"Kingdom Come Deliverance II" Better Than It's Predecessor on All Fronts

 

    I was looking back at my original review for the first game, and I think it's safe to say that this game is an improvement on all fronts. I do really feel that this might end up being one of my favourite games of all times. I mean I literally spent over a month playing this game, and ended up with nearly 160 hours in it. At one point I was basically playing the game 40 hours a week, almost as if it was this whole other job I had to make sure I got in every day. I think it is safe to say that I may have been addicted to this game. But why shouldn't I be? I find it hard to find faults with this game, any faults I have are largely small qualms or involve pacing, and by the end I started spacing out my playthroughs just so I could savour the last bit. So let's talk about it.

    Let's get the bad out of the way first because I think it's relatively minor. One of my main gripes with the first game was that by the end the combat was largely oriented around heavy weapons, and it really made no sense for you to use anything other than a mace since everyone was using plate armor. While I have no qualms with anyone who continued to use heavy weapons, part of the charm of this game is using a sword and having these duels. It is significantly more interactive and captivating than anything the Elder Scrolls has ever done with weapons or swordplay, and better than the combat in The Witcher series as well, which I mainly remember as me spinning around at a hilarious pace with Geralt. 

    Of course, the only issue is the developers achieved this by basically nerfing other forms of combat, making swordplay the obvious choice, not only because of all the perks involving swords, but because of master strikes, which are a godsend once you reach about mid-stage to late-stage gameplay and are only available to swords. The plus side is, fighting with a sword is by far the most fun way to play this game. I hate to say it, but I hardly touched or even leveled up any other form of combat other than swords, unarmed and archery. Polearms and heavy weapons lacking master strikes, plus generally having significantly less variety did not help endear them to me. Which could also be said for shields. But the best part is it that it doesn't matter, because fighting with a sword is fun. My only critique of the combat system is that it's not particularly the best when it comes to fighting groups of enemies, because it tries to track everyone you're fighting, but it also helps make you feel like you've earned your victories when going up against large groups of heavily armored troops.

    My other point of note is that sometimes the pacing/spacing of the quests can be a little wonky. I think the Trosky region is largely done well. You organically explore the parts of the map while trying to do the two questlines: the fun and wonky one with the miller where you discover gunpowder, and the less memorable one where you learn to pick up your fathers trade as a blacksmith but at least you're a good guy? (they remedy this very quickly with the DLC). In this region you naturally go through all of the side quests, even if there's way more of them than story quests (you'll find that you can speed run to the wedding much faster than you intended to). My only gripe is with the DLC, Brushes with Death because it can only be started by the time you have about one questline left in the story for the region, and doing that questline practically locks you into finishing any story left in the region anyways, so it feels a little hamfisted if I'm going to be honest.

    The same could be said for the Kuttenberg region, which while bigger and definitely feels much more lively, also suffers from the same issues as the end of the Trotsky region, which is that as soon as the main storyline gets going, it feels very weird/difficult to stop it. I basically started all of the side quests, spent a whole sessions just exploring Kuttenberg, and was overwhelmed by all the things I could do in the region. Eventually, I did actually start moving the questline forward, but then once again paused it because it always meant I was locked into that one section and couldn't do anything else. You could try and space it out but other than when Hans is locked up it can feel a quite awkward trying to thematically space it all out. Me personally, just do everything at your own speed, but start the Legend of the Forge DLC immediately, and save Mysteria Ecclesiae until after the main story is over. 

    Speaking of the DLC, I have to admit I enjoyed Legend of the Forge way more than I thought I would. My only complaint is that there are real storylines/quests within the game, but you have to parse through a lot of radiant quests to get through them, which can feel tedious. I loved being able to rebuild a forge, throw all of my groschen into repairing it, hiring new employee's, making cool custom armor, and doing the fun little duels and archery things. But eventually once you near prestige 30 there's little reason for you to do any of the radiant quests other than to cycle through them to get to the story quests that give you the cool armor. I'd say it was a solid 7, perhaps an 8.

    Mysteria Ecclesiae I would put in the same category as well. It's a more conventional DLC in the sense that it's a very self-contained, highly stealth oriented mystery that contains not that much content. Depending on what you enjoyed in the game it could not be your cup of tea. But for me personally it was like a nice little treat at the end of the game. I had done plenty of combat, I had done basically everything the game asked from you under the sun, crawling around the monastery was a nice little breather by the end. Brushes for Death  did get pretty boring by the end. The cutscenes are whatever and it hinges very hard on how much you enjoy Voyta. I was so-so on his character, if you have speech checks you'll be able to get lore out of him, but it's largely just fetch quests while he slow drips you info on him. Frankly, you could do without these quests.

    I do think this game is very well done though. The only bugs I ever encountered throughout my entire time playing the game was encounters in Kuttenberg where you'd get stopped and wouldn't be able to find who was talking to you, and occasional clipping with ledges and the such. My last nitpick would probably be the economy, because as long as you loot enemies it's quite easy to become rich, or just level up stealth and become rich. Then you'll hear characters talk about how usually villages only produce like 200 groschen in a year, even though my Henry literally ends with well over 40,000 Groschen, meaning he could just buy his way into nobility if he wants to. It's a very delicate balancing act between being a role-playing game, and letting the player do what they want, while also having to respect the very-real history the game is based on. Hence why in certain quests you can scout or infiltrate places, killing everyone there, but then in the fight the next morning the castle is magically very well-armed and manned again.

Final Score: 95/100

        All of this to play, just play the damn game. It's fun. The fast-travel is novel, forcing you into encounters you'd otherwise have never done even if you wanted to. Horseback isn't annoying like it can be in other games of this genre, sword combat is fun. Even using different skills and checks is fun. There's a lot of character and fun to this game. I know this review is ridiculously long, and it mainly involved me talking about the tiny nitpicks I had, but that's because the game just worked. It's just the first game but better. There are more uniques/cool weapons to use, I actually enjoyed exploring every little spot the developers put down on the map, and of course I love Henry and his story. I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years I look back at this game so fondly I try to play it again.