Hard to Be a God Reviews

Hard to be a God is very hardcore old school rpg that has its moments. Mounted combat is fun, but normal combat is frustratingly difficult. The bad Borat-style translation makes for some hilarious moments but slows down the narrative at the same time. The story leaves you in the dark start off the bat and slowly reveals the intricate details.

I was happy to finally find this game on Steam. Played it since it came out in 2007. This game is one of a kind: - Medieval setting with a few things that you wont see coming; - Unbelievable storyline; - One of the first with a good mounted combat system; - Good graphics and decent soundtrack; It is a bit glitchy though.. Save often! Seriously, give it a try!

I remember seeing this game in a gaming magazine and really wanting to play it back in the day. A bit of time has passed since then and now i tried this game and it's bad. Don't get me wrong, i enjoy myself an older game, heck i still play gothic 1 & 2 from time to time. The voice acting is mediocre, the combat is annoying and i couldn't be bothered to put anymore time in this game.

Game with a lot of glitches, but the plot is really good and gameplay is kind of okay, if you have a lot of patience and not really dead set on graphics or modern day high end gaming experience, you'll really enjoy the game...

A clunky but interesting game. Got a few bugs, and spiders, but not too bad. There was this castle I couldn't get across the drawbridge to get in, so I got in by going under the drawbridge...? Combat can be very unforgiving, so stock up on food and improve your medicine skill. Disguises are a big part of the game, but once you start impersonating a noble you mostly just need the Don outfit to progress the actual basic storyline. This game may not be for everyone. There's a few escort quests, the kind with slow idiots who attack everything they encounter. Also some timed quests you may not see coming. The game also doesn't appear to have a morality/reputation system, meaning you can kill guards and livestock out on the open street in front of the peasants without future consequenses. Even looting chests full of valuables in front of them won't get a reaction. An old game, but long hours of something that may resemble fun.

Hard to Be a God is one of those lesser known gems that people often pass by. While it does suffer some minor issues, the atmosphere, soundtrack and story all make up for it - the latter especially. Just buy it, play it, LOVE IT!

don't let my playtime fool you. I played this from a retail copy in 2008 or 09. This game is a great old game for hardcore rpg fans. Has a brilliant story, a book adaptation in fact. But at the beginning, progression is rather slow. hence this is an actually long game to finish and with the adaptation aspects; slow progress isn't a negative factor for me. But even with that, from the certain point (after 4-6h playtime) it becomes very, very interesting. Gameplay is clunky, but isn't anything unplayable. Acceptable for the time of its release. One can expect magic for a medieval-style game, but this game has a very different sort of concept, and it's good. I highly recommend who likes a good rpg and doesn't mind the graphics.

A pretty decent RPG, don't expect anything too elaborate as this is a budget game. The combat is pretty simple but does the job. NPC's react differently according to how you are dressed, for example an early misson in the game reqiures you to get into a bandit camp to retrieve a stolen neclace. You can just go there and kill them all, or you can find the thiefs clothes and get in undetected. There are also elements of Sci-fi blended in but I have not come across that yet. I will update this review as I get further into the game. So far, I think for the price of this game it is worth a buy.

