Kingmaker is a game that reads phenominally in concept, and everything looks great on the outside, but then you push the boat into it's maiden voyage, and it floats and it looks great... but then it suddenly collapses and you're left trying to figure out why. Time. Time and Difficulty are why. Pacing: Kingmaker seems to have absolutely abysmal problems with Pacing. The game always has a timer to hurry you into the next objective they want you to complete, and for the particularly knowledgable players, you can skip a lot of side content... but said side content also includes COMPANIONS, which you NEED for the Kingdom Management aspect of the game. Oh, you killed those Trolls really fast, good for you! Now you've been locked out of two Companions and also an Advisor. You get three choices for each slot, but if you don't say Yes to everything an Advisor asks of you they'll quit, which can be DEVASTATING (It's VERY easy to be completely locked out of Councilors and Ministers because four of the six options are OPTIONAL) Oh, and it takes 1400 days to max out all of your kingdom stats... Not even build times, quests, or anything else, just telling your councilors "Hey, stop being lazy and do the job I hired you for." ten times over... EACH! Difficulty: This game swings on the axis of Braindead or You're Dead with very little in between. This depends on your difficulty but a lot of the enemies are using spells that can absolutely destroy you on lower difficulties. I didn't encounter many 'Save Or Die' spells, but I sure found a lot of 'Enemies placed stupidly close to traps so my companion AI will run straight into them.' that turn out to be variants of Lightning, Fireball or Finger of Death. I also take major issue with Class Alignment restrictions as a mechanic but that's a personal/storytelling gripe. Ultimately, I cannot recommend this game to anyone because it will never be fixed in the ways it needs to be.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is one of those kinds of games you watch, you don't think much of it, you buy it on sale one day, and then you play it and it's... Tolerable. You play it for a while and the setting is kinda nice, the story is kinda good, but you turn it off at some point and realize... 'Man, I'm not actually enjoying the game, why am I playing this?' and uninstall it. Casual Players avoid this. Watch a Full Story Playthrough if you must. First off, let's discuss Combat, because that's basically all you should care about. Is it fun? Hell no. Is it intuitive? Fuck no. Can you cheese it? No. It's a five prong system, each prong corresponding to a directional attack (For Honor Players, it's basically like if you had two extra guards... also playing as an Assassin, blocking is not automatic) with a middle prong for stabbing. You have to attack from a different direction each attack (meaning move your stick or mouse a different direction for every attack) or else the opponent will either block or counterattack. Unfortunately, they also tend to counterattack a decent amount, even when you are playing correctly. They also give you combos you will not memorize unless you spend several hours in practice. Archery? If you can figure out how your arrow flies, sure, but they give you no way to know. No reticle, no arrow flight path, and even if you hit the mark, anything bar a headshot will only damage them. Dialogue Checks? More like Speechcraft/Charisma Checks, because Warfare checks will fail half the time even if you have double the opposing enemy's roll, and will result in 3v1s and 4v1s. Crafting is about the only well-designed part of the game, from what I could tell. Alchemy is cool (though you have to follow very specific directions) and sharpening was neat... even though I didn't understand it. Characters are... Servicable. Radzig is cool, everyone else I've already forgotten. I don't hate them, I just don't care. Really nota game worth your time.
