Kingdom Come; Deliverance

[Corto]

I played for about 20 hours. Its a diamond in the rough, but still in the rough.
It keeps asking me to ignore major or minor flaws in order to enjoy it, and sometimes I just prefer a polished game and cannot be bothered with bugs and crashes.

In short, top pros and cons:
+setting is fantastic, truly believable in terms of how awful the period was
+voice acting was mostly pretty good
+ its got so many good ideas, you can tell they put their hearts into the game

- combat is awful. You get the hang of it, but the amount of time you get blind sided because its first-person only is infuriating
- horse controls... why...
- interface is a mess (but doesn't bother me as much as it does other people)
- a lot of stuff that make the game "authentic experience" turn into a boring and repetitive experience after a while
- save system. Oh God, why (I had a mod for this, but still)

I played about 20 hours.
Got to that town in the NE area. Rode there for a million miles, got dragged into a quest.
Did the quest for 15-20 minutes. Game crashed, couldn't save.
I just left it there after that.

Like I said, it's great, but it keeps asking me to forgive lackings and flaws, until at some point I couldn't be bothered anymore.

 

[Osprey]

For those interested, v1.3.4 (released the other day for PC; no idea when consoles will get it) supposedly fixes the random encounters bug. I haven't tested it out yet.

Edit: Yeah, it's fixed... though it's kind of annoying that choosing to not intervene immediately in a skirmish still drops you in the middle of it.

+voice acting was mostly pretty good

The voice acting of Sir Divish is the only one that I really have a problem with. It's awful. It sounds like they used a voice actor that's only half the age that the character is supposed to be. He sounds young, inexperienced and energetic, yet he's supposed to be portraying an old, experienced, life-weary Lord. His voice is too high and, for some inexplicable reason, when just about every character in the game has some sort of European accent, his is American. It also sounds amateurish. Fortunately, it sticks out so badly because the rest of the game's voice acting is pretty good (or, at least, passable), as you said.

- horse controls... why...

I'm OK with the horse controls except that it's really frustrating whenever I walk backwards and turn in the opposite direction than I intended because I'm used to driving controls. It'd be nice if there were an option to reverse that.

 

[bigdirty]

When the 1.3 patch came out I decided to start a new game, and the random encounters bug made it really annoying, so I decided to wait and start over once that bug was fixed. Now, the 1.4 patch is out, and I was all ready to finally start my new game, and almost immediately they released a statement that new games started after 1.4 might be corrupted. I'd really like to play this game again but I'm getting tired of waiting for patches, then waiting for them to fix the bugs caused by the patches.

 

[SniperHF]

Bought the game.

After a long and painful journey through the first 80 hours of railroaded prologue and various technical issues, the game is a blast.

The codex is awesome, I love it when goes have that. It has probably the least annoying implementation of food and sleep requirements I've ever encountered, which is damning with faint praise but still an achievement

I like the combat, it's very much in the tradition of a Piranha Bytes game. I think the controls need a little work though. The locking seems rather necessary yet it's incredibly fiddly when fighting multiple opponents.

For the horses, I really don't understand why every game with horses doesn't just copy Mount and Blade. They nailed it 10 years ago.

At the current patch, the amount of bugs that actually break things seems limited so far.

 

[Osprey]

I just discovered a cool, interactive map that shows every location in the game. This would've been useful while I was playing the game. For example, I never did collect all of the pieces of the Queen of Sheba sword simply because I couldn't manage to find all of the blacksmiths, even though I'd been to every town on the map.

Kingdom Come Deliverance Map - Interactive map for Kingdom Come Deliverance

After a long and painful journey through the first 80 hours of railroaded prologue and various technical issues, the game is a blast.

What is it with RPGs in the last decade or so having these long, linear, boring prologues? I just started The Witcher (1) tonight and was not impressed, but forced myself through the prologue in order to give it a chance and it's better now. I'm getting tired of RPGs that do this. I prefer how Morrowind did it: once you start a game and select a character, you're thrown straight into the world... no cutscenes, no being forced to ride a carriage (looking at you, Skyrim), no having to run from point to point just to move the prologue along, no stupid fetch quests to act as tutorials and no idea about anything in the world; you simply learn as you play.

