Lord_Potato
Arcane
VPN
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Incline Heads Will Roll -- AUTHENTIC MEDIEVAL DATING RPG
- Thread starter rusty_shackleford
- Start date
So I played this a bit last night - "a bit" meaning 5 hours until I realized it's almost 5AM and I should probably go to sleep.
It's good. Feels a bit like Legionary's Life but with better graphics.
There are different weapon types, each of which has their own special attacks - swords, axes, maces, polearms. Shields can be broken, and you actually have to buy a new shield when yours gets wrecked in combat.
Combat is heavily based around stamina and exhaustion management. Attacks take stamina, kinda like in Dark Souls, and you need to take the recover action to replenish it during your turn. In addition to that, there's exhaustion which accumulates with each action. You have to take respite during your turn to lower it. The amount depends on your stat (either vitality or endurance, IIRC). Accumulating enough exhaustion will put you into the next exhaustion level, starting at fresh, going through winded and tired, and finally ending at "on last legs" and exhausted.
I noticed that the AI never takes respite, so the winning move is to get them to exhaust themselves to the point they'll never hit you but are easy to hit. This way I managed to defeat a knight who vastly outclassed me during the first storming of the walls scene. I like the way combat is really methodical here, it's all about ensuring your own survival, managing your exhaustion level, and whittling down the enemy through attrition. Armor is also really useful as it can fully block hits, and even when penetrated you don't take full damage. When you fight heavily armored opponents it's a game of exhausting them and aiming for their weakest spot, which simulates late medieval combat quite accurately.
There's a lot of complexity in the combat system and I'm enjoying it so far.
The story is presented in visual novel style - in fact, the engine this game runs on is RenPy, a popular VN engine. To the game's credit, I wouldn't have noticed that if I hadn't looked into the game folder itself and found the engine's files. It doesn't look like your average RenPy game.
There are plenty of choices and side quests to do. The "dating sim" part so far has been relatively subtle, not in your face at all. I met a French noblewoman while serving as an English man at arms in the 100 years war. She treated me as a guest and asked me on my honor to prevent the English army from raiding her estate. I did my best to protect her, and she was grateful for it. As a reward I got some saucy pictures of her, heh.
But the biggest choice - and plot twist - came when I was sent to assassinate an old French commander, a legendary knight whose death could turn the tide of the war in our favor. As I entered his tent, I was ambushed by the girl... who confessed to me that this is her father and if I kill him, she will kill herself.
First major choice between loyalty to your king, or to the woman. Of course I chose the woman
Apparently there are multiple paths through the game depending on your choices, and this particular choice led to a peace deal due to stalemate, and my character went on to seek new employment as a mercenary, starting chapter 2.
I'll definitely replay at some point to see if you get a different chapter 2 if you actually kill the guy.
Side quests also have some minor choices in them, your actions will improve or decrease your relationship with the soldiers and/or your commander, etc etc. Lots of nuances here.
My only criticism is that the writing is sometimes a little cringe, with medieval people talking too much like modern 21st century people (especially some of the women). Not in the typical western liberal "everyone is an SJW from California" style, just that they use too much modern slang and expressions that feel a little off.
Also, there are lots of grammatical errors. In particular, the devs don't know how articles work. It's the typical Slav English we all know and love. The devs are obviously Russians (you can pick English or Russian as the game's language) and their English is filled with the usual mistakes Russians make when speaking English. You need to have a tolerance for that, if awkward grammar and spelling mistakes break your immersion, you're gonna have a hard time.
It's good. Feels a bit like Legionary's Life but with better graphics.
There are different weapon types, each of which has their own special attacks - swords, axes, maces, polearms. Shields can be broken, and you actually have to buy a new shield when yours gets wrecked in combat.
Combat is heavily based around stamina and exhaustion management. Attacks take stamina, kinda like in Dark Souls, and you need to take the recover action to replenish it during your turn. In addition to that, there's exhaustion which accumulates with each action. You have to take respite during your turn to lower it. The amount depends on your stat (either vitality or endurance, IIRC). Accumulating enough exhaustion will put you into the next exhaustion level, starting at fresh, going through winded and tired, and finally ending at "on last legs" and exhausted.
I noticed that the AI never takes respite, so the winning move is to get them to exhaust themselves to the point they'll never hit you but are easy to hit. This way I managed to defeat a knight who vastly outclassed me during the first storming of the walls scene. I like the way combat is really methodical here, it's all about ensuring your own survival, managing your exhaustion level, and whittling down the enemy through attrition. Armor is also really useful as it can fully block hits, and even when penetrated you don't take full damage. When you fight heavily armored opponents it's a game of exhausting them and aiming for their weakest spot, which simulates late medieval combat quite accurately.
There's a lot of complexity in the combat system and I'm enjoying it so far.
The story is presented in visual novel style - in fact, the engine this game runs on is RenPy, a popular VN engine. To the game's credit, I wouldn't have noticed that if I hadn't looked into the game folder itself and found the engine's files. It doesn't look like your average RenPy game.
There are plenty of choices and side quests to do. The "dating sim" part so far has been relatively subtle, not in your face at all. I met a French noblewoman while serving as an English man at arms in the 100 years war. She treated me as a guest and asked me on my honor to prevent the English army from raiding her estate. I did my best to protect her, and she was grateful for it. As a reward I got some saucy pictures of her, heh.
But the biggest choice - and plot twist - came when I was sent to assassinate an old French commander, a legendary knight whose death could turn the tide of the war in our favor. As I entered his tent, I was ambushed by the girl... who confessed to me that this is her father and if I kill him, she will kill herself.
