RPGWatch Feature - Frayed Knights Review

Nerevarine said:

I seem to have the opposite opinion on the matter; I prefer to earn the best loot through quests and exploration, and I find the buying of gear to feel far less satisfying. I think a mix of both is probably the best solution, and it's certainly doable: Have shops that contain a solid. diverse selection of gear, but leave the rarest, most powerful/unique items out in the world to be earned. It sounds like FK takes the approach that I prefer, which is to find the best gear through gameplay and exploration.

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Well if you read my statement again you will find that our opinions are not so opposite. I said that I have no problem with the best gear being in dungeons. The problem that there is really no gear at all that you would ever want to purchase in FK. There is no shopping for armor or weapons for your starting characters or anything like that. We aren't talking about magic items, or even well made items not being available in the store. We are talking about basic mundane items that somehow can only be found in the bottoms of long forgotten dungeons.

The developers do put a few equipment stores in the game, so it seems that their intention is for people to buy things. However the only equipment that is available to buy in them is no longer useful by the time the store becomes available.

This system also serves to reduce the options you have in character development. For example there are a bunch of bow skills you can take, so with enough investment of feats you could turn a character into an archer. However there are no bows in the store and you don't find your first one in a dungeon until midway through the game. So it makes it pretty unfeasible that you would make an archer given that you'd have to spend half the game with no bow.

I found several bows and crossbows very early in the game. Never used them though.

I don't think I found my first bow until I got to the caves of anarchy. There is probably some randomness to it.

Edit: Well I think it was a little before anarchy, maybe in the upper tower.

For fun go back to the pimple temple place later in the game and kick around all the guys who gave you so much trouble back at the start.

Well actually, you DO have to return there to open the force field door eventually!!

I find the RPG and combat system deep and complex. Endurance-Exhaustion-Drama mechanics really balance the gameplay and present the player new challenges to take into consideration. I admit I'm one of these "save-load frequently" fellow and this Drama system makes me think twice before reload my previous save (other thing that makes me think twice is the long loading screens). Also, to keep in mind this brilliant "endurance-exhaustion" system pushes me to think new strategies.

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I understand your explanation of why you like the drama system (causes you to think twice about reloading). I'm interested in learning of why you think the combat is deep and complex, and what the new strategies the endurance-exhaustion system caused you to come up with?

Please don't get knee-jerk defensive. I bought and enjoy the game. I like it a great deal more than anything I've bought since Avernum 5.

I've thoroughly enjoyed it so far, some excellent old school gameplay. I've also found the drama star system fantastic, okay it's led to a couple of moments of horrible frustration but it's also led to a lot more genuine excitement than I'm used to, I just don't have the discipline not to abuse the save function normally.

I find the drama star thing ties in well with the consumable / spellstone issue too, I'm enough of a pack rat that I never tend to use consumables in most games but the desire to avoid reloading has meant a far bit of emergency use of the heavy artillery which has been extremely satisfying.

It's not a perfect game, but for me it's one of the best things to come out in years. Good humour, good fun, some innovative gameplay tweaks that IMO work, all round it's an amazing accomplishment for an indie developer, Jay should be very proud of his work.