Heroic Kingdom: Origins

Seriously, this is great. I spend time searching for games using Steam tags, hoping to land on a hidden gem. For years now, I'm looking for a mixture of soulsbone, survival and open world crafting. Only two games, that are worth mentioning fit the bill so far - Outward and Fade to Silence. This one, is the third, easily! While it lacks survival mechanics, so no eating, drinking and sleeping - it has everything else. Its open world, and fairly nicely done, it has resource collection, refinement and crafting, salvaging. The equipment comes in different tiers and ranks, and you have plenty of equippable places (ie. aside standards - you have cloacks, shoulders, gloves, etc). Your combat involves stamina, blocks, parrying and stealth if you want to. Each weapon, when successfully attacked with from stealth, will generate different multiplier (daggers are 7x, swords 4x and so on). You have a massive talent tree that upgrades various stats for various weapons and spells. You have attributes which are, from what I understood, stat bonuses so far. Finally you have abilities, which you learn by finding them in the world or buying them, which you execute to do fun stuff - like inflict poison, stun, bleed, etc... On top of this, every crafting/gathering skill has its own progression where you gain XP and then unlock various stuff - for example, 5% chance to not remove the plant once you loot it, allowing you to loot it again, or chance to get coal no matter which node you mine. Map is very, very readable - basically a 3D scrollable version of the main map, and you have a compass with markers so you can lead yourself easily wherever you want. As its in EA, some things aren't just perfect: there's a certain lack of balance, but mainly benefiting you - within first 30 or so minutes, I racked enough levels that I was plowing through the initial enemies without much effort. That being said, a bit distant enemies ripped me a new one, so, basically... the difficulty curve is very steep, and changes very fast. So far, the environment kind of looks samey everywhere, but that just as much as I could see, plus - whatever is there is pretty effin great. The lighting is slightly too powerful, everything in the open sun washes out colours. Finally, map design is slightly cramped. The bandit camp is as far from your initial village as some of the houses, so it sort of feels awkward, but that's allright. Conclusion, either way, this is one huge, massive thumbs up - its DEFINITELY not just 10$ game, this is easily 20-30$ game. Also kind of unbelievable this is done by just two people, but big kudos to them. I'm definitely buying a supporter's pack and you should too. I want to encourage these kinds of efforts as much as I can.

First off, Heroic Kingdom: Origins is a complete steal at $10. I've only been playing for an hour and already there is so much to do. - Crafting - Alchemy - Mining - Enchanting - More talent trees than what I know to do with - Hidden items This is all within minutes of starting. I've only gotten to level 10 so far, but I've already had 5 or 6 different abilities drop. There is a parry system, I-Frames (roll), Magic, Ranged, Melee. It looks like there is no restrictions on what abilities you can use, if you have the stats to cast it, you can use it. I was exploring the world, avoiding bandits in the area, when a bear absolutely demolished me. The fact that it looks like there are only 2 guys working on the game is astonishing. I see some of the earlier reviews talking about polish, I'm not sure what it was like then, but the game feels smooth, combat is engaging, attacks feel weighty and rewarding. Not once did I feel like it's "janky". I picked up a 2H mace, enemies literally knocked all over the place. So far every different weapon combo I've used has it's own set of animations (swords, axes, maces, and daggers - on top of that they're all different for 1h/2h combos). Each weapon has it's own talent tree, damage types all have their own talent tree. Loot everywhere (almost feels like Diablo style loot). There are free attributes/talents hidden (found some in the first house I walked into) everywhere. THIS IS ALL WITHIN AN HOUR. Definitely going support these guys.

It's pretty fun. The combat is fun and a little challenging. The Devs put a lot of love in the game.

I don't think this is a bad game per say, I think there's a lot of good ideas here. But it's far from a polished product. A lot of animations look awkward and janky, certain UI elements (like the compass for instance) need tweaked or relooked at and the character models could use some tweaking in certain areas. Overall though, it's a solid game. I'd hold off until full release or a major update before biting on it though. Since there's no maybe button I'd go more for no as in not right now.

I didn't Imagine I could find such a beautiful game at such a low price. Even If the title Is in early access, the work behind this game Is huge, and you can appreciate in the attention to details all the passion the devs have for Classic rpgs. The enemy variety Is mesmerizing, as the quality of personalization of your character's talents and abilities. When you play this game, you IMMEDIATELY remember about Ultima and Gothic series. I do Hope to play with more content, the experience with the First hours of gameplay Is absolutely positive.

I've really enjoyed my time with Heroic Kingdom: Origins. The amount of different skills, gear, and crafting supplies is staggering. There is a huge variety of play styles available to you and the best part is you can switch on the fly by re-gearing. I really enjoy the game-play loop! I hope as the two developers move forward they work to ground the game play in the world a bit more - I have felt very disconnected from any kind of story or the NPCs but arguably this is far more of an action/adventure game than an RPG so I suppose that can be expected and is perhaps a case of me needing to adjust my expectations. Additionally, performance has been an issue for me but I must acknowledge I am using a GTX 1080 so just hitting the minimum specs. However, no amount of setting tweaking seems to have a significant impact on performance and dropping certain settings like global illumination seems to cause odd graphical issues (all items and characters become glowing white). Overall this game really scratches the ARPG itch for me but does it from a third person over the shoulder perspective which is so refreshing and just a blast to play while I listen to a podcast or book. I really look forward to seeing what the developers do going forward and at the new price point it is a steal - even in early access.

I went on a 'budget game spree' and bought this game along with Monomyth and Carnal Instincts. On first load it took it's time building the world as my character stood and waited so I nearly asked for a refund. I love games with character creation\personaliszation options so I thought I'd give it one more go...... Nine and a half hours later, I was rubbing my eyes and fighting off sleep to continue. It's beautiful to behold, the fight dynamics could use some work. (needs a target lock), it needs a screen map but at this point that's ALL it needs. Considering the size of the team working on this it's a visual gaming wonder and I'm waiting for more patches as they are still working on it.