The codex is awesome, I love it when goes have that. It has probably the least annoying implementation of food and sleep requirements I've ever encountered, which is damning with faint praise but still an achievement

I was disappointed to find that the food requirements mean pretty much nothing. There's basically no point whatsoever in collecting or carrying around any of the food in the game because you're never more than a minute or two from a free meal from the cooking pots in any home or out in the open in most towns. The devs should make it so that eating from pots counts as theft unless you're welcome in the house or renting a room or at least implement a hardcore mode that enables that, IMO. I don't want food requirements to be annoying, just somewhat challenging. It could be fun to be riding through the woods, start to starve, realize that I forgot to stock up on food and have to drop what I'm doing, find something to hunt and kill, start a fire and cook it. Moments of urgency (and learning a lesson the hard way) like that make RPGs fun for me.

Edit: Ah, I see that the devs have announced a hardcore mode that they'll be adding to the game later in the year. Hopefully, fixing the food situation will be part of that.

At the current patch, the amount of bugs that actually break things seems limited so far.

That was my experience when I played through the game at v1.2, so it was relatively stable (compared to release) then and is, no doubt, even better now (at v1.4.3, I believe).

 

[SniperHF]

What is it with RPGs in the last decade or so having these long, linear, boring prologues?

The exceptionally lengthy prologue was doubly annoying because it outright tricks you like 4 times into thinking it's over. Hey you're free now, no not really if you walk off the path it auto teleports you to the next quest stop. Hey you're free now, no here's a fight you literally could not win if you had a godmode hack.

 

[Osprey]

The exceptionally lengthy prologue was doubly annoying because it outright tricks you like 4 times into thinking it's over. Hey you're free now, no not really if you walk off the path it auto teleports you to the next quest stop. Hey you're free now, no here's a fight you literally could not win if you had a godmode hack.

Yeah, it went on and on. Fortunately, I had read someone here say that it was 8 hours long. That helped me to gauge how far along that I was; otherwise, I would've been even more annoyed. If we're thinking of the same fight, I wasted a good bit of time trying win it before I realized that, maybe, you're just meant to lose it.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

So, after reading through a bit of reviews and this thread, are the issues mostly fixed now? I've been wanting to check out this game for a while but have stayed away because of some of the game-breaking bugs that I've read about.

 

[SniperHF]

So, after reading through a bit of reviews and this thread, are the issues mostly fixed now? I've been wanting to check out this game for a while but have stayed away because of some of the game-breaking bugs that I've read about.

It's pretty playable. I'm playing on PC, dunno about the state of the console versions.

 

[Osprey]

So, after reading through a bit of reviews and this thread, are the issues mostly fixed now? I've been wanting to check out this game for a while but have stayed away because of some of the game-breaking bugs that I've read about.

As I said, the game-breaking bugs seemed to me to have been fixed by v1.2 a couple of months ago, when I played through the whole game without trouble. There were still a few bugs (like the one where one of your competitors in an archery contest would refuse to fire and cause you to lose) but they weren't game-breaking and I imagine that they've been fixed since. The patches also seem to be slowing down and the developers are talking about DLC and feature updates down the road, so that may be a sign that there are no urgent, outstanding issues and it's pretty stable. Like SniperHF, I'm on PC and can't speak for consoles, but a game that's stable on PC is usually stable on consoles.

 

[Bocephus86]

This is next on my list; might grab it this weekend while the other is at a bachelorette (screw the outside, that's 48 hours of me time). I love big RPGs like oblivion/skyrim/witcher/fallout, assume I'd like this too or is it more "linear" like DA:O was? I liked that game, but I always felt a little too "locked in" and missed the freedom to walk off in a random direction for a few hours.

 

[Osprey]

This is next on my list; might grab it this weekend while the other is at a bachelorette (screw the outside, that's 48 hours of me time). I love big RPGs like oblivion/skyrim/witcher/fallout, assume I'd like this too or is it more "linear" like DA:O was? I liked that game, but I always felt a little too "locked in" and missed the freedom to walk off in a random direction for a few hours.