TL;DR: After 17 hours play time, the game does not live up to what is promised in the description. The gameplay is crude, even for an older game, the story has yet to develop any interesting aspects. The game may become more interesting later, but the last 17 hours it kept me waiting. And I'm bored, so I don't really feel like playing any longer. LONG VERSION: This game is a bit of an oddity. It's made by Russian developers who apparently had little experience in making RPGs or games in general. I say this because the game is very crude and badly executed in some parts. It didn't even start on Windows 7, but after upgrading to Windows 10, it actually works, more or less. I have to restart it every now and then because SFX and voice stop working, so only the background music still plays. I'd rather have it the other way around, as the game only seems to have two tracks - normal music and battle music. I guess the game was originally in Russian, as it has its fair share of translation errors. Some sentences don't make sense, names keep changing (for example, the Merry Tower becomes the Jolly Tower and is also called the Tower of Joy). Even on easy, the game can become quite hard at times, especially when several enemies suddenly leap at you. It is also made clear on several occasions that you should own a horse - you can take one in the very beginning and have opportunities to buy one in pretty much every area. However, I actually advise against it. The areas aren't that large, you can easily cover the distances by foot. Also, you often run into bandits or hostile fauna, and fighting from your horse is difficult. Not only is it hard to hit an enemy (they have to be in front and to the right of you), the horse also dies rather quickly. And considering how much they cost, this is not worth it. The character you play seems to have no personality or spine at all. He is the only character in the game that is not voiced in conversations, and judging by his answer choices (mostly there is only one answer to choose from, making this a bit pointless), he is easily intimidated. While you can choose to be unfriendly and scornful to peasants, when talking to someone who outranks you, or has something you want/need, your answers often comprise "But...", "Yes...", "I see..." or "I understand..." (literally). SPOILERS After 17 hours of gameplay, I haven't seen much of a story yet. You're sent on a mission to kill someone, and gather information about someone else. The killing proves difficult (you are alone with him and could certainly take him on, but since you're quite spineless, he easily convinces you to do something else instead, and no, you don't get a choice here), and the gathering of information results in rather confusing information. Every so often you're teleported to some ruins where you talk to a stranger who keeps mocking you and telling you what to do. The first time this happened I actually thought a bug had sent me to the wrong scene and I was now watching something that should not take place until later in the game. The information one receives is meager, at best. For example, you find someone's diary. Then the stranger appears and you start talking about the diary's contents. What is said does not make much sense. "Did you notice him using thieves can't here and there?" - "Wasn't it cant?" (no typo). Your first thought is probably "could you let me read the book BEFORE, so I know what you're talking about". However, when you read the book afterwards, it only contains one sentence, which does not really make sense to you. Apparently the story is quite a drag. So far nothing really interesting happened. Reading the description of the game, I haven't seen much come true after 17 hours. Let's compare the description with my experience so far. "He’s strong, sly and intelligent, he is the most powerful person living in Arkanar" - Nope. He's not strong - 3 enemies are enough to overpower him in a sequence. He also does not come across as sly and intelligent at all. He follows orders blindly, is easily intimidated and outsmarted, quite gullible and listens to a stranger who keeps appearing to him in visions, mocking him and telling him what to do, without even questioning or wondering about his nature and intentions. • Attractive non-liner storyline. - I'm hardly ever offered choices in dialoges, and if I do, it's usually either to accept or refuse a mission (side missions only), ask questions which do not influence the story, or to trade or not trade. • Interface of medival and alternative future epochs in the game universe. - So far nothing, but the mentioning of a flying machine. Which could have been some delusional fool's fantasy. • Original character development system. - Sure. Spending points on skills (light/medium/heavy weapons, ranged, some none-battle stuff like diplomacy) is very original, I've never seen that in any other RPG before. • Interactive game world. - You can talk to NPCs, kill enemies, loot their corpses, loot chests and click on signs to travel. You can also bump into obstacles. I guess that counts as interactive. • Real-time combat system with active pause includes many different combos and special attacks (stunning, disarming, etc.). - Let's see. So far I can... left-click to attack, right-click to do the same attack, use healing/stamina potions. It doesn't even look like the engine can do anything else. • Varied managing approach to mercenaries and volunteers of the hero’s party. - I can't say yet, so far there was no way to recruit someone. There also are no signs that this could be done later, so I again wonder if the engine can even do that. • Sci-fi technologies instead of a traditional magic system. - Not after 17 hours so far. The only thing showing that this is not a normal medieval world is raptors, giant leeches and giant spiders as enemies. • Free movement through locations and random encounters using global map. - You use the global map to reach different areas, and you have enemies appearing on these areas. That's true. A bit too many enemies, at least I don't like the fact that I'm constantly attacked by bandits, even inside the city. • Environments created in different style and landscape types affecting the movement speed. - I guess the game needs to advertize that it has different landscapes. So far I've only seen city and forest. I didn't notice any change in movement speed.

