I play this game on XB1, so some of my frustrations may not apply to other users.
This game ended up being a huge disappointment. It has several good pros but in the end just wasnât worth my time or money.
Pros:
Large and Immersive World (and even looks pretty when everything loads correctly)
Decent Storyline (I liked the main character and his story)
Cool Combat System (it got a bad rep online but I kinda liked it after I stopped trying to do combos and just got a short sword and shield and stabbed everyone to death, made it more strategic than your usual fair with stamina management and tactical positioning being key)
Cool Lockpicking system (hated it at first but once I figured it out and upped my skill it is pretty neat)
Cool Food/Energy/Nourishment System (I liked the way it worked ultimately)
Cons
Graphic glitches everywhere (Like, literally, everywhere. Everytime I go into a location at high speed the graphics bug out, and faces glitch all the time)
Lots of secondary bugs (like a âyou discovered Xâ not going away until you discover something else or falling through the ground, including NPCs and animals).
Poor perk design (creating perks that give a bonus that doesnât exceed the 20 cap while still giving a penalty is especially annoying)
Reputation system is broken and is silly (save the realm and still get accosted and fined because you Rose through town on important mission without a torch, or you might find yourself hated or loved in a location without understanding why)
Horrible Boring Quests (some were to teach mechanics, like the Hunting quest with Capon. However, the Monastery Quest was boring, and giving me 4 or 5 side quests to interrupt the action during the Siege was terrible. Honestly, Siege killed the game for me, and I reloaded and beat the Monastery by assassinating all the novices by sneaking in to skip becoming a monk)
Poor Quest Design (seriously, I single handedly massacred all the guards during Raid, and rescued the hostages, but I couldnât drop the portcullis and just win the castle right then and there? Destroyed my immersion and when followed up by the silliness of the side quests in Siege like âwe need more beer go Sir Henry and fetch us something to drink!â Is why game got uninstalled)
Really, the portcullis should have been blocked off and/or it not be so easy to slaughter 20 guards with my shortsword.
Poor Explanation of how Combat Mechanics Work (does anyone even know if slash and blunt damage stack? do they overlap? which armor resist applies when a guy whacks you with an axe, blunt slashing or both? I wrecked tourney opponents while wielding a Warhammer or Axe just by stabbing them or hitting them with the pommel of my weapon, is the pommel or haft the part that does blunt?
I guess that covers all the major stuff. The repair system for gear and alchemy was too unexciting for me but you can skip those without issue.
Leveling up Stealth was weird. Slow and hard to do vs enemies but fast and easy if you donât mind assaulting everyone in an entire village⊠Repeatedly. Think I had like a 4k wanted poster in Uhgitz (or whatever that place was called).
Combat super easy once you figure out all you have to do is stab people until they fall down. Rest is footwork. I think I executed maybe a half dozen combos during the game, all by accident.
I guess the combos might have been neat but not worth my time to master, so wasted on me.
Killed Runt and beat Ulrich in like 10s or less using the short sword and just stabbing without either one of them landing a single blow to my shield.
But the killer for me is the damn Quests. Ride your horse halfway across the map, or across the whole map, just to get an objective to go back across the map to where you were.
Examples are numerous, but the pre-Vranik, and most Sassau, and Skalitz missions fall into this category. Go ahead and through in a few Rattay and Talmberg missions while we are at it.
Look, I am cool with missions that do this to force exploration. Itâs a useful game designer tool to introduce players to new locations via travel.
But when you have already been somewhere, because another mission required it, to constantly play player pong and make the player go back and forth over long distances is absurd.
I did not beat the game. I got as far as Siege when I rage quit after the silliness of Raid followed up by more dumb âfetch questsâ.
This game was billed as being more immersive and ârealisticâ⊠How is it realistic or immersive that whenever someone needs a beer or chicken leg Henry has to do it? I get Henry is not a Lord or even technically a knight, but if I was Sir Hanush I guarantee I would be putting Henryâs awesome fighting skills to work and let some villager go fetch me my ale.
I mean, dude, I can solo 19 enemies simultaneously if the terrain and conditions are right (like, say, inside a castle portcullis room) and I can break into a camp and stealth kill a dozen guards and then murder two dozen more. That is NOT the guy you send to pick flowers for a healing tonic, send a herbalist to do that BS. Send me on a exciting mission to go wreck peeps, or lead an assault, or hunt bandits, or raise an army, or train an army, or just go plundering and pillaging!
If the designers absolutely must include such mundane and petty quests, then at least have multiple ways to solve them or make them optional side quests for players that like to pick flowers.
Another example of a poorly scripted Quest was the one where you are trying to help the sick and injured at the Monastery.
I had 32k groschen at that point in the game. I literally could have bought whatever food was needed, hired every bathmaid to tend to the sick, donated a couple thousand to the monastery in order to get more space for the patients, and bought a farm for the victims to recover at away from the other patients.
Also, how come I canât hire henchmen? I just stopped haggling and looting after 30k because I realized no point in money anymore because Iâll never spend what I got.
Ugh. So wrecked by what this game could have been right now.
Okay rant over.