I thought I might post my impressions for this game for others who might have similar gaming habits as me.
First, while I use to love RPG's in my early gaming years, I've been less and less compelled to play them. I think I was initially attracted to RPG's because they were the games with the most robust story, but as I got older and my tastes evolved- i was less into them. The last RPG that I really enjoyed and put time into was oblivion, but even so there was a lot of things I didn't really like about the game. The characters were ugly as hell, the dialog was awful, along with the writing in general- but I mostly just enjoyed running around and role playing my character and the combat system. Unfortuantely, the game kept getting in the way of me roleplaying and trying to enjoy it.
I always try the new roleplaying games that come out (Fallout, Skyrim, etc) but the stories just don't appeal to me anymore, the writing is generally shaky, and for some reason whoever is making these games just doesn't seem to have the ability to make character models that don't hurt my eyes- they are also just TOO DAMN BIG. I love games that are linear, tightly paced, intelligently scripted. I just don't have the time anymore to play these huge sprawling role playing games, that i don't love.
I dutifully tried Kingdom Come, not expecting to engage with it much, especially after some of the articles I read. I do not enjoy survival MMO's like Ark or Rust or whatever else, and I expected to be turned off pretty quick. When I turned on Kingdom I was intrigued, I had no idea that this game was taking place in our world, and was actually based on real events in our past. I LOVE history, I've always loved reading about the past, and watching shows about how things were. Medieval is, of course, a particularly exciting period. I love the realism of the game, and the writing so far, has been totally decent. The setting helps this issue hugely, because it automatically makes the game a more mature experience. There are no rats in sewers I have to kill, or magical creatures running around the land, everything supports the vision of the game and even though I didn't create Henry I've had no trouble adjusting to his character- in fact I enjoy playing a character with personality much better than a character who doesn't respond to anything and might as well be a zombie. I love the simulator aspects of the game,which don't seem too hard yet or unreasonable. And there are no naked men running around shouting racial slurs trying to kill me with sub machine guns. It turns out, that it's not the survival elements that i dont like about these games, but just the other human players who run around ruining the game by being a jerk.
The combat system *is* clunky and doesn't appear to have a lot of finesse to it, i basically spam my way though fights, and so far it's been mostly successful- but you know what, I found the combat in Witcher to be pretty clunky and graceless as well. I think it's improved in the later games, but I still don't think it's particularly enjoyable, and I never really fully grasped the system and it was a major reason I was turned off from the witcher series. I have already enjoyed Kingdom way more than Witcher. For all the praise jumped on Witcher, I just was not able to find a way to become involved in the story- I found it overly complicated with Lore,that I didn't have time to understand, and everything was just too abstract for me to find a way to relate to Geralts story, and i didnt have the paitients to play through hours before it got interesting.
Kingdom, by all rights, seems like it would be boring but because Henry is just an ordinary person who exists in a world that looks like mine, it wasn't hard for me to connect with Henry- I found the experience of just being Henry and taking care of his day to day needs interesting and occupying that the pacing of the game seems good. When the characters talk about issues of the day or current events in the pub, i can actually follow and understand- because it's all normal political issues and drama that references lore that I actually already know, or is very easy for me to make sense of.
The graphics are quite wonderful too! The landscape is beautiful, with rich detail, and flora and fauna that looks familiar and therefor makes the world look real. My friend said it best when he was watching- "the world does not look gamey or designed like a lot of RPGs do, it looks like a real place"
Henry is *not* a handsome man. He looks like a early ancestor of "chunk" from the goonies. And I love it. I mean he is a poor ass peasant afterall, people were not pretty back then. But he does look nicely modeled and real. The characters are all nicely modeled and are not hard to look at. They aren't works of art or photo realisitic, but they are definitely more attractive than the elder scrolls and fallout games.
This is already too long, and no one is going to read this far so I might as well stop.
TL;DR:
I don't normally like Western RPG's. Too Big, immature stories I don't relate to, lobotomized protagonist, complicated lore, awkward dialog, dull/poor writing, narrative dissonance.
I, so far, love Kingdom- It's a bit like a dog from the shelter. It takes some patience and effort to understand. It's definitely stubborn and will bite you let it, but if you just go in with an open mind be graceful about some of its clunky short comings, it will defintely reward you.
Another way I sometimes put it: It's the Demon Soul's of RPG's.
@irishinstigator: I didn't have too much trouble with it either. I actually did die once, but it was because I was fooling around and accidentally committed some crime that pissed off the guard.
I definitely came close to dying when I was being chased out of town, and I found it to be intense- but I survived!
@Gelugon_baat: Uh. Who are you and what have you done with Salty_Baat!? Or maybe you've fallen and bang your head, anyway- Just to remind you, you don't actually like Indie Games because you think the graphics suck and you don't need to buy the game, you can just watch it on you tube.
I just don't think I've ever seen you post something without *something* that bothered you. See, Pixel graphics can be great!
@brenp: No he actually played for over 30 hours- just like he said. You guys just believe anything you read on the internet, i swear. lol. You guys are all looking at the wrong account, as i thought.
@BloodMist: I know, right!? It at least makes me happy to see how many people have agreed similarly along these same lines in these comments. I feel like the headline is really not very informational- "Star Wars Actor" is so vague, it could refer to so many different actors... and I feel like more people might actually know who Donnie Yen is then Don't. I guess I could be wrong, I've just been a huge fan of his ever since I say him in IP MAN years ago when it came out. After that movie, I followed his career for a while and he's been in a ton of stuff.
I've checked out Rust a few times, and I didn't find it extremely compelling- as someone not familiar with survival, games I have to agree with the reviewer's take on this game. I feel like people are taking this review way to PERSONALLY. I do understand when you love something, that it's hard to sit by and watch someone criticize something you love... but I think it's also important to consider what something might be like from another perspective. Of course, if you're a fan of Rust, and have been playing it for hundreds or thousands of hours you're going to find the game very familiar and easy. You've progressed with the game basically... but for people like myself, who might be potential new players to the game or genre- this review is important and fair... If a game doesn't explain itself adequately, then there is nothing wrong with calling out those issues. All of the comments on this seem incredibly negative and a bit toxic and seem to validate what the reviewer is saying about the community surrounding this game. Anyway, I do believe that there is probably an interesting and compelling game within Rust, for people who enjoy Survival games... but it is definitely a game that is not for everyone, and there is nothing wrong with a reviewer who calls out issues with a game as he see's it. We've all played video games for years, the reviewer I'm sure has years of gaming experience- jobs in this industry are competitive as hell, so I'm sure this guy didn't just walk in off the street... :) I agree it's possible he may not be a survival genre aficionado, but I also don't think you have to be an expert in a game genre to be able to pick up a game. Shrug. I've always thought Rust looked cool and wish the player base was a little bit more inviting and helpful to new players. It seems like it would only benefit the game to be supported more widely. Cheers.
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