Good But Flawed. 100% done

[Fast]

8/10

I want to preface this by saying the game is incredibly well done across the board with a few exceptions here and there.

From general gameplay, combat, voice over, music, dialogue, loot, movement and traversal, immersion, general narrative, and side content, map design, its all generally speaking really good.

There are however some glaring issues with some parts of the game that really no one i saw in any review talk about. lets look at them.,

1. Combat. Whilst a huge step up from the previous game. is incredibly janky when you try to do anything quickly. From ending up in clinches inside dead enemies for you to slide 30ft across the floor, to getting stuck in never ending stab animations no matter what you press. And the kick causing you to lock inside an enemy and get stuck being unable to attack. Its obnoxious in places especially when fighting multiple enemies. I assume most people know how janky this stuff is in general so i dont need to go over combat much.

2. Pacing, the games pacing is okay, but is disrupted if like me you clear the map of side content before moving on where possible. This makes it feel like you go from doing hours and hours of side content and distractions to burning through the main story's final 10 chapters in about 8-10 hours. It would have perhaps been better to break up the side content availability between main quests a bit better so it doesnt feel like you are just going from a pretty slow start to a rush to the end.

3. Difficulty. There is none. 0. The game is made trivial with thievery and stealth to the point it makes me wonder if its intentional or they gave up just making the AI functional in regards to stealth. This could have been solved by different levels of guards and guards with better awareness as well as general AI improvement. Right now you can walk in front of guards like 4 feet away and they wont spot you if you levelled you stealth even slightly at the start. this allows you to rob the armoury;s early on and trivialise the entire game.
Beyond stealth, general AI and combat is pretty terrible and doesnt work well in a lot of situations.

4. Side quests and activites. Whilst I understand the game is trying to be immersive and keep things more realistic, having a lot of inconsequential side quests with nothing burger pointless tasks and nothing eventful happening becomes tedious fairly quickly. There are some incredible side quests here and there but then from every good one, there is 5 tedious pointless timer waster ones. They seem deliberate as well to fill out play time which is really obnoxious. Most of them amount to multi-part fetch quests and its terrible and boring.

5. Not enough fights, and meaningful combat moments outside of the last few story quests. there needs to be a wider assortment of enemy types (it doesnt have to be lless realistic or immersive) . It also needs more combat related activities outside of bandit camps. If you are not doing a side quest or main quest, your game is bandits and running around for excessive periods doing not very much. The fast travel encounters are not good enough or content rich enough.

6. Waste of time dialogue. Having entire dialogue sets that offer nothing, no context, do not further the story and do not improve your understanding of a character or their motives is infuriating. There are so many examples of this throughout the game, like it feels like the idea was immersion, but they went over the top to the point they will waste 5-10 mins of your life in some cases for literally no reason. Its okay here and there for keeping people involved in the world, but its consistent throughout.

7. kuttenburg. Its just boring. a big empty town that makes you walk for hours and hours, with not much going on in the scheme of things. Its limited in content, its all side quest triggers and barely anything is going on outside of that. I wish they had more events going on in kuttenburg and more non linear things to do and see etc. Its just not that good.

8. Katherine. Should be able to bang her earlier and at least more than once. Rosa makes sense one time, but katherine, nah, should be at the inn, then at the camp, then at end.

9. Smithing - Alchemy, Designed to waste your time to a massive degree. The animations are arbitrarily slow, everything you do requires a 10 minute animation, this needs all speeding up by like 5x and itll feel fine. As it is. Its feel boring as hell to do them, and in most cases its quicker to just avoid it unless its part of a quest to make x via smithing. for alchemy thankfully there is like 1 quest in the game that needs a strong potion and a place you can find 3 of them. So it can mostly be avoided bar a few side quests. But really its just boring time waster mechanics.

10. Loot, outfits and weapons. Because there is literally 0 difficulty all of the loot is undermined quite heavily. Longsword are just outright better than everything else by a large margin. You wear this awesome armour but never get hit. You can literally 1v10 and never take a hit. Loot feels generally underwhelming across the board. You can beat the entire game basically naked with exception of skill checks requiring charisma. Its a flawed system that needed more thought.

