Unlike most open-world RPGs, which bestow upon the gamer great power andgreat responsibility, Kingdom Come: Deliverance puts you becoming a common peasant, and also the game seems going to treat the player like a peasant, too. Between its questionable, arguably sadistic save system and its plethora of bugs, Kingdom Come: Deliverance was easily the most frustrating gaming experience I've ever had, so much so which i started to feel trapped while I was playing it. There are items to like about Kingdom Come: Deliverance, like its understated but thoughtful map design, and somewhat engaging RPG mechanics. But I could never shake the feeling which i was playing a game produced by a team having a clear disdain for player enjoyment, a team that wrongly considers opaque design decisions that punish experimentation a more “realistic” and difficult experience.
Prior to its release, much was made about Kingdom Come: Deliverance's “twist” on the RPG genre: this was supposed to be an historically accurate answer to series like Elder Scrolls and also the Witcher, where a medieval aesthetic was because of the fact the game was literally set throughout the tail-end from the middle ages, not in some fantasy world that does not exist. Taking place in Bohemia in 1403, two-and-a-half decades after the death of Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, Kingdom Come: Deliverance tracks the conflict between Charles IV's successor, King Wenceslas IV, and Sigismund von Luxemburg, Charles' more ambitious son and Wenceslas' half-brother. This is an interesting period and geographical setting in European history that usually gets overlooked by popular culture in favor of the English monarchy of the dark ages.
Most from the major political movements of times, however, fade into the background of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which places players within the leather booties of the doe-eyed blacksmith's son named Henry, who witnesses the murder of his parents and the tragic razing of his village as a result of a steely general leading a contingent of Sigismund's army. Henry flees his the place to find warn neighboring villages that those who remain loyal to Wenceslas will soon face the same fate. Driven by the motivation to avenge his parents and his village, Henry joins up with a loyalist military effort to safeguard Wenceslas' rightful claim that they can the Bohemian throne.
The main draw in Kingdom Come: Deliverance isn't necessarily what it's, but instead what it isn't. You won't be fighting trolls inside a fantastical world as an unstoppable lone wolf à la Geralt; you will be traveling a quiet countryside, taking on one or two bandits at a time as Henry, a totally inexperienced swordsman and relative nobody. This really is one of the game's greatest strengths and something of its greatest weaknesses.
Kingdom Come's setting is easily its best feature. Bohemia itself is artfully designed and evocatively mundane. The villages, castles, and surrounding rural areas are as convincingly realized as anything in Skyrim. The forests are especially noteworthy, emphasizing a convincing density and creating uncanny horizons to gaze at as the horse tramples its way across Bohemia's expansive dirt roads. Just don't look too closely, or you'll start to notice blemishes, pop-in, and less-than-stellar vegetation models-all the marks of poor optimization, at least on the Xbox One version I was playing. Same goes for the majority of the character models you'll encounter. Faces (specifically one which bears an uplifting resemblance to Bill Hader) is going to be repeated ad nauseam, even in characters you'll meet and speak with throughout quests. At some point, a master tradesman making an ideal crown in one mission shared exactly the same face like a villager chasing down a thief and with his murder over a stolen piece of bread. These types of details will immediately take you out of the experience. That being said, regardless of the unimpressive graphical output and lazy character design of its inhabitants, Bohemia's design slowed me down in my tracks more often than once to consider it all in.
Henry, however, isn't as compelling as the world he inhabits. More resembling a silicon valley hipster playing dress-up for a Renaissance Faire than an actual medieval villager, Henry is a wholly unremarkable character who, for whatever reason, becomes given the job of some important military investigations, despite his improper decorum and overall plainness. Solely defined by his vengeful motivations, Henry lacks every other discernible characteristics or, for instance, any admirable skills, and my own purchase of the character's journey suffered for this.
You can't create your own version of Henry in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, leaving you with the dopey default Henry, but you can at any rate have decisions in terms of his attributes and skills. The game's approach to character building ought to be familiar to Skyrim players-instead of getting skill points to then spend on different attributes or branches of the skill tree, Kingdom Come: Deliverance increases each skill the more you use it. Wish to be a better fighter? Then get in more fights. Wish to enhance your swordplay? Then use a sword. How about buffing your abilities with a mace? Use a mace. The same goes for skills like speech, horsemanship, and even drinking. The greater you need to do things, the greater you will be their way. This is an intuitive system leading to creating interesting decisions about where your particular skills lie. Whenever you reach a particular level in every skill, after that you can get a more specific sub-skill, but it is usually at the detriment of another skill. Let's say you want to become stronger and more agile; you can equip a sub-skill to complete just that, however it can come at the expense of your charisma and speech. This is an interesting way to approach the role-playing facet of role-playing games, even when it does underscore a few of the more nefarious player-unfriendly design choices.
