The SNES classic and yeah, still holds up really well. Partly nostalgia I image (I literally went out on Saturday buying some sweets and fizzy drink to sit down Saturday night and play this how I used to) but I think the quality here is undeniable. It looks, sounds and plays so well; Rare really were wizards. When combined with a decent touch of humour, you’ve got a game that I think deserves recognition of the “timeless” accolade.

In reference to nostalgia, I did get hit with another unexpected form of it, as I’ve referenced before here. This time in was triggered by “Minecart Madness” and I was round a friends house, remembering Ollie play a minecart level (I believe it was actually from a latter DKC game actually) as he was notoriously good at them. Quite humbling stuff, which left me feeling a little sad about the passage of time.

But yeah, anyway, great game. Also, hard but very completable and not overly long. Never outstays its welcome due to nice little ways of mixing up the simple platforming action.

Bit of a flawed diamond this one. Starting with the bad; there’s some graphic glitches, mainly in the form of slow loading of assets and textures. Then there’s the occasion bugs, mainly quirky AI stuff. The issue that probably annoyed me most was loading screens. I’m usually forgiving/tolerant of these, but in Kingdom Come Deliverance (KCD) they occur in places that hamper fluid action. For example, in many of the big battles in the game, you’ll often have the action broken up every few minutes by a long loading screen. The result is very choppy gameplay that’s very immersion breaking, in what would otherwise have been an epic battle. So yeah, rather than a long, hard-fought battle, you get a few minutes of fighting, then twiddle your fingers watching a black loading screen, then another few minutes of fighting, followed by another long loading screen. A shame really.

Annoyances aside, I was able to forgive its technical issues because the good far outweighs the bad. The simple stories are often the best ones, and in KCD the overarching plot is one of revenge. It serves as a foundation for the game, but the story is deeper and more complicated than than. It’s more a story about the protagonist, Henry, picking himself up after a horrible turn of events, but ones that act as a catalyst to him really finding himself.

He’s probably one of my favourite characters in a video game. The (RPG) nature of the game allows you to play him different ways, but still, during the quests he shows that he’s quite a young, naive, flawed character. Ultimately very likable though due to how honest and well meaning he is…at least “my Henry”. Also, and probably most importantly, he’s not a hero. He’s neither super powered not larger than life. He’s extremely average and it’s very humbling to play that way (and that role).

Loved the setting and gameplay. Beautiful, well imaged and created game world. You can see they’ve tried to be very authentic in creating a virtual 15th century Bohemia, they even kinda showed you their workings by including historical notes on everything that could be read via the menu screen.

Going back to the whole not being a hero thing. Henry starts out basically unskilled at everything. Over the course of the game you can shape him, putting in the hours in the training yard with a sword and shield, but you’re never more than well trained. They’ve opted for a realistic take on combat and, although not perfect, it’s one of the better systems I’ve used (once you get used to it and train yourself up). You can’t just swing away, fastest finger first style. Each blow, or defense drains stamina, so you have to box clever. You have to watch your enemy(s) and know when to strike, and where. Armour and weapons of both yourself and your opponents will come into play, as will numbers (them vs you) and even the environment. One thing I really liked was how there was no aiming reticle when using a bow, meaning you really need to spend some time with it to master it.

KCD was one of those games that could easily have been overlooked but I’m glad I didn’t. I found it very easy to get immersed in, with it’s very beautiful and realistic game world. The overarching plot is a simple one, but within that there’s a wealth of twists and complications that will present themselves along the way, all of them very human.