for 1v1 fights, and when it comes to fighting against multiple enemies, it will be frustrating at best and broken at worst. When facing more than two enemies, switching targets is unreliable with the TAB button and very awkward to do with the mouse (as you also use the mouse for aiming strikes). Also, master strikes, a crucial feature in late-game combat, break - when performing them, the animation might cancel midway through, or it might play but not do any damage to the enemy, or you might teleport out of range of the enemy, or the enemy will teleport out of range. It's also frustrating that master strikes are locked behind an optional training session with the trainer at Rattay, with the game doing nothing to signpost you towards one of the most important combat features. Unfortuantely, by the late-game, when most enemies sport heavy plate armor and closed metal helmets, you might find that the longsword does little damage and isn't worth using in groups, so you' might have to switch to the mace and shield to keep up in the damage department. You could use archery to thin out approaching enemies, but archery in this game is so bad that it's barely worth using. Arrows go in random directions, there is a ridiculous aim sway, and taking out or putting away and firing the bow are so slow that you'll only have time for one or two shots before having to switch to melee. The writing is decent and justifies what would otherwise be pointless fetch quests. The game is gorgeous and great care was put into creating a world that is a life-size replica of a real area of Czech land.