Kingdom Come: Deliverance

The writing is good.

The graphics are better.

The presentation is best.

Impressive game.

 

What about the gameplay?

 

But!!! is it "perfect"?

 

And I'm assuming it's a Unity game sense it's brought up in here? lol.

 

Nope, it's made in CryEngine.

 

The bugs are plentiful.

 

Six hours in, haven't found one.

 

I just hit Rattay, and I'd say:

Writing is okay. I've seen nothing "good" yet. This may be a place where your preference for slow starts makes the game better to you.

Graphics are pretty good on people, kind of a mixed bag on buildings and such, and phenomenal in the outside environment.

I'm not really sure what we're defining as presentation. But I do know that the lip sync is terrible. I played a little bit of The Technomancer the day before I started KCD and the lip sync feels almost a teeny bit better in that game. Terrible in both. Additionally, while the faces look good graphically, their attempts at emotional movement are really, really poor. Divish and Robard and the one villain, the German guy, all look good, but pretty much everyone else looks like a kind of mannequin.

I'm really surprised by how hard they're going in on the survival mechanics. Did not hear a thing about that until a couple days ago. I'm mostly pleased, because I've been looking for a story-based survival game for a while now.

One thing that does bother me is the saving, but there's already a mod for that so it doesn't have to be a problem for me if I don't want it to.

Combat is not near as cumbersome as it looked beforehand. I haven't learned anything significant yet, only chaining attacks, but even that feels pretty fun. Was really expecting this to be awful, but it's not at all.

Anecdotal experience, but I haven't had any problems with that at all. Again, I only just hit Rattay (so only like 5 hours into the game), but I haven't had any bugs that I've noticed.

Vega 56 (with the 64 BIOS flash), 6700k at 4.0, and 16 GB. The game auto-set me at "high" settings (at 1440p), and I've been getting pretty solid 60 thus far. Now in the ten minutes or so I've spent on one side of Rattay the framerate has been really variable, so that may change in the city.


Overall I'd say it's moderately niche, gameplay wise. Definitely worth playing though if you're into RPGs or immersive sim type stuff.

 

The writing is good because:

1. Dialogue sounds like real people. Every character is not a gross archetype, spewing annoying tropes and cliche's. Every character is not trying to be the ultimate badass, or absolutely likeable by all peoples at all times (I don't mean in the game world, I mean developers trying to make a character that anybody would like, and thus you get an unbelievable, bland shell of a human). They just seem like normal people, and the dialogue hits the right balance between olde-world for immersion and trimmed down a bit to avoid being too cumbersome.

2. Slow start (not = boring start) means there is time to get to know characters as actual humans, and thus when bad things happen, I'm not yawning, awaiting the next gameplay sequence

The presentation is good because:

1. The story moves along at an appropriate pace

2. The player is not overwhelmed with excessive side diddly crap

3. You are taught just enough to maintain interest and intrigue, and things keep on moving at a steady pace with a hint of more to learn

4. The attention to detail is outstanding



Bad lip syncing.... I always play story games in a different language to avoid having bad voice acting ruin the experience. I tried English in this game, and while some of the voice acting was really good for a game, it still throws me off when you have modern american accents interspersed with a range of modern english accents, etc. So I put it in french, and then it all seems totally legit to me.


All in all, this is the most "perfect" game I have played in years.

 

This is a good point. I was playing Dragon Age Inquisition a few days ago and was thinking about a character in the game who I find pretty unlikable. I checked online and found that the consensus was a lot like what you suggest--people praising the character because they're not just a thing for the player to be besties with, but an individual with their own opinions often clashing with yours. Another game that does this a ton is The Witcher.

I was kind of thinking about it when (spoilers I guess, though fairly minor) I woke up at the Rattay mill and when I talked to Theresa's uncle about repaying my debt, he immediately suggested I do shady stuff. He wasn't painted as a heroic character because he took care of me and because he's Theresa's uncle.

 

Exactly. It is meant to be a realistic, immersive middle age world, not a simplified, cartoony fantasy world that so many games become even if they claim to be realistic.

 

This game needed a lot more playtesting.

WIthout even meaning too, I've found so many exploits that basically break the game.

 

Interesting. I understand picking the original language a game was created in to get the best "intended" voice acting experience, but deliberately picking a language one doesn't understand is new to me. I see where you're coming from though. Interesting choice.


How well is the game suited for casual world exploration and some hunting, without following much of the storyline? Does the survival aspect need too much attention to just go exploring the world?

 

I would not buy it for a survival experience. The survival aspects are just tacked on, there is no depth to them at all. For instance, you have to eat, but there is food literally everywhere. It's nothing to steal food, but the world is littered with pots cooking over fires that you can just help yourself to. Other than having to eat and sleep, that's it.

As far as hunting goes, it's awful. The animals are painfully stupid. The bow shooting is kind of janky and frustrating. And it is going to take you probably 10 hours of gameplay to even get to where you can use a bow.

For an immersive experience in just wondering around a middle age european landscape, it is good. Especially if you like to read historical stuff and learn a little.

This is by no means a casual game. I recommend using the save anytime mod, because there is some bugs related to fast traveling with active quest that can freeze the game, so you don't want to lose hours of progress because of something like that.

