Sorry this game is not that good compared to previous games.

[Viktor_Flik]

I'm a huge fan of the dev and the devs games so this is not a "troll" post but this is a major step back to the great trajectory RC had with Voidspire, then Alvora, then the absolute gem that is Horizon's Gate. Maybe I was expecting better due to how great HG was but this game is a huge step back and like a watered down version of the previous games.

For one, the new turn system is worse than all the other games and you can almost never hit skills where there is a wait as the enemies just move out of the way.

Two, many of the skills are bland or just not very useful, see above point, or are just convoluted to use. Sometimes simple skills, like in previous games, make for a much better experience.

Three, the classes, although new and fresh, don't have any special stat bonuses for switching classes. For instance, in other games, classes had pro's and con's that happened upon changing, like Rogue would give you an extra 'move,' Warrior extra Strength, etc. None of that is present here and makes the classes more bland and boring.

Four, way less classes than HG and less variety in builds.

Five, way less equips and equip types. I liked the variety had in the other games, whips, daggers, hammers, axes, 2-3 more tiers of armor, etc. There's about half the amount in this game. After a little bit of exploration in this you just keep finding the same stuff over and over and end up leaving most stuff just lying around because it's essentially useless. A trunk to put things in instead of just littering the floor seems like a basic thing that should have been done that was not included for some reason.

Six, the accessories are not very good either, or require exact amounts of health to be useful. I DO like that there are 3 slots for accessories instead of 2.

Seven, half the stats in other games are not present in this. No jump, no Phys Def, no Mag Def, no Mag Eva. All those other stats were fun to work with and gave depth to characters, classes, stats, and equipment. In this armor just increases HP or MP and that's it. I DO like that there are armors that primarily increase HP and others that primarily increase MP but the lack of variety of other stats just makes it boring.

Eight, color scheme is drab, which I get, since it's a subterranean type world so this is a minor complaint but still not too pretty to look at.

Some stuff was fine. The new UI was alright, I did like the HG way a little better but this is a change that if you stuck with it, wouldn't bother me, I also like the "pet" character, the base you can (sort of) develop at the tower, going to "random fight" maps for those who want to grind, finding secrets, the story is fine, music is pretty good but I'm sorry to say that this is a step back from the other games and I hope in the next game, if there is one, and I hope there is because you are a very talented and down to earth dev, you'll continue on with the trajectory of HG with its robust world, colorful characters, exploration, many stats, equipments, and classes.

No hate. I gather you wanted to try something different, but I'm a big believer in if it's not broke don't fix it and that especially goes for games. Either way, thanks for making the game, it still has some enjoyable elements, it's just not as good or polished as the others imo and I think as someone who has paid for and played all of your games and spent hundreds of hours on them I can leave my opinion here.

[Professor Q]

I like it in different ways.

The mount is a great idea. I'd love to see an expansion of monster companions like this. It's fun to plan strategies around it. Currently I'm using it as the legs for my sniper crossbow slayer, but I already have ideas for a mage and melee build taking advantage of the mount.

The emphasis on positioning adds a lot of depth to the combat that kind of replaces the breadth of stats available in previous games. There is more emphasis on teamwork and combos rather than individual super heroes, and I like that.

I see the charged attacks as a challenge to use correctly, and if nothing else it's a powerful zoning tool since the AI seems to avoid charges at all costs. Being honest the old way is my preference, but I don't hate this as a variety option - I can always go back and play a previous title if I want.

My main reason for preferring Voidspire as my favorite is actually more exploration oriented, but I haven't finished Kingsvein so I dunno if my opinion will change.

[Gruhk]

I was thinking about writing a post to say... pretty much exactly the same thing.

This game is good, but definitely not as great as the previous ones.

The new turn order is a huge step back, it dumbs down the fights and make pretty much every delayed action useless (since they obviously are balanced with the former system in mind).

The active skills from the advanced classes are too situational and convoluted, for not enough reward compared to basic skills from T1 classes. I litteraly end up using Bash and Zap more than all the other offensive skills combined.

