Well after a few years and a few attempts I've finally done a full playthrough of KCD. And man just like when I first played back in 2020 I loved my time with the game.

Lets start with the good.
I absolutely love the world and atmosphere that the devs have crafted. The historical little tidbits that you get from time to time when going around the game are awesome, and the realism of the world to our understanding of life in the early 1400s is super interesting to get to experience in a game. Graphically even for 2018 it isn't the best, to include stuff like facial animations and others. But this is a AA expereince. It isn't bad, or at least not bad enough for it to even affect the experience but it is something to note.

Overall despite some hiccups here and there(and some of the terribly annoying dlc questing *cough**cough* A Womans Lot*cough**cough* I thoroughly enjoyed the main story and sidequests in this game and from like 2 of the major DLCs that were released for the game. The character development of Henry and of some of the other characters throughout the game is great and leaves you feeling satisfied. There are a bunch of hilarious moments all throughout the game and moments that are actually quite touching sprinkled in. That mixed with how the game goes about with the villian side really has you on the edge of your seat and ready to get your revenge! Lord Hanush is the goat btw.

Onto the mixed. Voice acting in this game can be seen by some as bad. There's a handful of actors and some voice multiple different people, with it being very noticeable. That along with the fact that some of the accents are kind of all over the place at times is kinda weird. But overall I did not mind it and it did not break my immersion of the game. The part that DID break my immersion is how poorly mixed and edited the dialogs are. You will be talking with an npc as part of a quest and the voice acting sounds fine for one line, and then the very next line it sounds like they're recording inside a closet and moving their hands around, IN THE SAME CONVERSATION, only to snap right back to sounding fine in the next sentence an npc was saying. That was my largest gripe about it. Completely tore me out of the experience hearing it, and it happens alot throughout the game.

Onto the hate.
I do not like the save system for the game. Having to use an item or constantly sleep is annoying especially for alot of the missions needing to be played in a very specific way to get the outcomes you want. Very tedious but I played with a mod that let you save for free whenever you wanted so it wasn't an issue for my playthrough.

I really am not a fan of how some quests are timed, not like timed when you take them but timed from the moment you finish the prologue/the game opens up to you. How the hell was I supposed to know to go here and do this? If you aren't lucky enough to happen to pass by x location well sucks to be you this quest is locked off to you. Granted I only thing there are like 2-3 quest where this is a thing, but it's still annoying as hell to miss out on a mission/experience like this.

Speaking of quests lets talk about the DLC for the game. There were 5 paid DLCs released for the game, and to be honest only 2 are really worth getting those being Band of Bastards and From the Ashes. But all the rest are a mixed bag. The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon and Treasures of the Past are so incredibly tiny that it's a shock that they weren't just part of the base game. For the love of god the Hans Capon dlc was like a single fricken quest you could be in under an hour, with no real reward to it at all! And the Treasures of the Past dlc literally just adds random treasure caches around the map that you could find with maps or come across if you were lucky enough when adventuring, small stuff that did not justify a $5 price tag on launch.

As for A Womans Lot good god talk about an experience that will put you to sleep with it's stories. I get what they were trying to do with going to explain how life was in Skalitz before everything happened but the way it plays out is just a tedious boring mess that does very little for Henry's story. That and you get stuck playing another character and loose anything you've done as Henry. The other part of that DLC isn't as tedious and boring but not by much. A buch of who-cares moments all throughout.

Band of Bastards was pretty fun to play through but it is plagued with numerous bugs, glitches, and poor mission design. Good luck trying to beat it with everyone still alive, unless you save-scum/reload a few hundred times to do it. Also it is pretty short.

From the Ashes is a really neat idea for a DLC and is a great money-sink in the last few parts of the game. Seeing how the village once again gets rebuilt and full of life is neat. But due to it's bad location and lack of life after you finish it and do a few activities had me never going back to it, there wasn't a point.

Almighty onto my MAJOR gripes with the game.