I don't think it could be enjoyed in that context. The best parts about this game is the story and the sword fighting, but the sword fighting is pretty scarce (so far in about 20 hours). My main impetus to continue playing is to get to more sword fighting. It seems it has enough depth to be fun to master. But then again, I did accidentally murder a guy, then the town bailiff came after me, and I murdered him to without much trouble. And earlier, I lost an honorable duel against a mercenary wayfarer, but I didn't want to lose the coin I lost in the bet, so I just walked behind him, choked him unconcscious, stabbed him to death, and then took my coin back. This is the kind of stuff that kind of makes the game really easy once you start figuring it out.

So far the horseback fighting pales in comparison to Mount in Blade. Actually, now that I think about it, everything except the cinematic story, graphics, interesting swordplay, and overall presentation pale in comparison to Mount and Blade.


About playing games in alternate language, it's just my hotfix so that I'm not rolling my eyes at bad voice acting or terrible dialogue. This game has probably the best dialogue I can remember from any game I've played, but I still prefer it in a different language. Part of problem with voice acting in video games is that you have a lot of reused strings, and I understand that you can't have actors pouring their hearts out with oscar performances for every little side quest and throw-away encounter, but jilted dialogue just really bothers me. I feel like this game should have been condensed into 50% story, and 50% sword fighting. Everything else is fluff and detracts from what they did really well.

 

If you are looking for a beautifully realized natural environment, low stress, casual, but very intriguing gameplay, I would recommend The Hunter: Call of the Wild. It is purely a hunting simulation, but it does this amazingly well. Best looking game environment I have ever seen, and the sound and overall game design is a perfect example of gesamkuntswerk.

 

Been playing and getting inspiration from this game and that there are some interesting game design decisions like picking up herbs triggers always aroundsih 3 sec cut scene. If you pick 10 nettles in a row it become a nuisance. Also picking up items it bit clunky if you repeat it. I get it that it is somewhat "realistic" to grab items with hand but these are actions that people usually perform multiple times so it gets bit annoying. All in all the feel of the game reminds me super-mega-über-classic Darklands - if older ppl remember it. Open world game in medieval germany.

 

Yeah, that is the kind of stuff they clearly didn't play test. The game made a strong presentation, but once you get into the meat of it, I find the gameplay to be very jilted. It's lots of little things like these that add up. You feel liike you spend 50% of your time in menus.

All the crafting, repairing, etc etc. It's just fluff. I like that you actually work a grind wheel to repair your swords, but what does this really add to the game? More time could have been spent ironing out bugs, playtesting, and giving the players more of what they really want -- awesome, deep, exciting swordplay, and a rousing story.

I feel like, if you are going to make a big budget medieval game in 2018 that advertises intense, realistic swordplay, how do you let the original mount and blade have better horse movement and fighting than you?

Simplify!

 

Thanks a lot for the review! I guess I'll wait a year or two and see what patches and mods will change about it. Sounds like right now it could still be a bit too cumbersome for my taste.

 

Why makes you say this? "I don't like this part of the game" does not mean it wasn't intended to work the exact way that it does.

I'm not saying it's good, I don't enjoy that either, but that doesn't mean they're not doing it on purpose.

What does swordfighting add to the game? What does actually navigating the game world (rather than a series of missions) add to the game? They add some gameplay experience, just like using a grind wheel provides a "simmy" and free way to repair weapons.

Again, I don't like it either. I tried it once, then ignored it. But that doesn't mean it wasn't put in there on purpose and for a purpose.

 

I am going on a hunch that if I don't like some things, most others won't either. I don't think anybody likes jumping in and out of a load screen to do repetitive, mundane task. I do take some liberty with assumption by assuming that things I find really annoying aren't to different than the majority of other human beings.

Swordfighting? Isn't that what they advertised first and foremost about this game? Isn't noble melee combat what interest most people in the genre to begin with?

Sword-fighting, in a game, is a test of reflexive skill. Just pure, old school gaming. Essentially, it's the same game as pong or pinball, and this is a game that never gets old. Like dogs chasing a ball, it's just stupid fun.

 

Exactly. However, theHunter sounds pretty boring to me. Should I assume that no one will like it?

Regarding repetitive mundane tasks, they may be done to increase the "immersion" or "realism" or whatever. Again, I didn't enjoy them either, but that doesn't mean they can't have a reason for their existence and there aren't maybe players out there who feel their existence fits their experience.

If we're going to say "boring and mundane" things should be in games, American Trucking Simulator wouldn't exist. And that would make me sad.

 

Alternatively they may have been added because a great number of survival games have them.

 

Also possible. My main goal here is to point out that even if we don't jive with a part of a game, that doesn't automatically make it useless. One needs to analyze the game to see if it's possible for that element to fit with other potential ways of playing the game (in this case, like a survival sim, as barebones as those elements are here).

A really tangential example: I made a comment yesterday on Steam about a VN demo I played. In the demo, there will occasionally be moments where the player has to click on something in the environment to proceed. There will typically be two or three elements on the screen the player can click, but the unrelated ones don't do anything. They don't bring up a codex about these other elements and their place in the world, they don't allow the player nonlinear navigation of the story. They just pop up a momentary comment, and then the player has to find the one item needed to proceed.

I criticized this because it offers no strength to the game. As it's been incorporated thus far it doesn't allow the player to navigate the world nonlinearly, it doesn't provide any additional lore background, it doesn't really flesh out the controlled character through interesting dialogue, it doesn't really provide that adventure game-esque gameplay experience (of having to find the right things to interact with to progress) either because it's only like three items in a scene at once.

I determined that it was useless because of how it relates to the game, not whether or not I enjoyed it. or whether it was standard or abnormal to the traditional experience.