Sulphur on 9/3/2025 at 02:42

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What a well-constructed argument.

Malf on 31/3/2025 at 08:02

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I finished off KCD2 last night, and overall, I had a fantastic time with the game. While it did sag a bit in the middle, it was otherwise a very competent and constantly surprising game. It rarely if ever felt like it was falling into formulaic, rote play, and there was a surprising amount of choice and consequence.

However, I think the thing that honestly surprised me the most was how little combat there was in the game.
I'm not saying it was non-existent; but given that the game evokes other games in the genre such as Witcher 3 and Oblivion / Skyrim, actual combat encounters were relatively few and far between. Which in turn was very refreshing, and allowed other systems, including speech and stealth, to shine.

I got maybe a third of the way through the original game before losing interest, and recent attempts to revisit it before the release of the second game were plagued by frequent crashes.
But this game kept me engaged all the way through, and frequently surprised me with its inventiveness.
In particular, I really enjoyed the interludes where you got to play as Godwin instead of Henry, especially the late-game party, which had me laughing out loud at the chaos I could cause.

And while not quite as polished as other recent games in this respect, the voice acting was very good throughout; so much so that I was genuinely surprised at how attached I became to Henry's companions, and how much I grew to detest the antagonists. Personal favourites were Kubyanka, Janosh and Adder.

The last few hours of the game do become very much on-rails, but I actually quite welcomed the focus at this point of the story; and it also serves as a great illustration of siege starvation, even if no-one actually dies of hunger; the frantic search for anything to eat really helps hammer home how hopeless such situations can end up feeling.

As ever, I'm aware that I am currently in the post-completion glow phase, where I am still in thrall to the game, and I am sure that over the next week or two, the flaws will become more apparent than the overall journey.
But for the time being, I would highly recommend this game to anyone.

Tomi on 2/5/2025 at 09:55

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So I've been playing KCD 2 for a month now, and it's been quite a ride so far. I really like all the improvements that they've done, and most importantly my journey has been bug-free apart from a few floating objects and other very minor cosmetic stuff. Oh, I fell between two big rocks and got stuck there once, but even though I had to load the game to get out, I could only blame myself for that.

The game world itself hasn't drawn me in as well as KCD 1 yet, but maybe that's because I'm not playing in Hard Mode this time (it wasn't available yet when I started my game) so I have all these quest markers and fast travel that I can take advantage of. I still feel quite overwhelmed by all the side quests too, and because I'm a stupid completionist I feel like I have to complete them all. Maybe I need to change my way of thinking and leave some of those quests for my next playthrough(s)... At least the quests are far more interesting than your usual kill 10 rats and fetch a (totally worthless) family heirloom quests, and there are usually multiple ways to solve them. The other day I read about some guy who had finished the game without killing anyone, which is pretty cool, even though he apparently had to resort to some trickery in a few parts.

But all in all there seems to be a bit less combat than in KCD 1, at least with my more diplomatic playing style. I suppose you could just resort to violence in everything if you wanted more combat though. There's nothing wrong with the combat, I just can't resist being the Mr. Nice Guy again. In fact, I think that the combat feels quite a bit better than in KCD 1. It's a bit faster and brutal and somehow just feels right. On the downside it seems that the combos and master strikes are much more powerful now, whereas a more patient style and a lot of stabbing got you far in the first game. Archery is also a lot better now - it's much easier to aim now, but actually hitting your target is still far from easy!

I'll try to pay more attention to the main quest now, and I'll report back again later. :D

Tomi on 24/6/2025 at 17:52

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I have no idea how some people finished this game in less than a month. I know, someone probably finished it within a day or something silly, but you know what I mean. I've been playing KCD2 for three months now and I think I've still got much to do.

KCD2 is pretty much everything that I wanted from the sequel, yet it feels like there's something missing. I actually think that the first game was a more coherent experience in some way. Don't get me wrong though, KCD2 is easily the better game of the two, but I think it's almost too ambitious for its own good. There are tons of side quests for example, and I find it really impressive that most of them are actually interesting and fun to play too, but every now and then I feel like there are just too many things to do. Too many times I've bumped into some NPC who has some quest related dialogue option, and I've already forgotten what the whole quest is all about. I wasn't a fan of some of the timed quests in KCD1, but now I wish that there were more of those, so that I couldn't just hoard every available quest that there is...