The insistence of adhering to realism makes KCD a unique game do not doubt that. But from a gameplay perspective there's a reason why we really haven't gotten an experience like this in gaming. IT SUCKS, IT'S TEDIOUS AND BORING, Small things like no reticle when aiming a bow to having to constantly bath yourself and things like the slow-ass animation for picking herbs(and alchamy for that matter good god slow with the animations) hold the game back. And not just that but the ABYSMAL COMBAT. Don't even try and justify it, its a broken difficult yet easily exploitable mess that is worse when fighting groups. "Oh just run away from enemies" and "Don't fight groups" are trash responses, especially since the game expects you to fight in numerous missions and especially side quests. It's a fighting RPG, why do you have to be punished so much for fighting? The game forces you to play a specific way and it sucks and isn't satisfying. Literally the reason this game didn't get a bigger response and community when it was first out is entirely down to it's absolute tedious/convoluted gameplay and nature. I love almost everything else about it! But god forbid playing it is another story.


Overall, especially with mods like Better Combat and Unlimited Saving, it's absolutely worth playing especially for the story, characters, and world. I'd even go so far to say it might just be in my top 10 games of all time, I mean christ it gave me like 80+ hours of content most of which was genuinely interesting and I liked. That's something that even newer AAA games can't do well. It is very well made especially by a small company who was fresh to the industry. Despite the MASSIVE issue of the gameplay you can definitely overlook it just enough to enjoy the world and story. The game goes on sale quite often so it's easy to get it cheap, and all the dlcs as well(despite my gripes with some of them I still recommend getting the Royal Edition). You may end up hitting your head on the wall trying to play it but it is worth the pain.


A small addition.
Compared to the rest of the game and how it plays, after going through someones questlines hearing "Hey! Henry's come to see us." was one of the most satisfying things in the world. I actually felt like I made an impact in the game. Sure other games do similar things but with how easy they are it doesn't feel like it matters. The gameplay/atmosphere make that short bit of dialogue feel like a real accomplishment, love it despite the fact you'll hear it alot if you like completing every quest in the game.