[Enter the Wang]

I'm a couple of hours into Kuttenberg map and my thoughts generally reflect yours.

Pacing needs work. I've learnt now with KCD that you need to actively ignore the main story if you want any chance at levelling your character and properly gearing up. As soon as I arrived in Kuttenberg I spent several hours upgrading my kit because I knew that (based on past main quest chains) that I would be trapped on rails for hours if I continued with main quest objectives. Same deal with looking for a wedding invitation. Clearly I had PTSD from the first game where if you do the innocuous watchman quest before getting master strike training, you are gimped in combat for hours and hours of the main quest.

Kuttenberg does feel empty. There should be more activities and other events. The vendors feel samey with no large difference between them. DLC might flesh this out. Still, I'm reminded of games like Baldur's Gate 1 or 2 that integrated quests into the city much better.

Group combat feels so easy compared to Privalslavitz from the first game. Just flank around and cut them from behind. No skill required. At least it was payback for those murder sprees in Kuttenberg where guards would wait for their friends to attack you from behind.

Alchemy should have had shortcuts with the right perks like the first game (eg ignore grinding or boiling) as it is Secret of Matter is much more advantageous.

Regarding Loot, you can get the best sword in the game (and swords are the best weapons like you say) as soon as you arrive in Kuttenberg. It would have been nice to have more quest reward equipment with unique properties (say a stealth brigadine chestplate/coif allowing for a decent hybrid armor/stealth set) to make the side quests more rewarding rather than +rep.

I'm happy I preordered, but the game is flawed. Not unforgivably so. I think 8/10 is pretty reasonable.

[Fast]

Originally posted by Enter the Wang:

I'm a couple of hours into Kuttenberg map and my thoughts generally reflect yours.

Pacing needs work. I've learnt now with KCD that you need to actively ignore the main story if you want any chance at levelling your character and properly gearing up. As soon as I arrived in Kuttenberg I spent several hours upgrading my kit because I knew that (based on past main quest chains) that I would be trapped on rails for hours if I continued with main quest objectives. Same deal with looking for a wedding invitation. Clearly I had PTSD from the first game where if you do the innocuous watchman quest before getting master strike training, you are gimped in combat for hours and hours of the main quest.

Kuttenberg does feel empty. There should be more activities and other events. The vendors feel samey with no large difference between them. DLC might flesh this out. Still, I'm reminded of games like Baldur's Gate 1 or 2 that integrated quests into the city much better.

Group combat feels so easy compared to Privalslavitz from the first game. Just flank around and cut them from behind. No skill required. At least it was payback for those murder sprees in Kuttenberg where guards would wait for their friends to attack you from behind.

Alchemy should have had shortcuts with the right perks like the first game (eg ignore grinding or boiling) as it is Secret of Matter is much more advantageous.

Regarding Loot, you can get the best sword in the game (and swords are the best weapons like you say) as soon as you arrive in Kuttenberg. It would have been nice to have more quest reward equipment with unique properties (say a stealth brigadine chestplate/coif allowing for a decent hybrid armor/stealth set) to make the side quests more rewarding rather than +rep.

I'm happy I preordered, but the game is flawed. Not unforgivably so. I think 8/10 is pretty reasonable.

The lack of dynamic events is lets kuttenburg down massively but the rest of the maps suffer too.

Gear feels meaningless the game is so easy if you have a longsword or the reforged long sword you won the game it 2 shots everyone. You can easily 1v10 and not even get hit.

And yep they need to do a better job of pacing the side content within the main story so you don't feel like you spending weeks at a standstill to clear the map that a few hours to burst through locked in main story. Stupid design

[The nubinator]

Dont rob armories, youre a honorable knight?

[BPScott95]

Oh, you were the guy who made that really long whiny post about woke thus how you immediately cancelled your pre-order and got laughed out the room afterwards?

Oh, if anyone wants to go see how OUTRAGED he was - https://steamcommunity.com/app/1771300/discussions/0/507318268593227470/

[Kitty Katyusha]

Originally posted by BPScott95:

Oh, you were the guy who made that really long whiny post about woke thus how you immediately cancelled your pre-order and got laughed out the room afterwards?

