Clearly you’ve just never had a good cheeseburger. Wait, how is that even possible‽
Avowed Impressions - Bethesda Face
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Clearly you’ve just never had a good cheeseburger. Wait, how is that even possible‽
Turkey Burgers are pretty healthy, depending on how you cook them and what you're putting on them.
Good burgers is all about the quality of the meat, if you get crap meat that you can't cook medium rare because it might make you sick you won't have a good time. But nothing beats a good mushroom swiss third pounder with garlic mayo on a brioche bun.
Hell, you don't even have the blank slate self insert protagonist thing, you play as Henry, he has a character and a past that's all set in stone and he talks and is part of cutscenes and story like a Jrpg protagonist would be. Just that alone puts the game head and shoulders above things like Skyrim or the obsidian stuff with their silent blank slate self insert chars in terms of storytelling, and without sacrificing the freedom of choice-making either.
See, I've heard Kingdom Come 2 get compared to skyrim but I'm convinced the people doing this have not actually played it, or Skyrim I guess. Outside of it being a first person game, it has more in common with something like Red Dead Redemption 2 than skyrim. The world is extremely reactive and realistic, it's historical instead of fantasy and while there's a good story you mainly just play it to experience RPing as a medieval dude. Like if red dead wasn't about cowboys but about early 1400s Bohemia, it would look kinda like Kingdom Come 2.
Hell, you don't even have the blank slate self insert protagonist thing, you play as Henry, he has a character and a past that's all set in stone and he talks and is part of cutscenes and story like a Jrpg protagonist would be. Just that alone puts the game head and shoulders above things like Skyrim or the obsidian stuff with their silent blank slate self insert chars in terms of storytelling, and without sacrificing the freedom of choice-making either.
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I still have to finish the first KC. Between that and TW3 I have over two hundred hours but I think I’m closer to completing the main story in KC.
I've been enjoying it a bit after about 4 hours or so. I really like just how bright and vibrant the land is (there's actually...color!!!!). It's not the most graphically incredible game out there but the use of color makes the game look much better.
The combat isn't great. It's not bad, just serviceable. I'm focusing on wizard shit so I can't speak to the melee combat but the combat did feel like it has little to no weight behind it when I did the tutorial and used various weapons. Again, serviceable but could be a lot better if it felt OOMPHYier.
The story however I'm becoming a lot more intrigued by. While I'm at the beginnings of the story, this feels like it could be what really elevates the game. This isn't the normal black and white, good vs evil fantasy. There are essentially three sides, each with their own beliefs and thinking that THEY are the good guys in this world. I really hope it doesn't fumble what it is doing with the story cause this has the potential for some interesting ideas of colonization, ends justifying the means, rising up and resisting (and when does the cost become too great), etc. There's a lot of unfairness in this world and every side wants to be the one on the beneficial end of that unfairness.
Also what I've enjoyed is there are plenty of ways to peacefully deal with situations and the side quests can affect the main quest. Spoiler Alert for a main quest:
The combat isn't great. It's not bad, just serviceable. I'm focusing on wizard shit so I can't speak to the melee combat but the combat did feel like it has little to no weight behind it when I did the tutorial and used various weapons. Again, serviceable but could be a lot better if it felt OOMPHYier.
The story however I'm becoming a lot more intrigued by. While I'm at the beginnings of the story, this feels like it could be what really elevates the game. This isn't the normal black and white, good vs evil fantasy. There are essentially three sides, each with their own beliefs and thinking that THEY are the good guys in this world. I really hope it doesn't fumble what it is doing with the story cause this has the potential for some interesting ideas of colonization, ends justifying the means, rising up and resisting (and when does the cost become too great), etc. There's a lot of unfairness in this world and every side wants to be the one on the beneficial end of that unfairness.
Also what I've enjoyed is there are plenty of ways to peacefully deal with situations and the side quests can affect the main quest. Spoiler Alert for a main quest:
In the main quest, I focused first on figuring out who tried to assassinate me. In this process, I found the rebels of the land who were part of that. They didn't trust me but I had done a side quest for some random citizen previously to help root out a bit of corruption and that side quest came into play when the lady I helped vouched for me, which allowed me to settle the matter peacefully. Little world building/affecting things like this are always fun to me.
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Broadly, the more I've played the more I'm appreciating the story and the choices you have. It's an area Obsidian are generally better than most, and I think it's generally good.
In a lot of games you get the idea that "choices matter" but your decisions are obvious (comically obvious good v. evil) or throwing curveballs with random stuff where you did something and things just went to shit in a way you could not have realistically expected. (I suppose you could say that's like life, but...) This is an area Bethesda is typically very ho-hum on: then I started to think of a Bethesda game where it was well scripted, before I remembered I was thinking of Fallout: New Vegas...