Well after a few years and a few attempts I've finally done a full playthrough of KCD. And man just like when I first played back in 2020 I loved my time with the game. Lets start with the good. I absolutely love the world and atmosphere that the devs have crafted. The historical little tidbits that you get from time to time when going around the game are awesome, and the realism of the world to our understanding of life in the early 1400s is super interesting to get to experience in a game. Graphically even for 2018 it isn't the best, to include stuff like facial animations and others. But this is a AA expereince. It isn't bad, or at least not bad enough for it to even affect the experience but it is something to note. Overall despite some hiccups here and there(and some of the terribly annoying dlc questing *cough**cough* [i]A Womans Lot[/i]*cough**cough* I thoroughly enjoyed the main story and sidequests in this game and from like 2 of the major DLCs that were released for the game. The character development of Henry and of some of the other characters throughout the game is great and leaves you feeling satisfied. There are a bunch of hilarious moments all throughout the game and moments that are actually quite touching sprinkled in. That mixed with how the game goes about with the villian side really has you on the edge of your seat and ready to get your revenge! Lord Hanush is the goat btw. Onto the mixed. Voice acting in this game can be seen by some as bad. There's a handful of actors and some voice multiple different people, with it being very noticeable. That along with the fact that some of the accents are kind of all over the place at times is kinda weird. But overall I did not mind it and it did not break my immersion of the game. The part that DID break my immersion is how poorly mixed and edited the dialogs are. You will be talking with an npc as part of a quest and the voice acting sounds fine for one line, and then the very next line it sounds like they're recording inside a closet and moving their hands around, IN THE SAME CONVERSATION, only to snap right back to sounding fine in the next sentence an npc was saying. That was my largest gripe about it. Completely tore me out of the experience hearing it, and it happens alot throughout the game. Onto the hate. I do not like the save system for the game. Having to use an item or constantly sleep is annoying especially for alot of the missions needing to be played in a very specific way to get the outcomes you want. Very tedious but I played with a mod that let you save for free whenever you wanted so it wasn't an issue for my playthrough. I really am not a fan of how some quests are timed, not like timed when you take them but timed from the moment you finish the prologue/the game opens up to you. How the hell was I supposed to know to go here and do this? If you aren't lucky enough to happen to pass by x location well sucks to be you this quest is locked off to you. Granted I only thing there are like 2-3 quest where this is a thing, but it's still annoying as hell to miss out on a mission/experience like this. Speaking of quests lets talk about the DLC for the game. There were 5 paid DLCs released for the game, and to be honest only 2 are really worth getting those being Band of Bastards and From the Ashes. But all the rest are a mixed bag. The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon and Treasures of the Past are so incredibly tiny that it's a shock that they weren't just part of the base game. For the love of god the Hans Capon dlc was like a single fricken quest you could be in under an hour, with no real reward to it at all! And the Treasures of the Past dlc literally just adds random treasure caches around the map that you could find with maps or come across if you were lucky enough when adventuring, small stuff that did not justify a $5 price tag on launch. As for A Womans Lot good god talk about an experience that will put you to sleep with it's stories. I get what they were trying to do with going to explain how life was in Skalitz before everything happened but the way it plays out is just a tedious boring mess that does very little for Henry's story. That and you get stuck playing another character and loose anything you've done as Henry. The other part of that DLC isn't as tedious and boring but not by much. A buch of who-cares moments all throughout. Band of Bastards was pretty fun to play through but it is plagued with numerous bugs, glitches, and poor mission design. Good luck trying to beat it with everyone still alive, unless you save-scum/reload a few hundred times to do it. Also it is pretty short. From the Ashes is a really neat idea for a DLC and is a great money-sink in the last few parts of the game. Seeing how the village once again gets rebuilt and full of life is neat. But due to it's bad location and lack of life after you finish it and do a few activities had me never going back to it, there wasn't a point. Almighty onto my MAJOR gripes with the game. The insistence of adhering to realism makes KCD a unique game do not doubt that. But from a gameplay perspective there's a reason why we really haven't gotten an experience like this in gaming. IT SUCKS, IT'S TEDIOUS AND BORING, Small things like no reticle when aiming a bow to having to constantly bath yourself and things like the slow-ass animation for picking herbs(and alchamy for that matter good god slow with the animations) hold the game back. And not just that but the [b]ABYSMAL COMBAT[/b]. Don't even try and justify it, its a broken difficult yet easily exploitable mess that is worse when fighting groups. "Oh just run away from enemies" and "Don't fight groups" are trash responses, especially since the game expects you to fight in numerous missions and especially side quests. It's a fighting RPG, why do you have to be punished so much for fighting? The game forces you to play a specific way and it sucks and isn't satisfying. Literally the reason this game didn't get a bigger response and community when it was first out is entirely down to it's absolute tedious/convoluted gameplay and nature. I love almost everything else about it! But god forbid playing it is another story. Overall, especially with mods like Better Combat and Unlimited Saving, it's absolutely worth playing especially for the story, characters, and world. I'd even go so far to say it might just be in my top 10 games of all time, I mean christ it gave me like 80+ hours of content most of which was genuinely interesting and I liked. That's something that even newer AAA games can't do well. It is very well made especially by a small company who was fresh to the industry. Despite the MASSIVE issue of the gameplay you can definitely overlook it just enough to enjoy the world and story. The game goes on sale quite often so it's easy to get it cheap, and all the dlcs as well(despite my gripes with some of them I still recommend getting the Royal Edition). You may end up hitting your head on the wall trying to play it but it is worth the pain. A small addition. Compared to the rest of the game and how it plays, after going through someones questlines hearing "Hey! Henry's come to see us." was one of the most satisfying things in the world. I actually felt like I made an impact in the game. Sure other games do similar things but with how easy they are it doesn't feel like it matters. The gameplay/atmosphere make that short bit of dialogue feel like a real accomplishment, love it despite the fact you'll hear it alot if you like completing every quest in the game.