I'm always skeptical when a series tries to westernize itself, but for the first time I really don't think that's what broke the experience for me here.
It's definitely an upgrade from KF1 in almost every way, but somehow loses a fraction of its charm in how convoluted the map design and objectives are (in all my searching, I couldn't find a map that was both comprehensive and legible, the one I was mainly using seemed to leave out entire areas and didn't show items, and the others were so layered and hard to read I couldn't find where I was even with important landmarks nearby).
I was trying to go in authentically (with save states still, of course), but I genuinely think my playthrough would have been improved if I'd started off with a guide, as I found myself doing full circles for an hour at a time, wandering into areas I wasn't supposed to be in yet, and inevitably getting locked in an area that literally has no exit and losing 3 hours of progress. I hesitate to say open-world fatigue got to me here, since this is still a relatively small world, but it really did feel like I was just wandering aimlessly for 90% of my experience. I didn't even find a new weapon until hour 4, let alone magic, and passing by bosses that you have to return to later is an interesting idea, until you start to feel like you're missing something -- because when you think about it, you've literally just been grinding exp this whole time while wandering, and it still doesn't feel like you're advancing at all.
It's a shame it didn't click for me, because there's a lot of FASCINATING stuff here, but it's just lacking the simplistic charm of KF1 and feels like some amount of quantity over quality. Even the world being designed as one full space with no loading screens is a good idea as a sales pitch, but it makes it impossible - or at least less fun - to navigate and map anything due to the intricacy. Most of the time, it felt like the only reward for exploration was more monsters to grind exp, and my performance was tanking pretty bad in any larger areas where combat is necessary, so even that aspect lost a lot of its allure.
It's definitely an upgrade from KF1 in almost every way, but somehow loses a fraction of its charm in how convoluted the map design and objectives are (in all my searching, I couldn't find a map that was both comprehensive and legible, the one I was mainly using seemed to leave out entire areas and didn't show items, and the others were so layered and hard to read I couldn't find where I was even with important landmarks nearby).
I was trying to go in authentically (with save states still, of course), but I genuinely think my playthrough would have been improved if I'd started off with a guide, as I found myself doing full circles for an hour at a time, wandering into areas I wasn't supposed to be in yet, and inevitably getting locked in an area that literally has no exit and losing 3 hours of progress. I hesitate to say open-world fatigue got to me here, since this is still a relatively small world, but it really did feel like I was just wandering aimlessly for 90% of my experience. I didn't even find a new weapon until hour 4, let alone magic, and passing by bosses that you have to return to later is an interesting idea, until you start to feel like you're missing something -- because when you think about it, you've literally just been grinding exp this whole time while wandering, and it still doesn't feel like you're advancing at all.
It's a shame it didn't click for me, because there's a lot of FASCINATING stuff here, but it's just lacking the simplistic charm of KF1 and feels like some amount of quantity over quality. Even the world being designed as one full space with no loading screens is a good idea as a sales pitch, but it makes it impossible - or at least less fun - to navigate and map anything due to the intricacy. Most of the time, it felt like the only reward for exploration was more monsters to grind exp, and my performance was tanking pretty bad in any larger areas where combat is necessary, so even that aspect lost a lot of its allure.
2 Comments
@_YALP I'm bummed about it, because if I'd told myself before playing that it would be a vibes-first game with a lot of wandering and a convoluted map that takes full advantage of the limited space the hardware allows, I'd be like "hell yeah, sign me right up." But I think my patience just wore too thin with the rewards it provided me, and part of me as a gamer in 2023 took that impatience and turned it into "man I could just skip to KFIII because I know I'll like that one."
I'm set on returning to it someday and giving it a fresh look, because it totally might've been a wrong-time wrong-place thing, and I love everything it's doing, but it was just a little too much bigger than KF'94 in ways that I deemed unnecessary. I also really wonder how I would've felt about this if I'd experienced it on-launch and somehow also played KF'94 to provide a basis of comparison, I imagine I'd have dedicated my entire life to this game if I had the time to play it in the "intended" way, taking extensive notes and committing the map to heart.
I'm set on returning to it someday and giving it a fresh look, because it totally might've been a wrong-time wrong-place thing, and I love everything it's doing, but it was just a little too much bigger than KF'94 in ways that I deemed unnecessary. I also really wonder how I would've felt about this if I'd experienced it on-launch and somehow also played KF'94 to provide a basis of comparison, I imagine I'd have dedicated my entire life to this game if I had the time to play it in the "intended" way, taking extensive notes and committing the map to heart.
_YALP
4 months ago
So at the very least, if a player is gonna be constantly looking at a map, the map itself can be intriguing and stimulating. Oh, of course the Pirates Map is more accurate in places that pirates would know about (narrative implication). Oh, I have to cross reference several maps to make sense of the space (engaging brain muscle to derive information). Even the unmapped parts require me to still physically remember things and not simply offload that responsibility entirely to the map, which I absolutely do in other games.
Obviously the biggest issue is that it has the UX of a PS1 game from 1995 but I feel like this is a more interesting experience than merely having all the information laid out for you