First major choice between loyalty to your king, or to the woman. Of course I chose the woman
Apparently there are multiple paths through the game depending on your choices, and this particular choice led to a peace deal due to stalemate, and my character went on to seek new employment as a mercenary, starting chapter 2.
I'll definitely replay at some point to see if you get a different chapter 2 if you actually kill the guy.
Side quests also have some minor choices in them, your actions will improve or decrease your relationship with the soldiers and/or your commander, etc etc. Lots of nuances here.
My only criticism is that the writing is sometimes a little cringe, with medieval people talking too much like modern 21st century people (especially some of the women). Not in the typical western liberal "everyone is an SJW from California" style, just that they use too much modern slang and expressions that feel a little off.
Also, there are lots of grammatical errors. In particular, the devs don't know how articles work. It's the typical Slav English we all know and love. The devs are obviously Russians (you can pick English or Russian as the game's language) and their English is filled with the usual mistakes Russians make when speaking English. You need to have a tolerance for that, if awkward grammar and spelling mistakes break your immersion, you're gonna have a hard time.
Camel
Scholar
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2021
- Messages
- 2,084
You have chosen wisely. It doesn't really matter if you kill William de la Roche but it's way more satisfying to spare his life. You have a choice either to go back to England with the Prince or stay and make Rennes great again(it's much more interesting).
The key to making me day-1-purchase, yes.I can see what got JF's attention.
Very shameless game.
This particular image is precisely what made me buy it
Finished the Make Rennes Great Again chapter, which was a lot of fun. You can choose to do a couple of quests to sabotage the enemy mercenaries, and also go out to fight random encounters to weaken their power level.
So at least in that chapter, it was a little more open than Legionary's Life.
I'm honestly quite impressed what they tickled out of the RenPy engine.
So at least in that chapter, it was a little more open than Legionary's Life.
I'm honestly quite impressed what they tickled out of the RenPy engine.
VerSacrum
Educated
Stuttgarter Kartenspiel, nice. Really wish Witcher 3 Gwent cards looked something like this, the art on them looked out of place.
This doesn't ring as authentic to me. :\
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2019
- Messages
- 3,788
It's a retread of the first game but the combat is finally FIXED, no longer is the winning option the 10 geld wooden club with weapon damage trinkets stacked on top. Crafting is really worthwhile, just to make armor, and of course to get double the consumables to pop when crafting.
I really really want to reach new content, I'm not seeing it yet.
I'm off to Rennes now
I really really want to reach new content, I'm not seeing it yet.
I'm off to Rennes now
Reached the Outremer, and holy shit does combat get tough there.
You take fatigue each turn due to heat, while your enemies don't, leading to you being constantly out of breath. Hard fucking core, man.
You take fatigue each turn due to heat, while your enemies don't, leading to you being constantly out of breath. Hard fucking core, man.
Lord_Potato
Arcane
But are there some hot wifus in the Holy Land?
lvl 2 Blue Slime
Educated
Authentic as in the girls rarely bathe and don't shave?
Lord_Potato
Arcane
This is kind of a myth. Before the Black Death most European towns sported baths of some sort (regardless of water quality). And shaving body hair was a popular method of fighting lice.
VerSacrum
Educated
True, and medieval people were autistically afraid of bad smells (miasma), they thought this would transmit disease.
"People don't bathe" is actually an early modern phenomenon. The court of Louis XIV didn't bathe, instead just using perfume to mask the smell lmao.
Most myths about the middle ages happened centuries later, in the early modern age.
Most myths about the middle ages happened centuries later, in the early modern age.
It seems like the Outremer region is the final one, all the choices there lead to an ending.
- if you find Raynault in the desert, he wants you to kill him and you get an ending where you return home and deliver the news of his death
- if you let time pass without finding him, you can choose to go back home for 1000 florins, but the ship gets lost and you're never heard from again; game ends
- you can choose to stay in the Outremer, join up with crusaders, but your expedition fails and you get a similar "never heard from again" ending
- you can choose to stay with the barefoot girl you seduced, but her father thinks you're too low station, you join up with crusaders to earn a higher station but the expedition fails and you get a similar ending as above
There doesn't seem to be a way to leave the Outremer successfully, or get a good ending (apart from finding Raynault, which is sort of good I guess? As in, you fulfil your duty, grim as it may be).
Guess I'll have to start anew and see where else the game can go.
- if you find Raynault in the desert, he wants you to kill him and you get an ending where you return home and deliver the news of his death
- if you let time pass without finding him, you can choose to go back home for 1000 florins, but the ship gets lost and you're never heard from again; game ends
- you can choose to stay in the Outremer, join up with crusaders, but your expedition fails and you get a similar "never heard from again" ending
- you can choose to stay with the barefoot girl you seduced, but her father thinks you're too low station, you join up with crusaders to earn a higher station but the expedition fails and you get a similar ending as above
There doesn't seem to be a way to leave the Outremer successfully, or get a good ending (apart from finding Raynault, which is sort of good I guess? As in, you fulfil your duty, grim as it may be).
Guess I'll have to start anew and see where else the game can go.
laclongquan
Arcane
I think I read one or two similar tales in 1001 Night Tales.
is this also the case with the version sold on gog?
sometimes gog does censor games for germans (Kane & Lynch for example), but there's an easy thing you can do to get the international version.
Yes.
Modron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 5, 2012
- Messages
- 10,058
Remake that added even more chapters to the game basically doubling the content as far I understand it.
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