-First, this is THE most underrated third person RPG I have ever played. Everyone who likes proper RPG should play this game, I don't think it deserved to be buried under shovelwares. Normally, I don't write long video game review, except if it's really exceptional, interesting, novel, and underrated. -The game design in this game is fantastic, it doesn't hand hold you like a baby (looking at you Witcher 3). Every quest can be solved in many ways....some don't even need to draw your sword, some require you to dress appropriately. -Pay attention to NPCs conversations because it tells bunch of hints how to solve the quest you're working on and even it can be linked to another quests and the answers can only be found on previous conversations long ago. So if the NPC asked you to pay attention, you should! Also the choices you take matter, too. The consequences could be immediate or long in the future, use common sense when picking a choice. Some quests also occurs at specific time, with no way to skip time (like sleeping), you have to let the game idle for 3-10 minutes. Overall, the design quests feel like Gothic/Kingdom Come Deliverance. -Although the game has quest markers, they're imprecise (similar to KCD quest markers), the NPC usually (not all the time) tells you how to locate the quest locations. -The game has also a stealth system mechanic, even with that I can still freely loot chests and steal stuff from NPCs house, don't think I should be able to do that. (I believe this stealth mechanic was half baked?). -The graphics in this game is surprisingly good, still looks nice even today. It has nice foliage, really reminds me of Kingdom Come Deliverance again (maybe if it was made in 2007), with correct water reflections (no screen space reflection crap like in modern game engine), and even cloth physics on your cape and NPCs cape. Considering this game uses in house game engine made by small teams in 2007, it's very impressive, I think game nowadays have no excuse to use simplified flat graphics considering how easy to get AAA engine and assets these days compared to 15 years ago. There are some bad things with the engine, it heavily uses invisible wall. I'm not really a fan with invisible wall, I don't really like there's an invisible wall on a slope that you supposed to be able to pass. And I had game breaking bug due to invisible wall when I need to go inside inner castle, I had to use console command to by pass that using no_clip command. Some players may dislike the "camera drone style" third person view, but you can edit .ini file so it plays like proper third person RPG, and surprisingly they put high details on your armours, jupon, and even faces textures! https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/732202039484088344/1060250986586849380/Screenshot_3804.png -The game runs in 4:3 aspect ratio, but you can fix that by installing widescreen patch, it's available in the steam guide section -The game is semi openworld and it's connected via a fast travel hubs. There are many secrets, some even have secret side quests that reward you with nice gears. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/732202039484088344/1060250790075318342/Screenshot_3882.png -There are many cool amours and outfits you can wear in this game, I really dig the 16-17th century aesthetic, and frankly this is the only game let me to dress like a badass Landsknecht baron with floppy hats, a big Zweihänder, and ornate lordly jupon, I'm really a sucker for medieval dress up game and this game is up on my alley. [spoiler]I heard there are sci-fi armour too, but I can't find it, probably burried in the forest somewhere (forests in this game is huge).[/spoiler] https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/732202039484088344/1060250424705306684/Screenshot_3976.png https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/732202039484088344/1060250642989449297/Screenshot_3875.png -The story is very interesting, you're siding with the Empire working as intelligence officer trying to uncover the mess in southern Arkanar. There's this pesky Republic/Religious backed revolution going on and later some eyewitness saw some people mutated into something, I don't want to spoil the plot, because it's really fucking cool. The writing and quests complement each other so well, it really hooked me. Also the game has fully voiced acting. -There are many typos and grammatical errors everywhere (like this review). English localisation could be better. -The combat is serviceable, you can drag your sword like it's Chivalry and you can also feint it too (by immediately cancelling an attack with a block, the tutorial never told me about this), you can use feint to trick the AI to open their shield and block. Do not spam LMB or special attack, they cost you stamina and if you ran out of stamina you're stunned and cannot move. Blocking will cause you to stay put, so it's better to position yourself strategically during 1vX combat. Horse combat is meh, I don't like how it controls, if it has horse control like Mount&Blade it would be nice, also horses do not travel with you on fast travel. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/732202039484088344/1060251388241780777/Awe_Hard_To_Be_A_God_V1.1_Build_559_-_Release_Dec_17_2007_12_14_06_2022-12-29_23-11-34.webm -The user interface looks really nice, feels authentic, also you can learn more about the world of Arkanar by collecting books in the bookshelves (I wish the grammar could be better), you can read the books via inventory menu. -The music is okay, I really like the battle theme and main menu theme. Sadly there are like 5 tracks in the game for peace or exploration, for a quite long RPG, it would be nice if it has at least 10 tracks for peaceful theme. I really wish one day, a studio or even an indie developers to remake this game, remove all the jank, and design the game completely open world but keeping the exploration aspects enticing for the players, better graphics, more intractability with the NPC, matured the stealth game mechanic, and implemented crime system. The premise of combining Kingdom Come Deliverance quest design and NPC interactions, with Chivalry 2 combat, then the quirky story and lore of Hard To Be a God, would take the gaming world by a storm. Overall: 8.5/10, expectations went off the roof for such a pocket change priced game.