One of those design choices is the survival aspects of the sport. As far as annoyances go, Kingdom Come: Deliverance's take on the survival genre is probably its least offensive misstep. Through the game, Henry will not only have a life bar and stamina bar, but also, he has nourishment and meters that must definitely be managed. If your nourishment dips lacking, you may starve to death, but when you eat an excessive amount of, Henry will end up lethargic and his maximum stamina will take a temporary hit. Same goes for your energy meter; while there is no penalty for having maximum energy, let it dip lacking and Henry will likewise suffer in his stamina usage. Theoretically, this is an interesting mechanic to incorporate in an RPG, however in practice it barely ever registers like a significant obstacle. Sleeping will become second-nature (and I'll explain why later), and managing nourishment is really as easy as finding one of several stewing pots in each and every village and just helping you to ultimately some grub. Likewise, Henry can get dirty, which I'm told is supposed to modify the way NPCs regarded Henry, though Irrrve never really witnessed this in action, as wash baskets are ubiquitous across Bohemia. These mechanics lacked the depth essential to make them engaging parts of the sport, and wind up seeming like a cynical talking point that lets the developer pretend like there's depth high isn't any. They seem to be in the name of creating a far more “realistic” representation of life like a peasant, but rather they wind up becoming shallow afterthoughts that simply task players with managing a stupid chore.
Likewise, the game's core combat is on its surface a fascinating twist on first-person melee combat and a supposedly “realistic” representation of actual sword-fighting. Kingdom Come: Deliverance relies on a five-point striking system that resembles 5 major striking zones of the sword fight. When you lock onto an enemy, a cursor having a small star can look them over. Each of the star's five points represent a zone, letting you pick which part of their body you're attacking. If they are holding a shield somewhere, you'll likely want to attack their opposite, more susceptible side. You are able to block incoming attacks, though that will take up stamina, or you can parry an attack by timing your block perfectly, and often this will even leave your opponent open to a counterattack.
The problem is that this combat system's adherence to “realism” implies that when you get ganged up by a lot more than two enemies, you're probably going to lose. The success and failure of my strikes and blocks often seemed entirely random, resulting in some pretty monotounous back-and-forth bouts. Oh, and trying to run away will likely result in Henry getting stabbed within the back, thanks to the enemy's inhuman ability to track him across the countryside and meet up with him. Besides, when all is said and done, I felt like I already played a much better version of Kingdom Come: Deliverance's directional combat system in For Honor. That which was supposed to be a “revolutionary” combat system ended up not only feeling stale, but also undercooked, as several fighting techniques never seemed to work.
Sometimes, Henry would won't get rid of a panic attack, so that as frequently as I tried to kick my opponent away, my kick button never appeared to do anything whatsoever at all. Additionally the inconsistency of my attacks in line with the terrain; if Henry banded on anything apart from the flattest of ground, he'd sometimes step backwards as he was attacking, making them whiff a stab he should have easily connected against an opponent. I'm let's assume that this was a bug, but it made taking out archers perched on the raised garrison much more frustrating of computer needed to be. Likewise, the first major boss fight I played was literally impossible for me to beat, so adept was the enemy swordfighter. Looking up videos regarding how to beat the boss resulted in half a dozen tutorials that showed players tanking hits and kiting him having a bow and arrow. If literally every tutorial concerning how to win one of the first epic sword fights hanging around involved cheesing the enemy with a bow and arrow, then I have to suspect that something was wrong using the game and not me. Regardless, these types of issues don't service a combat system that's as slow, deliberate, and clunky as Kingdom Come: Deliverance's.
Unfortunately, besides the clunky combat system, there is not much actual gameplay in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. An enormous most of the quests will involve you visiting a village, talking to a villager, after which following track of that villager by visiting another village to talk to another villager, sometimes breaking up the monotony with exciting action like sleeping or playing dice since you have to wait for an NPC to finish a task for that quest to progress. All this sleeping, waiting, and fast-traveling means that you'll be staring at different variations of loading screens far too often while playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance. You'll feel like you've spent hours not doing anything whatsoever, playing what basically comes down to walking sim.
I especially felt like I wasted several playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance thanks to the amount of times which i needed to replay large chunks of the game because of the one-two punch of its laughably buggy nature and its unforgiving save system.
You may have heard about Kingdom Come: Deliverance's massive day-one patch and subsequent multi-gigabyte updates. While I believe the day-one update downloaded for that Xbox One version I was playing (as the title screen claimed the version I had been playing was 1.1), the patch didn't appear to help whatsoever. I encountered bugs right and left throughout my playthrough. Some were genuinely enjoyable, the way that the movie The Room is enjoyable. At some point, after beating two of my rivals within an archery contest, they exited the causes when walking backwards across the entire village. Another time, I called my horse and he wound up trapped on the stairs of a nearby castle. These hilarious glitches were joined by comical character teleportation and oddly placed cameras during dialogue, chickens liberally phasing through walls, and NPCs who were walking around town without heads.
I can sometimes overlook as well as appreciate these kinds of glitches and bugs, but the problem with Kingdom Come: Deliverance is the frequency with which I needed to replay entire quests because a bug managed to get impossible to progress, wasting sometimes several hours of gameplay.
Let's discuss the save system first. You will find three ways in order to save, and only one of the ways you really appear to have any treatments for. The very first method for saving would be to drink a Saviour Schnapps, a consumable item which happens to be the costliest non-weapon or -armor item hanging around. You are able to only carry three Saviour Schnapps at any given time, but you would break the bank even owning that lots of. This process of saving the sport worked fine, but I hardly found myself in a position to afford or wanting to spare the Schnapps, in case I desired them in the future.