Oh, if anyone wants to go see how OUTRAGED he was - https://steamcommunity.com/app/1771300/discussions/0/507318268593227470/

Also made another post within 30mins of this one trying to get attention clearly.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1771300/discussions/0/591763033886356478/

[Fast]

Originally posted by The nubinator:

Dont rob armories, youre a honorable knight?

Stealing is how you get like 15k money and the best armour in the game at the start of kuttenburg region as well as the best armour like 15 mins in at the beginning of the game. Thievery and stealth do trivialise the entire game though

[Xeno]

I agree but more a 6-7/10 not an 8.
6 vannila and 7 with mods.

There are no children in the game.
It breaks immersion and is either lazy or cowardly dev work.


Kuttenberg.
It feels so empty.
The robin hood side quest is cringe as hell.
The mutilator was fun.
Thats it.
The rest of the city is booring and the underground is just a waste of time.


No real romance?
I mean on the store page it says this is a story of love and revenge.
It even shows Henry with Rosa.
This makes it seem as if you could make it more then a one time fling only to end up like a stranger after doing it once.

I really hated it in how they did in in KDC 1 and i hate it here too.
Is it so hard to copy Dragon age origin in that regard?
That game was released 17 years ago and had better romance and the only thing they did was having your love interest talk to you like a lover even after you did them.
One would expect more of modern games not less.




Stealing is OP.
I did Alchemy and the Henry potions are better and the only reason to do alchemy.
But i had to griend 3 real life hours on them.
Should have startet stealing more early.

That the merchants only have 300 coins is another negative.
So is the fackt that the buy and sell price are completly out of touch.
Buy price 50 but sell price 7?
Thats just stupid.


On Loot.
So much trash.
Mainly becourse the sell price is terrible.
So looting anything that doesnt show at least 200 buy price means its trash.
Hell even herbs are trash.
One would expect that fresh herbs are worth a bit so new players have a peacefull way to earn a bit.
But no. Only 0.1 for each.
no difference to the dried version that is worse for doing alchemy.


Lockpicking is all about stats and no gameplay.
Your lockpicking skill is everything and it doesnt matter how skilled as a player you are.
It should be the otherway around.



smithing is cool at the start but that it takes the same ammount of time to make a single horseshoe then it is for a longsword is really dump.


Combat is artifical hard early on until you learn master strike.

Long swords are the king of all.
no need to use a hammer or other anti armor weapons. Just coat you longsword in dollmaker poison and kill your enemys in full plate in 3 - 4 hits.

Polearms are under powerd.
Tried fighting a group of 5 with a polearm and got completly rippet.
While with the longsword it was easy.
Tryed it with the hammer and it was realive easy as well.
From what i fell the range is just a tiny but longer then the longsword but its slower to swing and stab and got no master strike.

That they limit the masterstrike to swords just shows that they only addet the other weapons as a token.

[tequilatibbs]

a lot of fair points, although I disagree about alchemy and blacksmithing which i really enjoyed (i just had to make sure i did in short burst to stop it getting tedious.)

Pacing is bad. I did all the sidequests and was basically invincible by the wedding feast. And this is without using theivery / stealth at all. But, i did train a lot with tomcat. I hate in games when all your gear gets taken from you for reasons.

And many sidequests are tedious back and forth - I will skip most on my hardcore playthrough when thats released.

Overall i am loving it (not finished), but im an immersion nerd so i really buzz off just seeing the accurate carpentry (joinery) and architechture.

What I would love is fishing - yes, fishing so i can pass the time in some lovely spot. But fishing with at least as much depth as rdr2 but preferably more. Needs to not be easy.
And much more involved/ difficult hunting.

Id give it a 9/10 or 10/10 (even though far from perfect) because theres not much like it and I think it is much better than most games that come out and get such scores.

Excited for hardcore mode/ dlc/ mods - and fishing please!

