KCD is superb

I've heard too much negativity about this game - not necessarily here, but in general - for me to quietly endure. I want to put in a good word for it.

I'm still in the middle of KCD, but I'm 80 hours in - I can make some observations. I observe it's fucking awesome! I've read lots of complaints about bugs. I'm playing on vanilla PS4 and haven't had any bothersome bugs yet. I glitched and fell through the world a couple of times. A reload of the most recent save fixed the problem.

But otherwise I think I understand how it gets a bad reputation. The game starts you (Henry) out as a incompetent clumsy oaf. He can't swing a sword or, really, do anything else effectively. Combat feels frustratingly slow and clumsy. Attempts to pick locks are almost impossibly difficult, controls shaking shittily. Pulling back on a bow results in a horrible drunken sway that makes hitting anything just blind luck. But the game fails to communicate that the super frustrating inability to control what he's doing is by design - it's one of the ways they simulate Henry's incompetence.

As he very slowly gains levels and becomes more skilled, all that shaking and swaying smooths out. Combat becomes more effective and, with new skills you learn, strategic. Many people, I think, have been repelled by the clumsiness of controls in the first hours without understanding that it gets much better. I was too, but I was pulled through by a fascination with the (mostly) historically accurate depiction of medieval Bohemia - today Czechia.

KCD borrows much from Skyrim, minus all the magic, and very effectively uses Skyrim's leveling mechanic of improving a skill by doing it repeatedly. You're in charge of leveling a shitload of skills - something like 20 different skills I guess - and that makes for tremendous freedom around how you want to shape Henry and approach problems. The first person perspective, the setting, and the music is VERY Skyrim-ey too. In Skyrim, you level your character from a warrior to, ultimately, essentially a god. In KCD, Henry starts as a complete doofus and ends...I don't really know where, but certainly at least as a very competent knight.

Story is compelling and the important NPC's are really well acted. Non-story NPC's are boring and they could use another dozen character models. Each is instanced dozens of times around the world.

I caution trophy hunters against seeking a platinum for this. Two trophies require you to maintain your virginity and to not kill anyone. Both those remove fun elements of gameplay that would diminish the game. Don't miss getting drunk with the priest in Uzhitz!

It's not for everyone. I like historical fiction. I'm fascinated by medieval Europe. I'm old and patient. I play games slowly and thoroughly, and growing a character is very satisfying to me. If you're similar, I think you'll find the game remarkably immersive and immensely satisfying, as do I. Among my favorite games ever.

I think it's pretty fantastic, but would not begrudge anyone for being put off by any number of things about this quirky game. I find the setting and story to be really engaging as well, though I also kind of find the mundanity of medieval life fascinating to begin with which I'm sure isn't too common.

I want to check it out for Sure, my cousin says it's probably his favorite game of all time so...

Well THQ Nordic just bought them, so that might turn out interesting .

It does some good things. I never finished it cause a bug stopped me from continuing and Oh boy is that game filled with rough edges.

Its a perfectly fine game. But it is also a master class in PR and audience manipulation

DISCLAIMER: I am going to ignore the problematic low hanging fruit

It is old school as hell and everyone who plays it is hardcore. Except that it is built like a CoD with constant feedback loops and progression rewards. And the plot is a straight up power fantasy and could have come from any fantasy CRPG in the past 40 years.

It is historically accurate! Except that you are basically Star Wars kid smacking armor with swords. And that one is particularly funny as you can just google for reports from actual military historians in the HEMA/WMA communities who were "consulted" and ignored with most of the focus (allegedly) given to some random WW2 historian who was in the right place at the right time. And even they were mostly ignored. Because the historical accuracy mostly extends to someone who might have watched a Matt Easton video, went to a ren fair, and then put on the motion capture suit.

A comparison I like is that it is ArmA if everyone had infinite ammo heavy bolters. Partially because it sounds awesome and partially because it captures the essence of "The motions and mechanics are there. The results make no god damned sense"

At the end of the day? It is a modern day Gothic with high production values. And that is not a bad thing (I played the shit out of Gothic and Risen). But when you hear everyone screaming how amazing and revolutionary and unique it is, it gets kind of annoying. Which tends to lead to a lot more gleeful mockery of it.

Politics aside this game is pretty good and even brilliant at some point, to bad the combat is just garbage, and this comes from a person who likes mount & blade.

I can understand why people love this game. As someone who loves the Piranha Bytes games, however, it fell flat. Nearly every aspect of janky European RPG game design has been done better in Gothic 2 and even Elex. I don't get why people think this game is a 'mature, realistic, immersive experience'... scratch that, I do, but I don't agree. It's very childish in how it presents themes of sexuality and manhood and maturity.

^^That's my opinion in a nutshell, basically.

I'll never look past how fuckin' stupid the save system was.

