Kingdom Come: Deliverance

⭐7.5/10

A video game! Been a while since I've written one of these because I have been playing this damn game for MONTHS! I had trouble sticking to one game for a while, and in all honesty I had no intention of actually beating this one. It was on sale for like $3 and the sequel was coming out, so I gave it a try, but then was instantly hooked. 

So this is a deep RPG, almost a medieval simulator. This is a game that takes it's historical accuracy very seriously. You play as Henry, an ordinary blacksmith from Skalitz, a village from fifteenth century Bohemia. And just like in history, it gets sacked by Hungarians, and so in this game you start with nothing and you are nothing. You just have some sense of making a life and some sense of wanting revenge, though there are certainly some exciting inciting conflicts that make for an evocative story. 

I don't actually like RPGs! I hate standing around having conversations, choosing dialogue options, and making decisions with no intuitive outcomes. I'm always way too afraid that I'm ruining the rest of the game. For instance, I was talking to a priest, and when he asked if I was done talking, I said yes, because I was. Little did I know that this choice made me miss out on what seemed like a fun quest where I got to impersonate the priest and preach a drunken sermon. Shame! In theory the idea of RPGs appeal to me, but in practice I'm usually between bored and annoyed. 

But this was an exception, especially to start, because the writing in this game is absolutely exceptional. Some of my favorite writing in games, feeling akin or Thrones or Witcher (without fantasy elements) in that they do a wonderful job of immersing you in the realism of a medieval world. The start of this game is electric with a fantastic hook and engaging action. The open world also appealed to me, feeling as open and inviting as something like Skyrim. 

I will certainly admit this game fizzled out for me by the end. I just got tired of standing around and having conversations. I think it's a bit unfair to the game, because I think the writing and quest design is creative and well done, but by the end I was just main-lining the main quest. There is a really cool moment where you have to infiltrate a monestary, disguised as a monk, to kill someone. There are a million creative ways to do it, and tons of interesting things to do there otherwise. I love that. It was different, and added a whole other element to the game. BUT I couldn't be bothered by that point in the game so I googled the quickest way to get out and that was that. 

I didn't really mention the gameplay elements, such as surviving (needing to eat and sleep daily, no spoiled food, don't drink too much alcohol, etc.) and the immersive combat. These are all cool ideas and I'm glad they were present. For instance, the bow has no cross hairs, and you really just need to feel it out over time. But in the end, I found it to be more gimmicky than fun. Once you figure out a few places to eat, you can take care of that without a second thought. The combat is also interesting in theory, but generally pretty bad and inconsistent. 

Oh, there are also bugs! This game famously released with a million bugs, and I had a ton of crashes and things all these years later, but I'll forgive a small studio making a super ambitious game. 

So in the end I don't really know. I played this game for probably 80 hours, and enjoyed maybe 40 of them. That's a lot of wasted hours. This game feels a lot like the Witcher, and I don't even love the Witcher despite it being considered an all time great, and this game is not as good as that one. It's worth it for the history lover, and the second one is a game of the year contender, so while I know I'm not done in Bohemia, I sure am not itching to go back just yet.