I finished Kingdom Come Deliverance II over the weekend. It's overall an uneven experience. There are some parts that really are fun and amazing, and the story at times is really engaging. There are also times you want to put your head through a wall in frustration.

There was a fight towards the end of the game that required me executing perfectly-timed master strikes non stop for like literally 8-10 minutes. On one hand, it was supposed to be an epic duel and there's a way they could have made that really cool. On the other hand, they didn't do it that way. There was no feedback about whether I was making progress so I was left wondering if the game had bugged out. At 7 minutes in I screwed up and died and had to start all over. It turns out I just needed to keep going and eventually succeeded, but that's just one of a dozen examples of this game having something truly infuriating, and that wasn't even a super egregious one.

Katie Szypniewski was torn on Henry as a character, but I liked him. I found him charming and well liked/respected by everyone around him. He had a kind heart, but he also had flaws. More importantly, there are large swaths of this game where he seems like the only person around who is capable of getting anything done. Most of this development happened in the first game, but you were raised the son of a blacksmith. Suddenly a sword is thrust into your hand and it turns out you're one of the most proficient warriors in the region.

To be fair to the game, they at least somewhat address that. Characters will say "Let's send Henry to do it. He's proven surprisingly proficient" or you'll meet a new lord and they'll say "Sir Radzig tells me you're the lad to speak to if I need something difficult taken care of". I appreciate the game at least recognising that I'm the one getting all the work done. At least for the first half of the game. In the 2nd half of the game shit really hits the fan.

The back half of the game sees you forming a little "rebel alliance" against the invading king. Planning heists and sieges, and defending fortresses. Gameplay aside, that's when I really got invested in the characters. Right near the end of the game there's a sequence where you have to sneak into a very fortified town, steal a horse, and flee for help. Your sort of non-brother brother comes with you and gets captured. Saving him is entirely optional, and when you do save him he's too wounded to walk. He tells you to leave him. At no point in that moment does an objective pop telling you to do anything about him. It seems like you're just supposed to leave him there.

I didn't leave him there. I tried carrying him and it turned out I could. Knowing that, I found the horses, then mapped a path of least resistence back to my brother, picked him up, and carried him stealthily through the camp to the horses. It was a triumphant moment for me, and I think it was made stronger by the fact that the game didn't tell me to do it, or even confirm that I could do it. It was my choice, because that bond had been built with my band of rebels.

Highs and lows. Overall a very good game with lots to do . I clocked in at about 90 hours and I didn't even do all that much side content. I did spend several hours just making potions though.

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