I like the graphics. I mean, when I think of Starfield (and especially in terms of the character models), Avowed has it beat hands down, even whilst still not being particularly good. I genuinely love some of the places they've created, although I don't quite get how there's so much damn water flowing everywhere when it never seems to rain.
The gameplay, however, is incredibly middling and it really is something that could have existed 10-15 years ago. You can steal stuff from anybody, and although a couple seem to say "Er, dude, wtf?" most don't and nobody stops you. Vast amounts of stuff can't be interacted with. Combat feels all very routine. It's all slick enough, just I really don't feel grabbed by much of it.
Good, f*** that dreadful shit. There are few things more embarrassing than slogging through some clumsy plus/minus calculations so players can pretend that they've formed a meaningful relationship.
Making this a reply instead of an edit like I had just done
I'm now 9 hours in. The game is pulling me in more and more. Many of the reviews said it and I'll echo that; the side missions are almost always the highlight of the game, as well as your companions. There's a lot of unique world building you get in the side missions and what seems to be ways to shape the game to your own "politics" as people and your companions comment on what you've done and why they agree or disagree with it. I've been playing as a relatively peaceful envoy who tries to defuse situations with their words instead of fighting and the side missions give you ample opportunity to do this.
So yeah, I 100% agree with you on the "choices matter" part.
The romance stuff I can always give or take. I am not mad that romance is in the game but I wouldn't be mad if it was in the game either. I just find that very few games actually hit romance options well so they're not something I'm ever all that concerned about in either direction.
Well, it is an RPG, meaning there should be expectations on freedom of what kind of relationship that the players want to develop, including romantic ones. I have to agree with you, rarely do games in this genre get the romance right; I can only think of three games where relationship actually had an impact; BG3, DA:O, and Witcher 3. And even Mass Effect 1-3 where you can break someone's heart if you romanced them in the past game.
Maybe they figured it's better to have no romance at all rather than having a shitty one? (I'm looking at you, Veilguard!)
I think the problem with most RPG romances is that they feel very "prizey" in games like Mass effect. Just be nice and do her mission and she'll fuck you. So it feels very shallow.
But on the flip side most romance plots feel that way outside of full on novels where characters bond over 100s or even 1000s of pages.
Video games can't mimic the real life introqisies of real relationships because your primary goal is keeping the main plot on track. I do think they can be better with some better writing and a bit of a better game mechanic set up.
Bg3 does it well where if a companion likes you enough they will approach you when you rest for the night. And you can further engage with them if you wish. Or stab Astarion. Whatever.
12 years since Saints Row 4 and casual sex still isn't a thing in any other games I can think of.
(I haven't played the game and I don't even like Skyrim, so I have nothing else to say on-topic.)
(I haven't played the game and I don't even like Skyrim, so I have nothing else to say on-topic.)
There's something quite weird about using the game mechanics to crudely manipulate what an NPC "feels" to force them to the outcome you want. I mean, I suppose lots of RPG interactions are that in essence, for instance whether you enrage a thug into attacking you or scare them off or appeal to their better nature. But something about it feels creepy to me in terms of "romance", "love" or even "friendship".
I can't help but feel of real world men - it's usually men - who can be found saying variations on "I bought her flowers and complemented her looks and listened to her talk and paid for dinner and the ***** didn't sleep with me". As if you can just buy someone's love and affection by mechanically totting up a few things in the plus column. The woman does not really exist in his mind as an independent individual, but just as an object or extension of what he wants. And whenever I think of in-game romance, it feels for all the world like acting out this incredibly unhealthy, reductive idea of what love actually is. Never mind that it also is often very clumsily implemented.
I'm vastly more tolerant of in-game prostitution, which has been around in RPGs a lot longer. Go to the brothel and have your character pay for it if you want a sex scene.
That's all true. I don't mind it though- at least not the part about doing their missions. I think for video game logic it's fine- doing their missions is spending time with them and two heroic attractive people doing bad-ass shit together hooking up just makes sense. It's also how action movies work.
It's the giving "gifts" part that's dumb- but it also seems more of a jRPG thing and I rarely play those.
The only legit actually good "romance" thing I've ever experienced in any game ever is The Witcher 3 because they are cheating- they have 7 books and two other games of back story to work off of.
Witcher 3 had brothels, and kingdom come 2 has bathhouse wenches.
You even get a pretty lengthy stat buff after a thorough washing if you ask for the full service option.
Fair nuff; never played any of those in much detail (or KCD2 at all). Though I don't really count paying for sex as 'casual sex', but that's just me and my (maybe whacked-out) perspective. As for romance options in RPGs my guess is it's just a thing that someone did and now everyone does it because it's expected? Idk.
Pretty tapped out of things to say about Avowed now. As I said, I don't know anything concrete about it, I was just jumping on the sub-thread.