re: Kingdoms Come Deliverance II

Expedition 33 is a groundbreaking experience and will usher in a new genre. I love KCD2 too

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It wipes the floor with Expedition 33 and it's not even close.

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Expedition 33 is a groundbreaking experience and will usher in a new genre. I love KCD2 too

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There's nothing groundbreaking about it. It's a Dark Souls take on Super Mario RPG

Over time though, I think you will have plenty of copycats.

Hopefully this doesn't ruin turnbased JRPGs the way soulslikes have ruined linear third person action games.

Oof, what a whiff of a take

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Sorry you’re not skilled enough to beat them

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It isn't necessarily a matter of skill. I derive virtually zero sense of accomplishment from beating a video game, and to be perfectly honest, you shouldn't either.

I value a good plot, a sense of immersion in exploring a 3D world, and the way the game feels with the feedback between pressing buttons on the controller versus what happens on screen.

Video games were "difficult" in the 80s because they were either arcade games designed to get you spend quarter or because they were literally 30 minutes long (sometimes both) and constantly failing and retrying made you feel like you got your money's worth.

A souls game is 40 hours long. Beating my head against a wall fighting boss for hours/days/weeks is not, by any stretch, my definition of "fun." At some point, I recognize that I have better things to do. Then there are mechanics that seem to serve no real purpose such corpse runs or the inability to even pause the damn game.

I thought Demon Souls was a nice breathe of fresh air when it came out in 2009, but every subsequent iteration brings next to nothing new to the table. Many games are outright clones of Demon Souls or they take very specific elements from soulslikes in place them into games that are otherwise not really soulslike in nature.

I would like to see data on percentage of players who actually complete these games, but one cannot argue with how well they sell. I'm sure this, above all else, has to do with why soulslike mechanics have seeped into so many games like a malignant tumor. It's things like this compared with the gaming community's acceptance of DLC and battle passes, and general focus/preference on live service that has me thinking that I am probably just aging out of gaming as it exists today.

I'm under the impression that Expedition 33 has an excellent story. I do wonder if people would have the same love for the game if the story was stripped out and replaced with some more generic AAA-esque slop and the gameplay mechanics were left to stand for themselves.

Turn-based combat is all about strategy and choosing the correct commands in turn 1 to counter what the enemy will do in turn 2. If you think you have to reply on pixel perfect dodging/blocking to avoid damage or playing QTEs to do damage, you probably should have just made an action game to begin with.

The one problem I do have with KCD II is that the game is much better with a Quicksave mod. I understand what the developers are going for with limiting your ability to save scum; however, the gameplay mechanics aren't tight enough in all instances to justify locking you down a specific story progression should you lose a fight, get spotted in a stealth section, or fail to pick a lock. Sometimes the game's jank just fricks with you, and you should be able to reload a quicksave "if" you want to. Limiting quicksave is just an example of game devs sniffing their own farts.

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It's a Dark Souls take on Super Mario RPG

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WTF?

That isn't anywhere close to being accurate.

The only thing REMOTELY souls-like is how awesome and creative the monsters look

I am very vocal about the fact that I hate Soulslike games. It is a label you can put on a game to guarantee I will not play it

I beat 33 twice

Loved it.

Video games are subjective and it’s fine to have different opinions and people like what they like. But to say “KCD2 wipes the floor with E33 and it isn’t even close” is so fricking pretentious .

I haven’t played KCD2, and I don’t doubt it’s a great game in its own right. But how many Medievil based rpgs have been made over the years? About 1000. How many dark fantasy French Baroque rpgs? 1. Exp33 was able to rejuvenate the turn based genre for old school JRPGs like myself, while making it interactive and fresh for new age gamers at the same time. A feat that NONE of the big boys have been able to accomplish in the 20 years they’ve been trying.

And they did all this while simultaneously making an INCREDIBLE story, which for me is my biggest selling point. And an equally incredible score. Sure, it’s going to have copycats like souls (I’m not a souls fan either btw, and loathe the “soulslike” title) but I believe in 10-20 years we’ll look back and be able to say that exp33 was the game that brought back the turn based genre from the dead and made games enjoyable again for old school JRPGs players like myself. A lot will be duds, but if we get a handful of good ones that’s fine.

It’s ok to not like the combat, not everybody liked it. But for me, it brought back the strategy element that turn based is predicated on, while also scratching that “satisfying” itch of timing something perfectly when parrying that I didn’t know I even wanted or needed.

It’s a generational game and it proved it at the gaming awards. I get that awards don’t mean everything, I’m pretty pretentious when it comes to films and I don’t think the Oscar’s mean much. But it’s hard to deny this wasn’t a generational game with the impact it had on the gaming world in 2025. Again, it’s fine if you didn’t like it, but saying it’s a bad game and KCD2 “wipes the floor with it” is just an objectively bad take.

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then I got down the road to a castle and never could stop dying or figure out how to level up without starting the entire game over. Gave up at that point.

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That horse ride into Talmberg was not done very well and I spent a couple of hours trying to figure it out. The quick tutorial was done very poorly for the horse riding mechanics. I found a couple youtube walkthroughs of it that explained using double shift to make the horse faster but I still haven't gone back to try it.