It was modded immediately and patched later but it was extremely indicative of the kind of "Bad Game Design is more Authentic" vibe they were trying to have.

@soulcake: Politics of the game story and what went on within it were phenomenally interesting and well written. So I'd say politics included, this game was a real masterpiece.

The out-of-game controversies aside, on paper it seems like a game I should love. I'm a big open world RPG and history buff and I had been following it off and on for a few years prior to launch. But when it became apparent it was going for a "teh hardcorez" approach with things like the save system and other aspects, I lost most of my interest, especially since it's significantly less than bug-free. I enjoy some janky-ass RPGs (hell, Bethesda's my favorite studio), but when the jank is layered on top of masochistic design philosophies I ain't got time for that.

Yeah, for all the talk of historical accuracy in the hype cycle, it's only slightly more accurate than most Assassin's Creed games. Which is probably for the best.

@extintor: Yeah i agree but i was talking about the studio lead. Waypoint views on it

@rejizzle: Yeah it was a very strange aspect of the games release. Like it's totally okay to be a little fast and loose with history it is still a video game after all. Henrys actual story probably ends with him reporting the death of his parents and being informed that it's a real shame but now he really should get back to fuckin' work.

But it certainly was curious how many sudden experts in 15th century Bohemia were around to shoot down certain critiques in the name of historical accuracy...

My game of the year 2018. One of the best RPGs ever made, in my opinion. Not everyone's cup of tea, though.

Unfortunately, the game is hard to pick up due to a steep learning curve and slow in-game character progression, also there were a few political issues with one of the developers, so the game was doomed to fade into obscurity.

Well, gamersgate aside, I don't know much about it and can't comment on it.

Regarding the "people of color" in Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
The representation is pretty accurate of how it actually was.

I have a feeling that Klepek and the gang doesn't know much about europe and history in general.

The best faith argument regarding PoC in the game would be that it's reasonable to assume that Henry may not encounter very many in the relatively small setting the game has. Oddly a detail not worthy of fudging in the same manner some other things are.

The politics around it seemed like a non-issue blown out of proportion by all different sides including the devs themselves. For the game itself, I heard the story was good and you actually feel like a normal guy peasant at the start instead of some super warrior. I wanna try it out sometime

@rocketblast0063: Said I wouldn't poke the low hanging fruit. Apparently I lied

I would recommend reading up a bit on the topic before saying "X don't know what they are talking about".

The long and short of it (and please, don't take my word for it. Actually do some research) is that people of color almost definitely existed in the area. There are records from all across (western and eastern) europe indicating this to be true. I am not aware of any specific document from this specific region, but that gets to the second point

Literacy was a lot less common in this era. Similarly, this era was hundreds of years ago and document preservation was not always the goal. So random scribblings by some kid talking about the dark skinned guy who stayed at the inn last night are pretty rare. Documents by the courts and the church saying who came to talk to important person X are fairly common. And trade records can go either way (how many receipts have YOU saved?). And, regardless, if you saw someone you didn't like you would probably try to avoid talking about them. That is why records of the Romani people tend to be so spotty.

So it is quite possible, and even probable, that Blacksmith's Son would not have seen a single person of color in his travels (to be fair, his travels would have been to walk to the castle and then get told to get back to work). But the "there were no black people. HISTORY" argument doesn't really hold any weight unless we assume they were actively being kept out...

Which boils down to the real issue here. Death of the Author is fine and under those "rules" it is pretty easy to make a good faith argument. There were plenty of female warriors throughout history but the odds of any one person hanging out with a lady merc is ridiculously small. But when the author is constantly screaming FUD and is known to be associated with hate groups...

And one thing that does really annoy me: In all of this talk, folk forget that there was a pretty large ethnic group in the area with a history of Europe... not liking them. And instead just about everyone comes from a pretty narrow band of "ethnicity". Which gets back into that whole issue with a good faith "Death of the Author" that a lot of folk had.

---

So the world wasn't a mixing pot, but it kind of sounds like you don't "know much about europe and history in general". And that is fine. We all have gaps in our knowledge. But if you do want to participate in discussions where the argument is "it isn't historically accurate" then go read a book or two.

Sorry gundato, I tried to be as short and precise as possible because I know this is a such infected topic, maybe I was unclear.
I :
1. Did not say that people of color didn't exist in Bohemia at that time.
2. Did however say that the representation in KDC is pretty accurate to how it was irl, back then.
3. Also used the term "people of color" and not "black people". I may be wrong, but I think that people of color is meaning a person that is not white.

As for #2 I included the Cumans as "people of color". My understanding is still that Warhorse did a pretty accurate work. I'm basing that from what I remember reading about history and the little research I did when this "matter" started blowing up in some game media corners.

But gundato, I'm happy to learn more and to update or revise my standing if needed. Feel free to pm me any sources you have.