I’ve been playing Kingdom Come: Deliverence for several weeks and have been trying to convince myself that I’ve been having a good time when in all honesty: I haven’t. I’ve told myself that, “the combat will get better as I level up,” and that, " the story will pick up in the late game," and that, " the graphical errors, late render pop-ins, audio hiccups, awkward animations, questionable voice-acting and mundane story will be patched over and fixed in the weeks to come." I’ve now realized that these issues will never be solved since most forums on this site seem to claim that these aren’t “bugs” or “broken elements of the game” but are rather considered to be features of what is seen as a final product.
To clarify my tone, I am not angry or frustrated with this game as I’ve 6o hours put into this game on my current save and an additional 50 hours of undocumented progress lost due to the current state of the save system (which most consider to be complete). I’ve become comfortable with game’s mechanics and though I believe the developers have 100% accomplished what they set out to do I can’t say that I find the result to be very fun or interesting as a gamer.
For some background I am a desperate fan of Bethesda RPG’s (Morrowind &a Fallout NV come to mind) and enjoy open world games which focus on story and combat (The Witcher Games and The Farcry series to an extent). I approached this game with mixed expectations since I was aware of the bugs and sluggish combat system and set these criticisms aside until I realized 60 hours in how glaring the issues with this game can be (to the point where my girlfriend consistently points out these issues just by looking without ever picking up a controller to play it).
I supposed it’s appropriate to start with how I believe the game succeeds:
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graphics : This is easily one of the best looking games I’ve played despite the render pop-ins, variance in texture quality and lack of unique style (like how FromSoftWare often styles their worlds). It’s gorgeous to ride through fields and stroll through towns and feels as though this is a living, breathing world.
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Shandification : The world itself can exist without the player and effectively explains where people sleep and how they’re fed without sacrificing the awe which comes from seeing castles and shrines speckled across the world. Remembering people’s schedules factors into gameplay and can affect how you behave at certain times of the day and what quest you pursue.
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Role-Playing : Not that I find Henry to be a particularly interesting character but maintaining his hunger, energy and health as well as his relationships with others and mastery of skills proved to be captivating and immersive experience. It affected how I played Henry and though it does slow gameplay it helps to ground Henry and constantly pull your Character back into towns and cities to buy a bed or food or accept a quest you’ve been meaning to pursue.
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Cooking with ya boy Hal! : ALCHEMY IS FUN! It is so freaking cool and interesting that it puts Skyrim to absolute shame. You learn recipes and have a brief moment where you feel like a witch putting together evil potions. It’s perfect and I love it.
And now for the ugly:
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Combat : its sluggish, it’s slow and against evenly matched opponents it can last so long it makes me wonder when guns will be invented so I can shoot these Cumans in the armpit where their breastplates won’t completely absorb my attacks. I purposefully tried to ignore this flaw since I heard that certain skills are more fun to use once you’ve levelled up in them. But it lead to what felt like fights so easy that I thought i was cheating and fights that weren’t difficult at all but felt somehow longer than this post. Dying never felt deserved and instead felt as though I’d made the dreadful mistake of facing-off against the infamous Tootsie-Pop Knight where I had to count how many licks it takes to get to the centre of the Tootsie-Pop. (As a side note: I wanted to mention that archery DOES become much more fun once you’ve levelled it up and I’ve never had a bad experience trying to teach Henry how to shoot an arrow at all of the petrified rabbits inhabiting Bohemia.)
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The Save System : I get it. You save in a bed or you save with Schnapps. If you don’t have either then you’re bad and need to adjust yourself to the game’s expectations. However, I feel as though some form of middle ground could have been found between the Resident Evil “limited saves” conundrum and the Dark Souls “Everything is Saved, Even Death,” option. Perhaps if small temporary saves could happen after key events like buying something or accepting/progressing-in/completing a quest would let you come back to those temporary saves if you die in-game. But in order to actually save your game for the next time you play it could force you to use saviour schnapps or a bed as it does right now. I’m not trying to say the save system is broken but as of right now it is a huge drawback for the game (at least for me) in its current state. As a reminder, I’ve lost a minimum of 50 hours due to adventuring, fighting and pillaging BUT forgetting to take a quick nap between slaughters. It’s heavily hindered my experience and is the reason I wrote this review today since I just lost another 3 hours of game time since I forgot to nap in some beggars bed in between quests.
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Dialogue/Story : I found the main plot to be very boring and tried my best to do side quests in hope that they would be far more interesting. Side quests are often Fallout 4 style fetch quests and the two Courting side quests end so abruptly that I thought that huge chunks of content were missing from the game. No particular character felt believable other than Hans Capon who’s Main Quest also ends so abruptly that I thought the developers had forgotten that once players find a companion who they can depend on, they’d like to see that companion again, at least once in a bar or something. Voice actors and character models often give their best impression of a socially oblivious mannequin and blurt out lines at mismatched volumes where one is in a wind tunnel and the other is in a library. This is far to late to be fixed but felt like it needed to be addressed.
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Pacing : This game is slow. I understand the need for realism but is it necessary to have to visit a cobbler, a tailor, a blacksmith, an armourer and a sword smith just to get my armour and weapons repaired every time I visit Rattay? Fast travel can sometimes take significantly longer than regular travel. Some vendors will blurt out, “No,” to deals you’ve carefully laid out which forces you to put it together again. I know the pace is slow to be realistic ( and it IS realistic) but it just isn’t fun and seriously wears on the experience.
As you can tell I’ve had more than my fill of Kingdom Come: Deliverance and won’t be revisiting it anytime soon. I encourage discussion about some of the flaws and successes of Kingdom Come: Deliverence in hopes that I can convince myself I had at least a little fun (other than alchemy) while playing what felt like a very confused and yet realistic take on Bohemia. Let me know what you think of my thoughts and what you think of my idea of a new save system. Anyways, thanks for reading to the end and if you actually like and enjoy this game then I’m sorry for threatening to shoot the Cumans in the armpit. That was uncalled for.
and I didn’t mean for this to come off as a hit piece organized by some company. I’m a Canadian looking to trade in his game and wanted to talk about the highs and lows of KC:D before I let it go. From what people are saying I’m gonna give it another go (with more emphasis on sleeping and saving). paid for and sponsored by EA games