Kingdom Come: Deliverance Royal Edition

At the time of writing the review, I have 1361.1h of playing it at steam. It is not without significant flaws. Strong points: -Realistic combat: you will die a lot, you won't one hit kill any enemies, you'll have to git gud -Varied approach: you don't have to be a fighter, the game has a wide array of skills to suit multiple playing styles -Organic skill system: TES-like, skills improve with use. New skill levels unlock new perks. Some perks are mutually exclusive, others are synergistic -Immersion: it feels clunky, you have to eat, sleep, tend to your wounds, repair your stuff. It feels real though, and it is realistic. -Historical setting: no exposition spamming here, you're just another commoner living in 1403AD Bohemia, no dragons or werewolves, you'll get a nice glossary with historical data concerning medieval life to help you make sense of the setting. Weak points: -It feels clunky -Saving: forget spamming saves, you can use mods, but by default you need to drink a specific alcoholic beverage to save, or use an owned/rented bed, improves your immersion, but you will swear a lot and throw objects as well. -Being made by a small studio: it's very ambitious, but with limited time and resources it is far from perfect. By 2020 most bugs are gone, but it's clearly unfinished. There's no skill for polearms, and you're one of the VERY few people riding a horse. -Combat is clunky, sometimes outright unfair: following a certain patch enemies go to extreme lengths to surround you, hilarity ensues, and you'll get angry (and dead) -There are some hidden mechanics that will make you rage quit when you discover them. The game is hard, it's realistic, it's fun, It was made by a little studio with no money, so it's far from perfect, but definitely worth the money and effort.

The Rage Quit part: In my first run through, the combat system made me give up after about 30 hours. I'm getting on in years and the system is reaction-based with no adjustments -- it was just beyond me unless I used a mod that automated things (I've now learned that there's a timing mod that may help with my next playthrough). In my view, the constrained melee combat is the game's biggest flaw and the main reason why the stats show people giving up early (as I did). The Favourite Game part: Bannerlord's early access disappointed so I cast around for something in a similar genre -- and decided to give KC:D another try. And I'm glad I did! I learned that stealth and archery are viable approaches to dealing with enemies, and even melee became doable once I'd levelled up skills and weapons (there's only one plot-essential fight; button mashing got me through). The best feature of this game is the the portrayal of the medieval world -- the art style pulls you in to the point that you can almost feel the heat of the summer afternoon near a lazy river, the towns are alive with people going about their day. Hawkers call out their wares, blacksmiths forge swords, crowds turn out to cheer the horse race. There's an astonishing amount of content (particularly in the Royal Edition with all DLCs) -- I've got >200 leisurely hours and haven't finished the central story yet. And as for the combat, as with the Mount and Blade series you really do feel as if you're getting better as you level up -- not because you're necessarily getting better, but because timing etc. becomes more forgiving. Still, it's not for everyone. It's for the player who will explore and enjoy in-game activities such as herb gathering, alchemy, drinking, gambling and hunting as well as stealth/combat/archery practice. Learn the "tool kit" -- preferably in game, but there's plenty of online info if you need it -- and your effort will be amply repaid.

My expectations was too high I guess? For that price, of $40 plus DLCs and all that. It was good, plenty to offer, unique in certain aspects, but the cons just outweight the pros greatly. I find the game's difficulty just fine, the parts I'm not fine with is the artificial difficulty the game "offers". Bow aiming, decently done, but even when I maxed out my bow skill, fire rate is still ass, arrows should be more damaging on enemies that lack heavy played armors, not a monk with his bald head taking 3 arrows in his skull yet still somehow running off for help. Weapons are good but the roster is extremely lacking, I'm talking the lack of crossbow, compact bow (the one that Cunmans of the time uses), lance, short spear, sling, etc... But even with all of that the game is still ass to play with consider all the bugs, the damage sponges, unreponsive control, forced lock, I mean just imagine Chilvary combat, but instead of free movements, blocking and aiming, this game LOCKED IT, HARD, onto exactly one NPC at a time. Everything slowed to a crawl and it's nigh impossible to switch locked on target (which I wouldn't mind if I'm not surrounded by 5 of them?). Alot of the game's mechanics (half of it infact) does not work as intended or doesn't work at all. Most notorious example: Feint. It works during the tutorials with NPC instructor, but if you try it on some peasant with a stick, he'll stick his stick up your ass. Just don't do it, on anything, it doesn't work, it'll never works. Another example would be: "Hey you, yes you! Why are you sleeping on your own bed at night WITHOUT A TORCH?! You're going to jail!" Then the animations, robotic, offroad horse control and mounted combat? FORGET IT. Then the infamous cutscenes frame rate bug. The game tries really hard at being realistic, but it forgot to be realistic half way through the game. All of this can be fix to some degrees with mods, but then this game doesn't deserve a good review for something it didn't do.

If you want to play Kingdom Come the hard way and focus only on combat, you can do that. You can try to master the directional system and grind out your stats/learn the combos with a trainer until you wreck havoc on the toughest of opponents. However, the game offers you a lot of freedom to do otherwise and be as wily as possible. For example, I was asked to clear a bandit camp early on. Considering I could barely defeat an unarmored peasant with a club at that point, taking on a camp of better equipped bandits that fight as a group wasn't going to happen. If you're conniving, though, you'll first do a bit of thieving to afford some decent equipment or become a herbalist/alchemist/hunter to make some cash. And then to ensure success you can go at night when most of the bandits are sleeping without their gear equipped and catch them unawares. Better yet, you can get the assassination and stealth during rain perks and them out during a storm without any of them hearing a thing. Or you could just grind your archery and horsemanship until you're a one man Mongol army headshotting enemies left and right. The choice is yours. And that's what I like most about this game. As soon as you're done with the prologue, you can go in any direction you want and do whatever you like. Do you want to practice your stealth and become a god tier thief and assassin before you even touch the main story? You can do that. Do you want to roleplay as a scholar going around picking herbs, brewing potions, and finding himself the best teachers and books to learn from? Also possible. Just to give you an idea, I've spent the first 30h or so in the game with barely touching the combat or the main story. To say that there's lots to do is an understatement. If you love Gothic and Elder Scrolls, I would advise you try this and keep from making a final judgment until you leave the highly-restrictive Kojima-type prologue sprinkled with cutscenes. Your patience will be rewarded.

This game has its technical issues for sure , but this does not ruin the experience . First time i played the game , it hooked me for 4 hours , and it was like 30 minutes of play . It is a difficult game ,things just make sense if we compare them with reality . So the mechanics combined with beautiful graphics , give so immersive experience really . If you like rpg , i think this is the most authentic of its kind and you should try it .