The overall difficulty in KCD2 is another thing that still needs a lot of tweaking, but before I start complaining, it's worth mentioning that I'm playing in "normal difficulty" (the hardcore mode wasn't yet available when I started my game). Anyway, after my previous post two months ago, I can't believe that I'm saying this, but I think that the game is too easy. Well, that's the case most of the time. Then you bump into some random bandit in the middle of nowhere who beats the life out of you in a couple of strikes. The melee combat is a lot of fun, but it's frustratingly often either too easy or too difficult. Leveling up your character is a fairly quick process too (at least compared to KCD1) and before you even notice, you're a master of everything. On top of that some of the buffs that you get are very generous... and then there are all the different potions, of course. It all kind of makes sense of course, because Henry already "leveled up" in the first game, but leveling up your character is a bit less enjoyable this time around. Oh, and like Malf pointed out above, making money is also really easy, so that's never really going to be a problem either.

Despite my criticism, I still think that KCD2 is a masterpiece. The world in it is the best that I've ever experienced in a game, it's like a time machine back to medieval Bohemia. The world feels so ordinary, but I mean that in the best possible way. It's full of detail and there are indeed a lot of (or too many) things to do, but at the same time it's not overly packed with all sorts of activities and collectibles and other obviously gamey stuff. It feels authentic and there are a lot of moments when nothing exciting happens, but it's never boring.

Tomi on 10/7/2025 at 18:43

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I finished the main story in KCD2!

Jesus Christ be praised - what a game it is! I went in with unrealistically high expectations, and I was delighted to find out that KCD2 mostly meets those, and it even managed to exceed them in some parts. KCD2 is a very faithful sequel in both good and bad. I loved every minute of the story and even after 100 hours in the game I still wanted it to continue. Fortunately I haven't touched any of the DLC yet, and I'm definitely going to play the whole game again in the Hardcore mode later.

The world in KCD2 feels more real than in the first game, but since it's pretty much the Medieval Simulator anyway, it would have been nice if there was even more mundane stuff to do in it. I bet that some people think that there's already too much of it, but for me it's stuff like that that really brings the world alive and makes it all much more immersive. I remember being really impressed with the fact that you could bake bread in Ultima VII. I think that something like that would have fit in KCD2 perfectly.

The cardinal sin of KCD2 is the same as of the first game as well, and that's the overall difficulty and balancing. In my experience the combat for example - as great as it is in KCD2 - is almost always either too difficult or too easy. It's always kinda disappointing when there's an epic story moment where someone challenges you to a duel for example, and it only takes like five seconds for you to win. And then five minutes later you get killed by some random peasant. Towards the end of the game I found pretty much everything too easy, because the level up perks are just way too generous, plus I had all the best equipment and had actually learned to play the game. Hopefully the Hardcore mode offers some kind of a solution for that problem!

What else? KCD2 looks absolutely gorgeous even in the performance mode on the XBox, even though the facial animations could do with some extra work here and there. But despite not having any fairytale castles or magical meadows or epic monster dungeons, the landscapes in KCD2 often look so great that I often had to stop just to admire the view. No other game that I've played does the nature as well as KCD2. On the audio side, the characters and their voice acting are excellent as well. There's tons of dialogue which isn't always a good thing, but I hardly ever pressed the skip button, because for once the NPC's actually have something meaningful to say and I found the lore fascinating. Lastly, I must say that Jan Valta is a genius and the soundtrack of KCD2 is a goddamn masterpiece. I mean, come on, just listen to this and tell me that you didn't get chills:

[video=youtube_share;Ld7yqGWdCws]https://youtu.be/Ld7yqGWdCws?si=N1gbJqAxLPpA-nnf[/video]

KCD2, especially its latter half, may just be the best gaming experience that I've ever had.