Kingdom Come Deliverance PC review - what a mixed bag!!

Got this free on EPIC this week.

What a combination of awesome and pants! What a mixed bag!

I downloaded the HD graphics pack and the HD voices, and even on a humble GTX1050 at 1920x1080, settings medium, it looks gooood. and Sounds gooood

And the story is utterly compelling. I'm utterly engrossed. It's a complex thing, and worth NOT skipping the cut scenes as there are lots of them, and they're all good. It's got a lot of "history" in it and I can't honestly tell you if it's legit or invented, but it is good.
The village I started in was well mapped, and without ruining the story for you, it's a typical start with errands to run and questions to ask of villagers, but with some barter, some character expansion and some good story. Really pretty jolly good story. To be honest I thought I'd pulled a girl !

Then there's a new location to run too.. and it took me a while to get that right as I hadn't grapsed the idea of a horse galloping, slowing and then not being able to re-gallop again but I sussed after a few fails that I need to double click the sprint key to kick that horse on!

Huge valleys, loads of houses, people being slaughtered. ...its all in there and the characters I find to be very very good. I enjoy it.

Except... except the combat.

Which is utterly utterly dire. It's so delayed, so slow... so horrific to be worth hetting the hump with.
However.. the rest of the game is sooo good I'm gonna stick with it a few more hours before I smash the mouse into the keyboard in anger because the combat is so bad!


It's free right now.. if you have an Epic account.. worth getting.
Worth it if you don't?....hm..... 50/50 on that.

the good is superb!
the fighting is appaling.

many many many years ago sword combat was sussed in games. Yes it varies a little but the lag in this is horrific. And it's not graphic lag.. it's designed lag. It's dire.

I played this on PS4 when it came out. Combat is ok but the archery is an abomination with usually no idea where the arrow will go.

I did get up to the first major altercation where you have hired men from all over and have to storm a fort in the forest but just kept getting killed no matter what I did so gave up never to play it again.

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Originally Posted by Ferral

I played this on PS4 when it came out. Combat is ok but the archery is an abomination with usually no idea where the arrow will go.

I did get up to the first major altercation where you have hired men from all over and have to storm a fort in the forest but just kept getting killed no matter what I did so gave up never to play it again.

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the combat on PC is utterly preposterous. The lag between mouse click and anything happening is appaling and then it stacks the clicks so you have to just wait.. and then try to time the next click. Worst I have ever played.

but... the story, the voices, the scenery, the chase I had to do... it's all superb!

Is it a mouse and keyboard game, or better on a 'pad?

I cant play anything on a 'pad so I can only say Mouse/Keyboard tbh.

I gave up with pads a decade ago.. not for me

But controls would make sense on a pad I think.. there arent hundreds.

As someone somewhat experienced with 'medievalle weaponrie' - being a blacksmith's apprentice/son with absolutely no experience whatsoever of wielding such weapons really would feel like this.
Pay very close attention during all the tutorial sections, write it down if necessary, and work hard on getting the hang of things. Take on as many minor enemy characters as you can, just for practice.

The good news is that things do improve as you up your skills and things then start to make more sense, which again is also quite realistic. That lag especially, as you learn when to (and not to) commit to an attack because it's never as fast as you'd like and it leaves you open to someone with better timing than you. That is the reality of fighting.


It's hard to make you feel like a complete gangle-fluppett through a mouse & keyboard, using a method or system that will also evolve into making you able to kick Zorro's backside... but they've done well I think.

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Originally Posted by Ttaskmaster

As someone somewhat experienced with 'medievalle weaponrie' - being a blacksmith's apprentice/son with absolutely no experience whatsoever of wielding such weapons really would feel like this.
Pay very close attention during all the tutorial sections, write it down if necessary, and work hard on getting the hang of things. Take on as many minor enemy characters as you can, just for practice.

The good news is that things do improve as you up your skills and things then start to make more sense, which again is also quite realistic. That lag especially, as you learn when to (and not to) commit to an attack because it's never as fast as you'd like and it leaves you open to someone with better timing than you. That is the reality of fighting.


It's hard to make you feel like a complete gangle-fluppett through a mouse & keyboard, using a method or system that will also evolve into making you able to kick Zorro's backside... but they've done well I think.

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does it get better then?

The old Severance Blade of Darkness was the best.. I loved it and after many hours I mastered it. But in that you start as a warrior of one of 4 styles anyway.

However, ... the tutorial in this game was dire. Even the punching .. no weapons.. was delayed.

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Originally Posted by Zak33

.the good is superb!
the fighting is appaling.

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I found the fighting odd to start with but ended up loving it. Once you go on hard mode or whatever it's called and get rid of the reticule nonsense that is.

Archery takes a bit of practice and experience, as the character.

Seriously loved that game, the fact that you start off as a useless pleb and the fighting forces you to realise that by not even giving you some of the fighting options until you learn them was awesome.

Yeah, only truly enjoyable on hardcore though - no reticule means you have to learn the rhythm of fighting and throwing in some ailments (or all of them) make it more realistic.