The second method for saving is to start certain quests. Now, the game usually auto-saved at the outset of every main story quest, but starting side quests proved to be wildly inconsistent. Sometimes it would save at the beginning of a side quest, sometimes in the centre, and often by no means, with no evident rhyme or reason.
The third way to save would be to sleep. A minimum of, that's what I thought, but his method was also completely inconsistent. Sometimes I'd sleep and it would save, but may it wouldn't, and that i could never figure out if certain times or a certain amount of hours slept triggered a save, despite experimenting with every possible outcome.
Because of these inconsistent save methods, I'd often go hours without saving my game, which turns into a significant problem when a bug completely halted my progress, which makes it impossible to continue a quest and forcing me to reload with out given me the chance to freely save for the last several hours.
One time, I had spent about two hours doing side quests and generally going through the map, obtaining a few extra groschen here and there. I attempted to sleep on the way, as I didn't wish to spare any one of my rare and pricey Saviour Schnapps, but it wouldn't save. Frustrated, I decided the best course of action was to finish one of many quests, which may lead straight into another main quest, thus saving the game. However the priest who was supposed to meet me in the tavern in the evening never turned up, and when I went back to the church to evaluate him, he banded in the same spot he'd been all day long, practicing his swordplay with similar rote dedication I'd seen in him hours earlier. I attempted waiting before the next evening, and the next, and the next, but still the priest wouldn't budge. Finally, I resigned myself to reloading my last save, losing all the progress I'd made on the aforementioned side quests in the meanwhile, never to return to them.
Another time, I had been told to hold back for any friar to finish researching a disease I desired for stopping, based on the perceived symptoms of villagers in a nearby town. I would have researched it myself, however the side quest that taught me how you can read was unfortunately the victim of the previously-described reloading incident. Therefore, I had to wait an entire in-game day for the priest to complete his research. I decided the best utilization of my time was to accomplish several proximal side quests, which I did. You'd think I'd have discovered at that time. I returned to the friar's home and slept, hoping it might save my game-it didn't. Finally, the friar determined the disease was the plague based on the symptoms I told him (that we also double-checked against a couple of online guides, simply to be safe), and explained to satisfy him in the village after he prepared the cure. Used to do that, and after feeding solution to villagers-they all died. Fortunately, that did not end the sport, but a captive I desired to speak to who was struggling with the disease was one of the victims. I was told to grab the note from his body, but when I returned to where he'd been sleeping, the body was gone-he despawned. Actually, the quest marker was nowhere to be found on the map, meaning I was forced to reload and play that entire segment over again, losing another couple of hours of gameplay.
Overall, I spent over 30 hours playing the game, but my in-game progress is just 19 hours. That's 11 hours of time wasted since the game bugged out and forced me to rewind hours of progress. Kingdom Come: Deliverancesucceeded in performing what no game has been doing before: It had been so broken it broke me, so much in fact which i quit before finishing it.
These were just the most extreme types of these kinds of bugs. The sport also suffered from just weird occurrences that made me seem like I had been the butt of the joke. Once, a nobleman who I was necessary to accompany on the hunt explained I wasn't allowed to take a horse, so I needed to follow him towards the hunting grounds the whole way by walking. At some point during our hunt, he told me to increase, even though he expressly explained not to have a horse. Even so, I'd attempted to mount a horse that magically had appeared at the hunting ground, but the game wouldn't let me. Then, once we were making our way through the forest, we ran into a wild boar, which fled following the nobleman hit him with an arrow. The nobleman yelled at me to mount my steed and follow him, after which rode off, leaving me to stand in the center of the rain as an idiot. A minute later, the game notified me that I failed that area of the mission.
Another one of these simple instances happened during that which was supposed to be a legendary raid of a bandit camp. I alone was given the job of taking out some archers, but when I chased them down, they ran away-again, backwards, and in perfect synchronization-until one simply vanished. Cleaning it once a to investigate the archer's sudden disappearance, but the game blocked me from pursuing him in the future with an invisible wall. Again, the sport notified me that I failed that part of the mission a minute later.
Oh, as well as: you take damage for running or entering your horse. No, that isn't a tale.
These kind of odd problems and inconsistencies within the design continued to stack up, and please believe me when I say that, every other time, this normally wouldn't have bothered me that much. However, after losing a lot time since the developers made the utterly baffling decision to use probably the most sadistic save system when they knew their game was so vulnerable to game-breaking bugs and poor scripting, my patience ran out. A lot of my problems with this game would have been solved if they'd simply “gamified” Kingdom Come: Deliverance just a little bit with the addition of a quick-save system, relegating the present save system to a higher difficulty.
Like with any feudal servant experiencing some form of Stockholm syndrome, I felt somewhat obligated to locate things to like in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but in the end I took the only course of action that made any sense, and rebelled against its tyrannical hold over me. Kingdom Come: Deliverance has little respect for your time or patience, also it takes every opportunity to remind you that. Within the eyes of the fiefdom, the gamer is worse than worthless.