[Kitty Katyusha]

Originally posted by Xeno:

No real romance?
I mean on the store page it says this is a story of love and revenge.
It even shows Henry with Rosa.
This makes it seem as if you could make it more then a one time fling only to end up like a stranger after doing it once.

I really hated it in how they did in in KDC 1 and i hate it here too.
Is it so hard to copy Dragon age origin in that regard?
That game was released 17 years ago and had better romance and the only thing they did was having your love interest talk to you like a lover even after you did them.
One would expect more of modern games not less.

From what I figured there wouldn't be any new full romance options because Theresa exists. You can even reject certain events because of your dedication to her.

[Fast]

Originally posted by Xeno:

I agree but more a 6-7/10 not an 8.
6 vannila and 7 with mods.

There are no children in the game.
It breaks immersion and is either lazy or cowardly dev work.


Kuttenberg.
It feels so empty.
The robin hood side quest is cringe as hell.
The multilator was fun.
Thats it.
The rest of the city is booring and the underground is just a waste of time.


No real romance?
I mean on the store page it says this is a story of love and revenge.
It even shows Henry with Rosa.
This makes it seem as if you could make it more then a one time fling only to end up like a stranger after doing it once.

I really hated it in how they did in in KDC 1 and i hate it here too.
Is it so hard to copy Dragon age origin in that regard?
That game was released 17 years ago and had better romance and the only thing they did was having your love interest talk to you like a lover even after you did them.
One would expect more of modern games not less.




Stealing is OP.
I did Alchemy and the Henry potions are better and the only reason to do alchemy.
But i had to griend 3 real life hours on them.
Should have startet stealing more early.

That the merchants only have 300 coins is another negative.
So is the fackt that the buy and sell price are completly out of touch.
Buy price 50 but sell price 7?
Thats just stupid.


On Loot.
So much trash.
Mainly becourse the sell price is terrible.
So looting anything that doesnt show at least 200 buy price means its trash.
Hell even herbs are trash.
One would expect that fresh herbs are worth a bit so new players have a peacefull way to earn a bit.
But no. Only 0.1 for each.
no difference to the dried version that is worse for doing alchemy.


Lockpicking is all about stats and no gameplay.
Your lockpicking skill is everything and it doesnt matter how skilled as a player you are.
It should be the otherway around.



smithing is cool at the start but that it takes the same ammount of time to make a single horseshoe then it is for a longsword is really dump.


Combat is artifical hard early on until you learn master strike.

Long swords are the king of all.
no need to use a hammer or other anti armor weapons. Just coat you longsword in dollmaker poison and kill your enemys in full plate in 3 - 4 hits.

Polearms are under powerd.
Tried fighting a group of 5 with a polearm and got completly rippet.
While with the longsword it was easy.
Tryed it with the hammer and it was realive easy as well.
From what i fell the range is just a tiny but longer then the longsword but its slower to swing and stab and got no master strike.

That they limit the masterstrike to swords just shows that they only addet the other weapons as a token.

I was almost at a 7 but upon seeing the ending cutscened and the general vibe of the final quests it slid into an 8 for me personally but absolutely anyone saying a 7 would probably be right. A 6 though is too low. The game has flaws all over it but none of them entirely reduce the quality so significantly it makes the game average. I think it meets an 8...just.

And yep loot is all garbage and Stealing and stealth make the game a joke. I finished the game with like 18k grochen having never bought anything and only.mandatory stuff related to quests etc. Seems like they had no idea how to work these systems into the game.

[Xeno]

Originally posted by tequilatibbs:

a lot of fair points, although I disagree about alchemy and blacksmithing which i really enjoyed (i just had to make sure i did in short burst to stop it getting tedious.)

Pacing is bad. I did all the sidequests and was basically invincible by the wedding feast. And this is without using theivery / stealth at all. But, i did train a lot with tomcat. I hate in games when all your gear gets taken from you for reasons.

And many sidequests are tedious back and forth - I will skip most on my hardcore playthrough when thats released.

Overall i am loving it (not finished), but im an immersion nerd so i really buzz off just seeing the accurate carpentry (joinery) and architechture.