The 8-hour-long prologue is linear and "locked in," but the game is completely wide open like Skyrim after that. It's one huge, open map that you can go anywhere on and it's up to you whether you follow the main quest line or ignore it and go off doing whatever you feel like doing, instead. It's basically Skyrim, but more realistic (historical, no magic, no fantastical creatures/undead, some food/sleep requirements, etc.).

 

[Bocephus86]

The 8-hour-long prologue is linear and "locked in," but the game is completely wide open like Skyrim after that. It's one huge, open map that you can go anywhere on and it's up to you whether you follow the main quest line or ignore it and go off doing whatever you feel like doing, instead. It's basically Skyrim, but more realistic (historical, no magic, no fantastical creatures/undead, some food/sleep requirements, etc.).

Sweet, thank you. Sounds up my alley

 

[SniperHF]

I'm doing the kill bandit quests around Rattay and am not really having a problem with them but two things keep happening:
1. It takes me a REALLY long time to kill the leader. Maybe my weapon is too crappy. The leader can't kill me though unless I mess up my blocks, which I usually don't.
2. The other stupid bandits give up right away after a hit or two. Which is fine except I can't kill them (or accept surrender) because I'm still dealing with the leader. So they dart off and come back 5 minutes later and run off screaming again. This loops over and over.

It's mostly just annoying though it's making me think I'm taking on stuff too early and will end up with a bunch of easy quests somewhere else due to being over leveled/geared (the bandits have sweet armor I can repair).

 

[Osprey]

I'm doing the kill bandit quests around Rattay and am not really having a problem with them but two things keep happening:
1. It takes me a REALLY long time to kill the leader. Maybe my weapon is too crappy. The leader can't kill me though unless I mess up my blocks, which I usually don't.
2. The other stupid bandits give up right away after a hit or two. Which is fine except I can't kill them (or accept surrender) because I'm still dealing with the leader. So they dart off and come back 5 minutes later and run off screaming again. This loops over and over.

It's mostly just annoying though it's making me think I'm taking on stuff too early and will end up with a bunch of easy quests somewhere else due to being over leveled/geared (the bandits have sweet armor I can repair).

You're doing better than I was early in the game. I couldn't handle the leader, so I had to sneak up on him and kill him with with a takedown or a surprise arrow to the head. I could be wrong, but I think that you need to do only the first bandit quest. The subsequent ones that he gives you are optional if you want to make a little money by turning in their ears and spurs. Since I was a little too underpowered for the leaders, I stopped doing the quests after a first few.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

I'm considering getting this game, so for those who still play it, does Kingdom Come still have numerous bugs or has it been fixed?

 

[SniperHF]

I'm considering getting this game, so for those who still play it, does Kingdom Come or has it been fixed?

They just released a pretty big patch and DLC so it's still supported.

still have numerous bugs

Yes but they are (mostly) minor.
I have had instances of characters not spawning or in one case a quest related NPC died magically out of nowhere (still didn't kill the quest but it would have changed it if I didn't have a save). And in the case of characters spawning, saving, quitting, and reloading usually fixes it.

Sometimes I'll fly up into the air if I walk backwards in combat and run into a bush. I just land softly and keep fighting.

 

[bigdirty]

Father Godwin alone is enough reason to buy this game. Might be my favourite video game character ever.

 

[Osprey]

I have had instances of characters not spawning or in one case a quest related NPC died magically out of nowhere (still didn't kill the quest but it would have changed it if I didn't have a save). And in the case of characters spawning, saving, quitting, and reloading usually fixes it.

It might not have affected the quest even if you didn't have a save. I killed an NPC (the executioner) during a botched burglary attempt and he magically came back to life when, later, I received a quest to go talk to him. Whether by design or accident, the game seems to reset NPCs when quests that require them are triggered. It's slightly immersion breaking, but I prefer that to not being able to kill certain NPCs or not being able to do certain quests.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

They just released a pretty big patch and DLC so it's still supported.



