Kingdom Come: Deliverance

It has alchemy and I’ve seen an alchemist shop…

Bah. Had my first crippling bug. Was trying to do some archery training and the game came out of a cutscene with me locked in a running state. Could not access inventory, could not stop, just kept running. Had to quit without saving. Grr.

Sooo, I bravely unsheathed my sword in the escape (prologue) and I have to say, this has been the best depiction of combat where a lvl 1 peasant tries to take on a seasoned war veteran I’ve seen in games to date.

After a few reloads I’m also having my doubts about helping the woman further down the road, lol.

Roleplaying at its finest, truly. I love it when gameplay leads my decisions, not some forced narrative.

Yeah, I didn’t even try to save the lady, as by the time I realized I could, maybe, I had pretty much run beyond that.

At this point, I’m trying to figure out how to take on a couple of gnarly bad guys in the woods. BTW, the woods are amazing. The world is very lifelike and feels about as authentic as you can get in a PC game these days.

There was a quite awesome moment in one of the early game quests when I snuck on a couple of Quest NPCs. I was feeling very satisfied of my obviously superior stealth skills until I pressed ‘A’ for a fraction of a second and a branch creaked (or so I think, as one of the guys immediately turned around and saw me in my red and yellow costume).

I really got into hunting hares or bigger game too. The immersion while walking through those forests is pretty incredible.

I just made it to the second city (Talmberg, I think?) and the game does feel special. The world building is stellar. I’m really, really impressed with a lot of things this far - graphics, music, the writing! Good stuff indeed.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen in-game choices incorporated into cutscenes as seamlessly as they are here. Nice job, game.

My only quibble, really, and it’s fairly minor, is that it’s sometimes unclear whether a main quest you have is time-sensitive or not. On the other hand, the game seems pretty robust. I was supposed to meet someone and then accompany them somewhere, and I chose to run to a trader to unload some crap (forgetting I could just put it in my saddlebag). I got a quest failed message, and when I finally met up with the guy I got reamed out. So I went back to the autosave and this time made it to the rendezvous in time. I was impressed, though, that although there was a timer (or a distance thing, can’t tell which) on the quest, it was set up to accommodate different choices.

The UI is generally ok, but there are some things I haven’t found explanations for. Some of the icons on gear I’m guessing mean dirty or bloodied, or something? And it’s not immediately clear what the penalties are for using weapons you aren’t qualified for or proficient in.

The time sensitiveness is interesting. I think it is for the most part logical, if someone waits for you somewhere, it is probably good not to leave them waiting. But if the quest is like “get to village X”, you can do whatever you want for as long as you want. For example,

After Ginger you’re supposed to go to Uzhitz for something (avoiding spoilers). The only thing I did at that point is go there to learn to read. After that, I’ve spent weeks (in game) doing side quests, hunting, reading, etc etc. Haven’t missed anything and picked right back up in Uzhitz when I wanted to proceed the main quest again with no problems.

Afaik there is an unfortunate bug in 1.6 where the clothes do not get dirty/bloodied (as shown here, 4 years ago :) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWQn10s_QJM )

eventhough the UI indicates it. It is known and will be fixed in the next update.

It really is incredible how fast they managed to set up things. Two minutes into the game and I felt like I was THERE. Maybe because it’s a realistic setting, I don’t know. The fact that people don’t immediately refer to you as the chosen one also helps.

Also, Martin went out like a boss. That was some Boromir tier of badassery.

And, is it just me or does this game have the best out of the box lighting ever seen in an rpg?

I’m only a couple of hours in, but my only quibble is a minor one, although understandable. While your gameplay avatar reflects the correct physical condition (dirty, bloodied, etc.) the one in the cutscenes doesn’t. It does tend to break the immersion a bit.

Also tooltips for the buff/debuff icons would be nice.

You can view the buff/debuff information on the character sheet/buffs tab if you press Q. I’m more curious what the icons on my equipment mean - the red hand obviously means stolen, but I don’t know what that black spot means - dirty?

I realize that, but that negates the whole point of having them on the main interface.

Why, do you forget the meaning of the icons every time you start a new game?

Makes sense; I, too, am about to set off for the beautiful metropolis of Uzhitz, so it is good to know I don’t have to bust my ass getting there. Before that, though, Bernard told me to investigate but come back to the stables, and when I did, no one was there. He didn’t give me any specific time, of course (that would be pretty anachronistic, to say be back at 4:30 sharp), but I wasn’t gone that long. So I got chewed out when I finally did meet up with him there–after another step in the quest caused him to spawn there with a quest icon.

Yeah, the game manages to do stuff like that without making it feel hokey. There are some other tragic things that are handled well too. I also appreciate the period fidelity, with everyone being so in-your-face totally Christian in a communion-wafers-to-the-wall sort of way that shows both the actual faith and the sheer terror of the world around them that makes everyone so desperate to cling to something that will take them out of this vale of tears.

Considering I only started the game yesterday, yes. But thanks for the gratuitous snark. I wish I could be as smart and handsome as you so obviously are.

Relax, it was a friendly jab. I can see where you’re coming from, new players definitely need information that’s more accessible. On the other hand, what KCD is doing is a pretty elegant UI solution that saves screen real estate and keeps the whole thing tidy and minimalistic.

Unrelated - am I going to stab myself in the foot with a pitchfork if I refuse to work for the miller (after the prologue)? I doubt I’ll get into subterfuge much in this game, mostly because there’s no quick save and it’s easy to get spotted performing criminal activities, and I’d like to keep the number of reloads to a minimum. Just wondering if I’m going to miss out on any great rewards and/or XP.

No worries. It’s tough to see someone’s intent in text. Bygones.

I, um, never got around (yet) to the bit of “work” the miller wanted done, but I did resolve the, um, obligations I had in another way later. So there are options it seems.