What I would love is fishing - yes, fishing so i can pass the time in some lovely spot. But fishing with at least as much depth as rdr2 but preferably more. Needs to not be easy.
And much more involved/ difficult hunting.

Id give it a 9/10 or 10/10 (even though far from perfect) because theres not much like it and I think it is much better than most games that come out and get such scores.

Excited for hardcore mode/ dlc/ mods - and fishing please!

Veilguard got a 9/10 from IGN i believe.
But thats just game journalists and nobody care for them anymore.

Never give a rating based on what others rate but what you feel like rating.
And saying its far from perfect and still giving it 9-10/10 is just silly.
For 10/10 is perfection that can not be imrproved upon.

[Caduryn]

Originally posted by BPScott95:

Oh, you were the guy who made that really long whiny post about woke thus how you immediately cancelled your pre-order and got laughed out the room afterwards?

Oh, if anyone wants to go see how OUTRAGED he was - https://steamcommunity.com/app/1771300/discussions/0/507318268593227470/

Yeah, its Jester Farming, in a lot of Games where he posts, as always

[Xeno]

Originally posted by Kitty Katyusha:

Originally posted by Xeno:

No real romance?
I mean on the store page it says this is a story of love and revenge.
It even shows Henry with Rosa.
This makes it seem as if you could make it more then a one time fling only to end up like a stranger after doing it once.

I really hated it in how they did in in KDC 1 and i hate it here too.
Is it so hard to copy Dragon age origin in that regard?
That game was released 17 years ago and had better romance and the only thing they did was having your love interest talk to you like a lover even after you did them.
One would expect more of modern games not less.

From what I figured there wouldn't be any new full romance options because Theresa exists. You can even reject certain events because of your dedication to her.

Naa at the begining at the game you can clarify if there is something with teressa.
After all you could just not romance her in KDC 1.
I selected nothing happend.

Wasnt there also that DLC that got her married to someone else?
Never played KDC 1 DLCs

In the end that would be just an excuse for lazy dev work.
Again 17 year old games do it better.

[Fast]

Originally posted by Xeno:

Originally posted by tequilatibbs:

a lot of fair points, although I disagree about alchemy and blacksmithing which i really enjoyed (i just had to make sure i did in short burst to stop it getting tedious.)

Pacing is bad. I did all the sidequests and was basically invincible by the wedding feast. And this is without using theivery / stealth at all. But, i did train a lot with tomcat. I hate in games when all your gear gets taken from you for reasons.

And many sidequests are tedious back and forth - I will skip most on my hardcore playthrough when thats released.

Overall i am loving it (not finished), but im an immersion nerd so i really buzz off just seeing the accurate carpentry (joinery) and architechture.

What I would love is fishing - yes, fishing so i can pass the time in some lovely spot. But fishing with at least as much depth as rdr2 but preferably more. Needs to not be easy.
And much more involved/ difficult hunting.

Id give it a 9/10 or 10/10 (even though far from perfect) because theres not much like it and I think it is much better than most games that come out and get such scores.

Excited for hardcore mode/ dlc/ mods - and fishing please!

Veilguard got a 9/10 from IGN i believe.
But thats just game journalists and nobody care for them anymore.

Never give a rating based on what others rate but what you feel like rating.
And saying its far from perfect and still giving it 9-10/10 is just silly.
For 10/10 is perfection that can not be imrproved upon.

I think a 7 or 8 is more reasonable here. 6 would be too low. And 9 is almost perfect which it isn't. 7 is good 8 is great. Both world work

[Kitty Katyusha]

Originally posted by Xeno:

Originally posted by Kitty Katyusha:

From what I figured there wouldn't be any new full romance options because Theresa exists. You can even reject certain events because of your dedication to her.

Naa at the begining at the game you can clarify if there is something with teressa.
After all you could just not romance her in KDC 1.
I selected nothing happend.

Wasnt there also that DLC that got her married to someone else?
Never played KDC 1 DLCs

In the end that would be just an excuse for lazy dev work.
Again 17 year old games do it better.

That's fair I suppose. I didn't have to deal with that thankfully so far as I've played Henry being very faithful to Theresa.