And there are not enough classes. The funnest part of HG was grinding through classes and accumulating options. Here, you unlock everything super fast. And you're dispointed since the advanced classes are not super interesting (well, there are nice combos with the passives, but most of the active skills are disapointing).

As the OP, i really want to show no hate. I love the games made by this developper. I'm just a bit disapointed. May be, the bar was placed too high after HG.

[Gaist Heidegger]

I'm ride or die with supporting this dev and will buy anything RC puts out happily, I'm just personally not as interested in the diecast / graven material and really loved the broader character creation options from voidspire and HG. I still intend to play this once I have the time to though and will gift copies to friends / look forward to a prospective workshop support.

[Sehnder]

Agreed on all counts.

Adding on to #8- maybe just me due to colorblindness, but blood effects are way hard to see. I basically have no idea how much bonus damage is coming from the next lightning strike until it goes off.

[Halfshell]

Its a new angle, ofc some (most even) are going to prefer the old style. It also has less development over the very polished HG. I don't think its fair to compare them 1 to 1 until the style gets iterated (assuming it gets a sequel).

Compared to Alvora or Voidspire I like the gameplay better overall.

[Professor Q]

Originally posted by Halfshell:

Its a new angle, ofc some (most even) are going to prefer the old style. It also has less development over the very polished HG. I don't think its fair to compare them 1 to 1 until the style gets iterated (assuming it gets a sequel).

Compared to Alvora or Voidspire I like the gameplay better overall.

I think the strategy is deeper, even if the variety is less, yeah.

[Sigs]

The moment to moment decisions are impacted by how tight the power scaling is with most of the scaling options removed. The encounters were almost all really well planned around that scaling.

That's a different argument than the really weird, backwards decisions the dev made for turns and whatever toxic cesspit "There is more emphasis on teamwork and combos" came from. It's really bizarre to see people spam that mindlessly, to the point of being actually unnerving. It doesn't make any sense.

In the previous games where TTA actually mattered, there was plenty of emphasis on teamwork if you went that direction. There were other options that this game does not have. This game does not specialize in that area in any way in comparison, it just made everything else worse. Making everything else worse does not make one section better.

[Nigrescence]

I agree with just about everyone here. For whatever reason, the combat and character development/building is less satisfying. I do think that the delay turn skills mostly... don't work. You can't land them. But as others have noticed, you can use them to control the AI. So that can certainly be useful. Unfortunately it does make most skills with delay useless, especially for martial characters.

Still having fun with this game, but probably won't get me to enjoy it or play much more of it once I've finished the story. I also like that advancing the story is more... linear, than Horizon's Gate. I still haven't finished that one yet because I'm still exploring, grinding, and whatnot, and it has also been a while since I played it. Three accessory slots is also great, but... most accessories are useless. So I just stack HP/MP boosting and Dodge boosting. Obviously the accessories that boost Magic and Strength are the most useful, but they're also extremely rare. I can still do my regular tactic of having one melee character with the rest magic characters so the game is still comfy. The Wyvern was the most compelling shake-up to the formula, but felt a little underdeveloped as a concept. Would love to see a future game where you have more variety in Wyvern breeds, with different ability focuses. Maybe a three party team where you have three people and three Wyverns, and you could even do a similar kind of "ship combat" that you did in Horizon's Gate but with your three Wyvern riders. I would love to see that. The ship combat in Horizon's Gate was interesting, but I could never bring myself to have more than one ship at a time for lots of reasons.

Horizon's Gate had superior gameplay in a number of ways. I find the wisps from defeated enemies to be more annoying than anything else, they're not especially engaging.

[Sigvuld]

I'm unfortunately feeling the same way, here, and was pretty shocked at how much less I was enjoying this than Horizon's Gate. It really sucks that I feel that way, because I can tell the game is made with so much love, but it just feels like I have SO much less to play with than Horizon's Gate. Sure, dungeons are well spread out in HG and fights are more spaced out as a result, but I feel the drive to make lots of different characters for HG to test builds for funsies.

I don't... feel that drive, here. Not really. I'm just getting bodied left and right on normal difficulty and feel like something's been lost with the combat in the transition from HG to Kingsvein. The worst part is, it doesn't really feel like something's busted or I'm horribly misunderstanding mechanics, it moreso feels like the game's being purposefully vague and wasting my time with things HG did a great job explaining, and as a result, I'm just simply not having half the fun I had with HG.

