Fine I’ll Say It, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is Better Than Skyrim

Kingdom Come Deliverance is one of the best RPGs I've played in the past five years despite selling 5 million copies since its release in 2018 it's a criminally underappreciated game being the first game created by War Horse Studios Kingdom Come Prides itself on stunning visuals realism and historical accuracy now I want to go over what makes this game so incredible and also what I believe turns many players away from the game I'm going to do my best as well to avoid any spoilers about the plot because the whole point of this is try to convince more people to go give this incredible game a chance you jump into the muddy leather shoes of a young man named Henry in this game unlike many RPG titles where you create a character that is the master key that fits into all the locks that the storyline presents and Kingdom Come you play a predetermined character that is voiced that acts as a specific puzzle piece to a story that unfolds around you now typically I'm not really a fan of a voice protagonist and RPGs and I didn't enjoy it at all in Fallout 4 but in this game it works very well Henry is the son of a blacksmith in a small mining town of scallops in the 15th century Bohemia which was a part of the Roman Empire and today this would be the Czech Republic he's an 18 year old blacksmith's Apprentice in that time period he wouldn't have done much fighting or much of anything really which leads to the first roadblock that turns people away from this game Henry sucks at everything when you start the game the game is extremely challenging in the beginning because you're just a kid who's lived in a small village working the forge with Dad you have no combat or life experience if you try to fight trained soldiers and warriors early on you will die and boy it is easy to die in this game in comparison to a title like Skyrim where the first five minutes of the game you are slaughtering trained Warriors from an army while skipping your way through a dungeon I've heard many players get frustrated with the combat system so they end up quitting and I'll admit my first time trying to play this game I didn't understand how it worked got frustrated thinking I absolutely just suck at this game and ended up not coming back to it for about a month or so a combat system in this game is meant to be realistic and learned by both you the player and Henry the character as Henry gets stronger and trains combat it becomes easier the progress to go from getting your ass whooped by a rogue Bandit with a rusty sword to Dueling a knight and play armor and winning is extremely rewarding there is a lot of information in this game I mean a lot you are trying to learn the mechanics and controls of a new game while also following the storyline while also essentially getting a college course lecture on Bohemia in the 15th century it's a lot to keep track of and early on it can feel a little overwhelming to keep track of yourself in the historical timeline that's unfolding around you there are features and skills in this game that I didn't even realize existed because at some point I just must have missed it entirely Henry himself has a lot of stats Buffs different types of skills to manage but as I began to understand them better it really made me appreciate the game more for how detailed and intricate you can get into Player Development it also makes the game extremely replayable because of the number of different skills and play Styles but when you first start it's a lot to navigate in your menu speaking of the menu it's a bit clunky it truly feels like you are opening up a book or a journal it never is on the right page you flip around back and forth trying to get to the correct page the map is as well a little difficult to use I do however really enjoy the UI map from an artistic standpoint in general a lot of the menu system doesn't feel super intuitive but if the developer's intention was to make it feel like you're opening an encyclopedia and trying to figure something out then they nailed it there's a handful of different skills and perks in this game that help create a unique character experience there's a main level that has a set of perks then your character attributes so things like strength stamina Vitality Charisma then you have combat skills so all of your fighting skills and perks then you have a skill tab for non-combat skills the skills this game are truly what make your character unique and allows for Unique play Styles and lens well to role-playing a specific character I am going to go through the skills and highlight some of my favorite things about them the combat skills are pretty straightforward compared to the non-combat skills first is the Warfare skill which is a general gauge for your total fighting ability it helps determine the effectiveness of your weapon so how fast you attack and how much damage your weapons take while fighting the defense skill is a Proficiency in blocking and dodging and then the defensive stats of your weapons and your Shields the rest is pretty self-explanatory you have a skill tree for each weapon type with corresponding perks so ax bow mace sword and unarmed I'm thankful that the game made mace and act separate instead of just a blunt skill like Oblivion and even more grateful that it has them all separated by weapon class instead of just one hand and two hands like Skyrim it just adds way more creativity and diversity in how you play the game there is also an unarmed skill but unfortunately there's not any perks or much to it increasing the skill this increases the amount of damage you do which is a little disappointing I would have loved to see more involved in the unarmed skill first Alchemy it feels a bit tedious because you actually have to interact and follow a formula it's not just clicking on the ingredients as fast as possible so it is more time consuming but can be super beneficial to your character and I think this helps