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Originally Posted by Zak33

does it get better then?

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That's what I'm told. I still haven't had the time to give it proper justice and play in-depth... at least not past the Archibald scene in the bath house - You'll love that, incidentally.
But I've gotten a few kills down and levelled up a few times. Based on that, yes it is getting better!

My biggest challenge is judging 3D distances on a 2D screen from a forced first person perspective. That's kind-of a key skill in fighting.

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Originally Posted by Zak33

The old Severance Blade of Darkness was the best.. I loved it and after many hours I mastered it. But in that you start as a warrior of one of 4 styles anyway.

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The fighting styles you see in KC: D are taken from genuine historical European martial arts (mainly Germanic ones) and a lot of the history (especially people and places) are firmly rooted in reality too.

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Originally Posted by Zak33

However, ... the tutorial in this game was dire. Even the punching .. no weapons.. was delayed.

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Yep.
For someone who's never thrown a punch, it's a shocker to discover it takes time to step in, ground your balance, wind yourself in and finally land that hit, during which the more experienced opponent has seen it coming, warded it and delivered a counter.
I have to say, as a result of the above I did find it somewhat easier than any of my gamer friends. Pressing buttons to achieve something I regard as physical is always weird, but the mechanics are all there and work great if you already know how to use them... if you don't, it'll take time to learn, which was the dev's very intention!

I might actually have another play on this myself, this week.

With Zak on the sword combat.
I struggled with the sword fighting and spent more and more time using bow and arrow as much as possible. Didn't like it and struggled to get it.
Other than that, truely great game.

For those that had trouble with the sword fighting (I get it, it takes gettimg used to) have you tried on hardcore mode?

I found that far more enjoyable, without any guide you get a feel for the weapon and the fight.

Horses for courses though, I finished wishing all RPG fighting was like that. I particularly like the realism of when you face 3 or 4 peasants with forks, yeah they may be peasants but the numbers would cause anybody issues.

It's an issue of time vs enjoyment.

I dont have enough time to learn the combat. But I like the story and I will try to play more when I havfe more time.

But when the time is available to play for a few more hours I will be praying that it's playable and I don't come up against the barrier of not being able to move on.

but hey... it was FREE!!!

beggars... choosers..

grateful for what I can get from it before I roll over and surrender

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Originally Posted by Zak33

It's an issue of time vs enjoyment.

I dont have enough time to learn the combat. But I like the story and I will try to play more when I havfe more time.

But when the time is available to play for a few more hours I will be praying that it's playable and I don't come up against the barrier of not being able to move on.

but hey... it was FREE!!!

beggars... choosers..

grateful for what I can get from it before I roll over and surrender

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That's fair enough.

There is one achievement for completing it without killing anyone, that's an option. That's the one achievement I haven't got, nor will attempt :)

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Originally Posted by Zak33

I dont have enough time to learn the combat.

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Which makes it about as realistic as you can get in a game, really.
Fair play, as I suffer from the same... But to be fair to the game, that was always their intent, same as when people complain that reaching Elite status in Elite took ages... That was the point!

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Originally Posted by Zak33

Except... except the combat.

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Remembering back, in my many hours of playing this game combat was something I dreaded and decided to avoid at all costs after a while. I totally had a lot of fun playing the rest of the game and single man vs man combat was fun. However, if you encountered a group, combat became a bit of a slog, and involved a lot of retreating backwards until you got just one in sight, then stab him... then retreat and so on. It was dull and frustrating. I think the point I stopped playing the game was because I had to get past an ambush situation and no matter what I tried, couldn't. After several goes, think I gave up as even when I got one guy face to face, the two others kept getting me with ranged attacks. I also remember thinking that the difficulty curve also shot up at one point. And easy battles became nigh on impossible.

I also played on Keyboard + Mouse. Having said that, the rest of the game was immensely fun. I'm thinking of going back and finish the story... but don't want to start from scratch.

Oh yeah, one more thing. This game had some frustrating bugs. I had one where my home in the main town got locked out, and I could never get into it ever again.... so for resting I had to go back to Theresa's house. Also some of the story lines just cut off and the character interactions return to normal, as if nothing happened. That sort of took my immersion away.

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Originally Posted by Scryder

However, if you encountered a group, combat became a bit of a slog

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I liked the realism of that myself. It doesn't matter if you're kitted out to the gills, you have three or four coming at you one of them will get on your blindside and beat you to death with a spoon.

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Originally Posted by Scryder

Oh yeah, one more thing. This game had some frustrating bugs. I had one where my home in the main town got locked out, and I could never get into it ever again.... so for resting I had to go back to Theresa's house. Also some of the story lines just cut off and the character interactions return to normal, as if nothing happened. That sort of took my immersion away.

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That is odd. I know when it first released it had a few bugs but I only picked it up a few months ago and what with all the patches I don't remember too many game breaking bugs.

I think there was one on one of my play throughs where I was left stuck in the roof of the church but not so many.

Odd.