I think I'm gonna have to skip out on Kingsvein - I'd genuinely rather just sink my teeth into HG proper at this rate.

I hope to see the game improve, I really, really do - I wish I could accurately describe just what feels so lacking, here, but I don't think I effectively can. It's so many little things - little things like the world feeling more alive, vibrant, creative, and fun in Horizon's Gate, the fact we only have left and right facing sprites in Kingsvein for... some reason, the art style has become so muddy to the point that my party members kind of just blend together into an amorphous mass of the same guy wearing different clothes, rather than people with different visual vibes and aesthetics. Just so much variety!

I get that we're in Graven, it's mostly variations of one race here, but it still feels... less. So much of it just feels arbitrarily less than what I got in Horizon's Gate.

Maybe the best way to put my thoughts would be that while I don't think Kingsvein is BAD, in fact it's clearly made by a loving and passionate developer, I do think it's just simply less game, in all the places where that counts most for me (and apparently others), like class variety, playable race variety, AREA variety, all of which drastically reduce the game's replayability for me to such a degree that it hurts my drive to play it when I could be playing Horizon's Gate instead.

I really do agree on it feeling like a big step back from Horizon's Gate - I was hoping for more, not drastically less. The raw quality of the game is still there, but there's, again, just... so much less.

-----

I'm gonna give it one more shot and see if something clicks. I really, really want it to.

EDIT: Yeah, no, unfortunately I just can't get this to click, and that genuinely makes me sad. I'm not gonna leave a negative review for it, as I know it's gonna be polished over time, but I really hope to see this improve to feel as fun for me as Horizon's Gate is.

[poobah_kryos]

Some of you all need to be more empathetic with how you talk about it. Rad Codex put a LOT of hard work into this game.

Some features may not be to your liking, and thats fine, but just sh*tting on their hard work is rude.

If you want to criticize, be constructive.

Rad Codex, if you are reading this- I enjoyed the hell out of the game. Im waiting for the next one!

[Three-Factor Authentication]

It's already clear this one is going to be the black sheep of the series.

Due to the changes to combat, the way fights play out is really different from previous entries. By really different, I don't mean a little different, but to the point where the battles lean much more towards "puzzle" than "RPG". This is accented by the lower variety of classes, races, and weapons and probably the reason many dislike this game.

I think it is mostly due to the removal of defensive stats, the dialed-back weapon/magic damage scaling, etc. If you are trying to use delayed spells without creating a "checkmate" situation, or performing weapon attacks, you will be disappointed. (I learned this the hard way). It is also very difficult for one of your characters to win a 1v1 in this game, far more so than Horizon's gate or voidspire.

I agree that the UI and descriptions of some abilities could be better. Some, like tripwire and wavecrash don't really give you a good idea of what the attack will look like.

Personally, I found horizon's gate to be rather bloated. (Not to mention the completely unnecessary amount of time you had to spend inching your boat along the world map). A pruning was necessary, and the setting accommodated the change, since few sprites for existing creatures/concepts would have to be redone.

Most people playing right now still thought they were going to get tactics ogre, so the game isn't getting judged on its own terms. We'll see what the verdict is when there is enough time for people to figure out the changes, and ask "is combat fun?" rather than "does combat have TTA?"

[Nigrescence]

Originally posted by poobah_kryos:

Some of you all need to be more empathetic with how you talk about it. Rad Codex put a LOT of hard work into this game.

Some features may not be to your liking, and thats fine, but just sh*tting on their hard work is rude.

If you want to criticize, be constructive.

Rad Codex, if you are reading this- I enjoyed the hell out of the game. Im waiting for the next one!

Nobody is saying Rad Codex didn't put hard work into this game. Some of us, like myself, still like the game. What we are providing IS constructive criticism.
I too am waiting for the next Rad Codex game, and I will almost certainly buy it. However I want the game formula to improve. Rad Codex took some risks to try out a variation on the formula. Some of it was GREAT. Some of it... less so. I'm certain that a lot of people wanted to see a team-based turn game by Rad Codex. I certainly wanted to see that! I'd love to see ANOTHER team-based turn game by Rad Codex, but I think some things would have to be adjusted to the formula to make that work in a satisfying way.