balance out Alchemy because in most games it tends to be the more boring skill but if you level it up it's super overpowered so I think adding this minigame really helped balance it out tagging along with Alchemy is the herbalism skill which I don't quite understand why this is a standalone skill it just affects the rate of which you can gather herbs that you use for Alchemy so it seems like a bit of a wasted space the drinking skill absolutely rules a lot of games have alcohol in their games that are completely useless in this game alcohol has effect on your players stats your movement and your camera the drinking skill allows you basically to better utilize the perks that come with alcohol like increased Charisma and speech without experiencing the negative effects of alcohol as harshly the next two skills are horsemanship and houndsmen which just unlocked perks to better help you utilize a horse and a dog then there is the hunting skill I never use it much in my traditional playthroughs but from a role-playing aspect it's pretty awesome addition and you can enjoy the perks and the skill that come with it now lock picking in this game is super freaking hard but I actually enjoy that it's difficult because most RPGs lock picking and pickpocking is extremely overpowered and pickpocket actually has an interactive Mini-Game that makes a ton of sense to me I'm not sure I've ever played a game where it's implemented in this way you generate a timer based on how long you search through someone's Pockets once you have left you are now looting them and the timer runs down as you scroll through someone's pockets and each time you pass an item you can click on it to reveal the item and then you have to grab it and scroll all the way back up to exit out of their pocket before your timer that you generated runs out it's not the standard open someone's inventory sit there and look at all their items and basically roll of a dice to see if you get it or not it's a time-based game I will say one of the biggest disappointments to me in this game when it comes to the non-combat skills that there is no smithing skill he was the son of an extremely talented blacksmith and he can't even pursue smithing as an option instead you're given a skill called maintenance which is just about repairing your armor and weapons it's nearly identical to the armor skill from Oblivion just a point-and-click repair menu for repairing armor and clothing then repairing the weapons though you do have a grindstone mini game which is more tedious than it is interesting you just kind of sit there and move the sword back and forth while spinning the wheel on the grindstone um there are perks that come with a maintenance skill tree that are pretty useful and decent perks but otherwise the skill itself is a bit disappointing and seems like a huge miss that smithing wasn't implemented in this when you were literally the son of a blacksmith the stealth skill is pretty straightforward but has a few interesting aspects to it you can't actually stealth kill someone till you unlock a perk to allow you to do so so it doesn't feel super overpowered in the beginning you have a few different attributes as well that affects your stealth skill those being visibility conspicuousness and noise so your clothing choices affects all of this so dark black clothing will be low invisibility and conspicuousness while a bright red tunic will make you very noticeable and heavy plate armor will be very loud while a monk's robe would be extremely quiet the final skill is reading it's so cool to me that reading is a skill in this game from the outward look that seems kind of boring but it was extremely common for most folk to be illiterate at this time unless you were nobility so and kingdom come when you crack open a book it is just pure gibberish you have to go and study underscribe to begin leveling up your reading and as it levels up the words become less and less jumbled but they'll still be slightly out of order it's almost what I would imagine having dyslexia would probably be like and the ability to read actually has a huge impact on your gameplay quite a few quests require you to read instructions or journals so if you can't read you either have to find someone to read it for you not do the quest or go learn how to read and so it's really cool that this is implemented into the game alright so those are all the skills but I would be remiss if I didn't mention the save system seems like a weird thing to mention but it's probably the root of more complaints in this game than anything else but I personally love it you can't save whenever you like saving is directly tied to either sleeping or saving by drinking an alcoholic beverage called a savior Schnapps and you also have the ability to exit save and this can definitely be frustrating at times if you haven't remembered to save in an hour or so when you die and have to load back when you most likely slept the night before and I do understand why this frustrates players but I wish more games would actually implement this type of save system it adds gravity and weight to the game and actually makes dying a penalty in the Elder Scrolls series there is no penalty for dying or committing crimes because more than likely your game ought to save less than five minutes ago and more likely you yourself or saves coming and so you just load back up wherever things went wrong in Kingdom come there is consequence for committing crimes or charging into a battle you have no business being a part of it actually requires you to think about your actions before charging on in also if that still annoys you save your snaps can be purchased for a hefty amount of gold or can be crafted in the Alchemy Station I know the city system can frustrate people but I think it's one of the most balanced and well-crafted save systems in a game I've played in a very long time another slight problem with the game at times was the economy and the amount of gold your character has in the beginning