After playing some 10 for the last 3 days, here's my toughts so far.
Before releasing I said many times that while the combat looked really bad, the content (quests and exploration) seemed good and hoped for the RPG mechanics to be good.
Sadly, so far both the content and mechanics seem bad.
The combat is everything I said it would be - clunky, slow, boring and frustating - and more - after experimenting with it I am pretty sure that all enemies have more health than Henry, since even when I fought, 1 on 1, against bandits not even equiped with a Gambeson a wielding a Seaux, and I with a Gambeson + Mail Coif + helmet and wielding a Sword with almost 20 more damge than his, the bastard did more damage to me in 2 strikes than I did to him in 5.
The combat AI is also not very balanced, in the regard that one shitty peasent does the same quantity of dodges, blocks and parries that a knight does (and they do a lot).
The AI itself. Well... It does react to a lot of things (like a dog barks they go check it, and many other cool shit), however they are really slow to start those reactions. The player makes an action and they usually take some 10 seconds before starting their reaction to it.
The RPG mechanics are bad. It a bit like the problem in some old RPG's like Daggerfall were you have skills and you'll only use 2/3 trought the whole game. And there's also a lot of perks and skills that are just plain fucking retard.
For example the Reading skill. I know barely anyone know to read or write those days, but couln't they just have made that into a perk that to unlock you had to find someone who could teach you and then either pay him or make a quest for him. Reading perks include shit like "You will get a reading bonus when sited".
What even is a reading bonus. Or another perk that discover every single point of interest in your map. Great design right there. Does wonder for the exploration.
The herbalist skill makes no fucking sense, again it could just be a perk in the Alquemy skill that made the player reconize plants, and in the 2nd tier of that perk he would know their effects. I mean Henry can't read he can identify every single flower, berrie and grass in the land.
The lockpick minigame is ridicolous. And not once I manageto try and pickpocket someone. The button just doesn't appear, not even when the NPC's are sleeping.
Moving on.
The Quests so far have been either, fetch quests, follow someone or investigate a big area for X. I don't know if it gets better but after 10 hours I can't get to do an activity that isn't shit.
Exploration so far I would almost put it on the level of Skyrim. It just isn't any kind of reward or a cool little quest/level like you would get in Gothic or Morrowind. There's just seems to be nothing of interest.
The optimization is also one of the player's biggest enemies. I can run Battlefield 1 on Ultra with 60+ fps. Yet even if I make a mix between Medium and High I barely surpass the 30fps mark. I also get 2-5 second freezes almost every 5 minutes.
Some nitpicks:
The UI is cleary for consoles. So are the controls.
The blue screen filter when running out of stamina is anoying. So is the red filter for low health.
Why the fuck when resting/waiting the cursor is so slow in the last hour?
The animations for opening doors and picking up items are unecessary.
Want to talk to someone? Loading Screen. Wanna Haggle the price of something? Loading Screen. Picking plants are we now? How about a Cutscene for it.
Pros so far:
The world is very well designed and actually very historically acurate. Very impressed that they even managed to capture the mentalaty of people from those days fairly well (not an easy feat).
But then again even the days of the KickStater they stated they pretty much wanted the game to feel like a time capsule. So I guess they succeeded their main objective.
And for me, so far, it just what the game is really. A good looking time capsule of 15th century Bohemia masquerading as a game.