I haven't seen anyone here "just sh*tting on their hard work" as you claim.

[Rad Codex]

Hey guys, thank you all for trying the game and giving your honest feedback. I expected Kingsvein would not necessarily be a hit with every player that enjoyed Horizon's Gate since it is very intentionally striking in a different direction. The big changing of mechanics and other aspects naturally means some people will prefer one set over the other. And Sigvuld puts it well when he says:

Originally posted by Sigvuld:

I really do agree on it feeling like a big step back from Horizon's Gate - I was hoping for more, not drastically less. The raw quality of the game is still there, but there's, again, just... so much less.

Kingsvein is definitely a much smaller game than Horizon's Gate. HG was built on 2 other games' worth of content, and then I spent a full extra year (and then some) after release adding more stuff to it. It's perfectly fine to prefer the vastness of HG to Kingsvein. Or to prefer one set of mechanics or aesthetics to the other.

(As an aside, the reason I completely redid everything is because I worked on games with the same combat system for 8 years. I can't rest unless I mix it up sometimes!)

I plan to continue patching both Kingsvein and Horizon's Gate - and when I make more games, they won't necessarily be Kingsvein-style. In the meantime, thank you all for supporting these little games, and please keep giving me feedback!

[Viktor_Flik]

Also poobah_kryos, any decent game developer (which Rad Codex is) will look at criticism (constructive or otherwise) with an open mind and be thankful for the feedback and use that feedback to improve, even if they don't change anything or everything.

People just crapping on the game would just leave a comment like...
"this game sucks," or "you're a crappy dev, go flip burgers for a living."

No one here is behaving like that. It's great that you're a fan of the dev and his games, I am too, but he doesn't need you to protect him like that especially when no one wishes him ill will. He's got this! Many of us are having the same sentiments about the game and that's for a reason.

EDIT: Rad Codex replied when I did. Thanks for reading RC. I know you're a passionate dev who does appreciate feedback which is why I made the OP and it seems many have the same sentiments. I'm sure there will even be a handful who will even enjoy Kingsvein more than previous titles. I do know that I will continue to support your work as you are one of the best devs I've ever come across and I'm glad to hear you will be putting out more games.

[Sigvuld]

Originally posted by Rad Codex:

Hey guys, thank you all for trying the game and giving your honest feedback. I expected Kingsvein would not necessarily be a hit with every player that enjoyed Horizon's Gate since it is very intentionally striking in a different direction. The big changing of mechanics and other aspects naturally means some people will prefer one set over the other. And Sigvuld puts it well when he says:

Originally posted by Sigvuld:

I really do agree on it feeling like a big step back from Horizon's Gate - I was hoping for more, not drastically less. The raw quality of the game is still there, but there's, again, just... so much less.

Kingsvein is definitely a much smaller game than Horizon's Gate. HG was built on 2 other games' worth of content, and then I spent a full extra year (and then some) after release adding more stuff to it. It's perfectly fine to prefer the vastness of HG to Kingsvein. Or to prefer one set of mechanics or aesthetics to the other.

(As an aside, the reason I completely redid everything is because I worked on games with the same combat system for 8 years. I can't rest unless I mix it up sometimes!)

I plan to continue patching both Kingsvein and Horizon's Gate - and when I make more games, they won't necessarily be Kingsvein-style. In the meantime, thank you all for supporting these little games, and please keep giving me feedback!

I want to make it known as clearly as possible that you're one of the exceedingly few devs whose creations I buy ASAP on principle without feeling the need to look into them all that much beforehand. Your sheer dedication and passion shows, it really does, and even if Kingsvein didn't click with me, there's a reason I didn't leave a review suggesting against people diving into this game.

Thank you for putting out the work that you do, because you've been, and still are, one of the greats for indie RPGs in my books! I can't wait to see not only what you add to Kingsvein, but also what new looks into this world you've made you'll give us in the future!