your dirt poor which makes total sense so early on it really gave me a huge incentive to go and explore pick up side quests and jobs for money but once you got decent at fighting and you managed to kill a few well-armored enemies you could go sell their kids for an insane amount of gold and basically be set so I really never struggled with having money after I don't know like Midway through the game so it really felt like a lot of the incentive for searching out side quests was lost pretty quickly probably my last complaint with the game is that there are quite a few fetch quests and investigation quest which I feel like they've just become standard in video game Quest writing pretty often in this you are sent by a lord or a noble to go check something out for them or go pick this up for me to be fair though from a lore standpoint this does make sense you essentially become a Hired Hand slash a squire to a noble and a noble isn't ever going to do anything for themselves so it makes sense that Henry kind of becomes a Lackey to his higher ups but from time to time I do lose patience for collecting supplies or riding my horse across the countryside to go pick up a freaking item I will say though they do a good job in this game that the majority of these fetch quests the task starts pretty standard and then it ends up blossoming into something unique that unravels in front of you and you end up going down a pretty cool Rabbit Hole of a quest or something nursing happens but a lot of times all the questions start with Henry go get me this I have a few small gripes with the game but they're just so much that Kingdom Come does right first off set aside mechanics gameplay and storyline this game is beautiful from the graphics the environment the atmosphere and the music [Music] I truly find myself getting lost in the world walking through towns or riding my horse to the countryside most of the time when I'm playing RPG towns and cities can feel like a drive-through ATM that I'm trying to interact with as fast as possible snag some money and get on with my day as fast as possible the city's atmosphere structure and soundscape is done so well that I actually enjoy walking around the different towns and talking to NPCs you know you hear the blacksmith's Hammer crashing on the Anvil the guards armor and Boots shuffling down the Cobble path the chattering of dice and patrons over by the Inn you feel a part of it all not just some god-like character that's walking Among The Peasants but just a regular guy trying to make it in Bohemia with all this going on the music is a cherry on top of it all it never feels over the top but just a beautiful accent to the world you're living in it feels like it belongs and it doesn't really ever insert itself where it doesn't [Music] quick note so many of the NPCs in this game absolutely rule probably all I'll say about them because it's better for you just to meet them in game and experience it yourself I will say if you are someone who does not like a ton of dialogue or gets bored by story lines this game is insanely dialogue heavy I enjoy it but I know that's not everyone's cup of tea this game tries extremely hard to make a game steeped in realism without drowning you out in the mundane crap that makes you hate your actual life Henry is required to eat and sleep but I think the developers did an exceptional job at making an aspect of the game without it being a constant annoyance or chore I find that in a lot of realistic games or Survival Games eating and sleeping becomes 90 of what you do and Kingdom Come sleeping eating too much or too little actually has debuffs that affect your character but it works really well now in the history that is what this game is all about and where it shines unlike most RPGs Kingdom Come doesn't take place in a fantasy world it takes place in Bohemia which is now the area of the Czech Republic they did an excellent job at recreating the environment the architecture the clothing and the weapons of that time all the towns and cities in the game were or are real places the main historical figures spoken about also existed and played a role in Bohemian history some historians have minor complaints about the historical accuracy of the game but in general they did an exceptional job the whole game Henry is interwoven into this amazing storyline that has real life history unfolding around it and if you enjoy a well-written storyline and plot Kingdom Come absolutely delivers finally the greatest joy for me this game is just seeing Henry's progression there are many routes you can take that lead to a Litany of different outcomes in this game but watching your little blacksmith Apprentice Henry go from struggling to fight unarmored Bandits to he himself being decked out and play armor and taking down enemies is just so satisfying it truly feels like a Zero to Hero growth process and makes playing the game all that more rewarding so many RPGs it feels like you are the demigod who just doesn't know how powerful you are yet and the whole game revolves around the NPCs sucking you off being like whoa you're so cool and strong and handsome Fun Kingdom Come you're you're just Henry you're out here putting in the work and grinding your way to a better life you come into this game just expecting to play a sick medieval night simulator but leave loving the characters and appreciating the journey you just got to watch Henry embark on if you enjoy RPGs medieval history or even just a good story you have to give Kingdom Come a chance even if at first it's frustrating it's worth the journey [Music] [Music] thank you

Channel: MrHolotape

Views: 350,839

Keywords: kingdom come, kingdom come: deliverance, games, gaming videos, video game essay, medieval rpg, medieval video game, kingdom come essay, best rpgs, best rpg 2023, best games 2023, medieval games, role playing games, survival game, realism, realistic game

Id: JvWqY43wJhA

Length: 18min 55sec (1135 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023