RPGWatch Feature - Knights of the Chalice II Review

Thanks Forgottenlor - I still have to play this one!
 
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Aye, one I have and also need to budget time for, at some point. I simply loved the first one so I'm hoping this can at least measure up to that.
 
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I played KOTC2 after its Steam release a few months back, and it's easily RPG of the year for 2022 for me, unless something very unexpected comes out in the next few months.

A few random comments on the review:

forgottenlor said:
Deciding the standard Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 system wasn’t complex enough by giving its characters one feat every 3 levels, KOTC 2 gives its characters 2 to 3 feats every level.
This is actually controlled by the difficulty level. If you were getting 2-3 feats every level on all classes, then I guess you were playing on Easy mode? I played on Normal, where it was more like 1-2 feats every level, and on Hard and Very Hard I think it would be 0-1.

You didn't touch on crafting, which can be absolutely huge if you choose to use it (although it didn't seem as mandatory as in KOTC1). The downside of it in KOTC2 is that it costs significant amounts of XP to craft, which you really can't afford in a game with finite enemies and such high difficulty. You can use unused companions to do the crafting, but that feels a bit cheesy so I avoided it in my playthrough. If I replayed the game in Hard or Very Hard, I think I would use it.

Also, I would suggest using token mode instead of sprite mode, because the sprites make it too hard to see accurate positioning on the battlefield. (I noticed all your screenshots were sprite mode.) Also with tokens, you can turn on an option that puts a green border around all friendly units and a red border on hostile units - you can't get this at all in sprite mode. At a minimum, I'd suggest going token mode for combat and then switching back after combat is done. You can toggle between the two anytime with Alt+T.

Finally, if someone thinks the game is too difficult, then the 410 page guidebook included in the Archmage Edition is massively helpful. I originally bought that edition just to support the developer, didn't expect the guide to be so packed with info.


Aye, one I have and also need to budget time for, at some point. I simply loved the first one so I'm hoping this can at least measure up to that.
I played both back-to-back (so no nostalgia involved here) and while KOTC1 was great, KOTC2 was a hell of a lot more fun.
 
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Thank you for another great review, @forgottenlor !! Keep'em coming :)
 
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Pretty much feel the same way....I backed it on kickstarter as well....I haven't even gotten beyond the tutorial.
 
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Thanks for the review. I probably would have picked this up already, but I thought it was priced somewhat high given the production values.

I didn't get into KotC 1 because having only 3 classes in a D&D game was a big turnoff for me, but I'll definitely be picking this up at some point.
 
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@Stingray After ragequitting the tutorial on normal difficulty, I wasn't sure if or how much of the main campaign I'd finish, which is why there are no screenshots from the first 25% of the game and why I started it on easy. As someone who played and enjoyed about 90% of the first game and finished both Baldur's Gate games, Solasta, both Pillars of Eternity Games, and both Pathfinder games on normal, even the easy difficulty of KOTC2 pushed my frustration tolerance to the limits. But you are correct, I didn't notice that the extra feats were an easy mode thing, I only noticed the healing in between combats.
 
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I have to agree with Forgottenlor. I'm not sure why the first scenario is so hard that it will scare off many buyers. KotC 1 is one of my favorites and I completed it many times. KotC 2 is for power gamers and is stupidly hard. Loading a battle 7x is not my idea of fun.

Hoping some user-created scenarios are fun and the next official scenario is more like KotC 1.
 
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I have to agree with Forgottenlor. I'm not sure why the first scenario is so hard that it will scare off many buyers. KotC 1 is one of my favorites and I completed it many times. KotC 2 is for power gamers and is stupidly hard. Loading a battle 7x is not my idea of fun.

Hoping some user-created scenarios are fun and the next official scenario is more like KotC 1.
I think the developer here did themselves a disservice by not setting up Steam Workshop. The Nexus currently has only 2 user made scenarios, one of which is very short. The high price will also probably severely limit the number of possible scenario makers. Look at comparison to Solasta which has a massive number of user developed dungeons, and may eventually come close to the Neverwinter Nights game with the amount of user made content. That game was 1.cheaper 2. much less difficult and user friendly 3. much better looking and 4.has a Steam Workshop.
 
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I think the developer here did themselves a disservice by not setting up Steam Workshop. The Nexus currently has only 2 user made scenarios, one of which is very short. The high price will also probably severely limit the number of possible scenario makers. Look at comparison to Solasta which has a massive number of user developed dungeons, and may eventually come close to the Neverwinter Nights game with the amount of user made content. That game was 1.cheaper 2. much less difficult and user friendly 3. much better looking and 4.has a Steam Workshop.
Personally I prefer Nexus every time. It works on any platform, while workshop mods are a pain to get to work with other releases.
 
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Personally I prefer Nexus every time. It works on any platform, while workshop mods are a pain to get to work with other releases.

I personally have used Nexus Mods often and it seems to be home to serious mod makers. But when it comes to people using an editor, I think Steam is a much bigger platform that reaches more people. It astounds me how many mods and scenarios there are for certain games on Steam.
 
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Another great review forgottenlor. Another interview should be posted in two weeks. As for the game I'm sorry to say I didn't enjoy either game. It's a me problem though.

At least you can import and make your own campaigns so that's a plus.
 
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I personally have used Nexus Mods often and it seems to be home to serious mod makers. But when it comes to people using an editor, I think Steam is a much bigger platform that reaches more people. It astounds me how many mods and scenarios there are for certain games on Steam.
Yeah I prefer the Nexus as well but certain games are banned when steam blocks another site from hosting mods. At least you can use an external site to download mods.

That's the main problem with GOG versions of Steam games.
 
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I personally have used Nexus Mods often and it seems to be home to serious mod makers. But when it comes to people using an editor, I think Steam is a much bigger platform that reaches more people. It astounds me how many mods and scenarios there are for certain games on Steam.
Yeah, workshop makes modding more accessible and makes business sense to both Valve and the game companies. But it more or less locks mods to Steam only, which is not good for us who like getting games from other stores as well, like GOG.
 
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Yeah I prefer the Nexus as well but certain games are banned when steam blocks another site from hosting mods. At least you can use an external site to download mods.

That's the main problem with GOG versions of Steam games.
Steam blocks modders from uploading mods to other places? If true, that's really, really shitty.
 
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Steam blocks modders from uploading mods to other places? If true, that's really, really shitty.
Steam doesn't like mods that are hosted on the site to be available for download anywhere else. They just forced one of those sites to go offline, or face legal problems.
Why can you not share mods that people made and uploaded for free!?
The Steam Subscriber Agreement states that any file uploaded to the Workshop becomes a licensed item.

This means that if you upload a thing to the Steam Workshop (and not to other places), people will never be able to freely share this thing with each other again. People will forever be forced to go through Steam directly to get it.

This effectively means that Valve is able to corner a lot of user generated content (mods/saves/contraptions/missions/etc) on their platform because users do not upload (or are not able or knowing to upload) their content anywhere else.

Our site unintentionally grew as a tool to work around this. But these are the terms that we all agree to every time we tick that checkbox or use any of their software. Continuing to ignore this reality will be unforgiving.
 
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