Yes but they are (mostly) minor.
I have had instances of characters not spawning or in one case a quest related NPC died magically out of nowhere (still didn't kill the quest but it would have changed it if I didn't have a save). And in the case of characters spawning, saving, quitting, and reloading usually fixes it.

Sometimes I'll fly up into the air if I walk backwards in combat and run into a bush. I just land softly and keep fighting.

Sounds like a Bethesda game, I save all the time in those too.

 

[SniperHF]

Sounds like a Bethesda game, I save all the time in those too.

WEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLL
Bad news / Good news.
Kingdom come doesn't have a full save anytime feature. They think it's cool to limit saves for reasons and make you screw around replaying stuff for fun.

Good news is there's an unlimited saving mod (which introduces a few bugs on occasion itself, usually fixed by restarting the game).

 

[Bocephus86]

This is next on my list but I can't get over the 8 hour, locked in tutorial; im waiting for a day off when I have nothing to do so I can plow through it all at once.

 

[Osprey]

This is next on my list but I can't get over the 8 hour, locked in tutorial; im waiting for a day off when I have nothing to do so I can plow through it all at once.

If it helps, it's a well done 8 hours. It's loaded with cutscenes that are of good quality and feel a bit like watching a historical drama. You could knock a few hours off if you care to skip those. You could also knock a few hours off by speeding through all of the dialogues. You could then likely knock a few more hours off by simply going straight to your objectives, not wandering around or checking things out and not reloading to try to do things better or make different choices. That could mean blasting through the prologue in only 1-2 hours, if you really wanted to. That's just a guess and I wouldn't really recommend it, because of how much the prologue sets up the narrative for the rest of the game and is referenced later on, but you could probably do it. The 8-hour figure is only if you watch every cutscene, listen to every line of dialogue, take your time making decisions, read every tutorial, talk to more people than you need to and explore a little on your way to accomplishing your objectives.

 

[Bocephus86]

If it helps, it's a well done 8 hours. It's loaded with cutscenes that are of good quality and feel a bit like watching a historical drama. You could knock a few hours off if you care to skip those. You could also knock a few hours off by speeding through all of the dialogues. You could then likely knock a few more hours off by simply going straight to your objectives, not wandering around or checking things out and not reloading to try to do things better or make different choices. That could mean blasting through the prologue in only 1-2 hours, if you really wanted to. That's just a guess and I wouldn't really recommend it, because of how much the prologue sets up the narrative for the rest of the game and is referenced later on, but you could probably do it. The 8-hour figure is only if you watch every cutscene, listen to every line of dialogue, take your time making decisions, read every tutorial, talk to more people than you need to and explore a little on your way to accomplishing your objectives.

So it's not "on rails"? That's not so bad then; I usually progress open world games (especially when I'm getting the hang of them) exactly as the developers design (IE, first time in Skyrim I stuck around Whiterun until level 12 or so) so maybe it won't be so bad. I've just had a few tutorials that feel frustrating, where it's very guided & limiting as they "train" you on the game.

In any event, it is a game I want to play so I will dive in soon (found MA:E for 10 bucks on sale so I'm working through that now) & it's good to know I can blow through the tutorial if I'm feeling held back.

 

[Osprey]

So it's not "on rails"?

Well, that's probably a matter of opinion. In one sense, it isn't on rails, but, compared to how open the rest of the game is, you can say that it is. For example, when you're in your home village, you are not permitted to leave it and you can't even pick up any side quests, I believe. You can, though, wander around at your leisure, talk to the village people and learn their thoughts on the area and its politics. You might do that, either because you don't realize that it's somewhat pointless or because you just want to soak in everything, or might just focus on your current objective and hammer each one out as quickly as possible. Once you finish all of the objectives, the story takes you to a new location, where you can similarly wander around and talk to people or go straight to the objective. In other words, you don't have a choice but to eventually do exactly what the prologue wants you to do, because you're stuck in each location (which are not that big) until you do, but you can waste time walking around and talking to NPCs, if you want.