Kult: Heretic Kingdoms

This game was my very first Steam game. When I was a kid, I remember seeing this game in some PC magazines. Since that day, I couldn't play it, see it, or even remember its name for a long time. But when I got my first Steam account, I bought it immediately (after a lot of research to find the game's name). Anyway, this game is old; I mean, it's from the post-millennium era, but it's old. It's easy to play somehow, but if you're not an RPG guy, don't touch it, don't even think about it for a second. I've just fulfilled my childhood dream. And now, this is to be shelved.

I believe I originally found out about this game through some sort of “forgotten rpgs” video, then bought it for 99p. Essentially a sort of Diablo clone, except married to an extremely interesting world and story, with some very atmospheric art. On the technical side, I found it runs fine. It’s pretty low resolution, but I was able to use lossless scaling to stretch it to 4k. It looked pretty decent, isometric perspective with 3d models on some pretty 2d backgrounds. For a game from 2004 I didn’t have to download any patches or mods to get it going. On the negative side, I found the gameplay pretty dull. The combat is basically just point and click on stuff, though I did enjoy eventually levelling up into a mage just setting everything on fire around me. The inventory system is pretty bad as well. It starts small but uses bags you can pick up to give you more space, except rather than increase the overall inventory side, you end up having to move stuff back and forth, while the game makes you immobile. On the positive side I found the world fascinating, and while the story seemed somewhat rushed towards the end and lacking development, it was interesting. The game,…

Kult: Heretic Kingdoms is an ARPG game released in 2004. It has its own setting, own mechanics and a compelling story. Gameplay is similar to what you expect, kill enemies, loot, get stronger and involve in quests. Game is linear with little to no choices in quests, only the ending has some meaningful decisions. I finished it on hard. +++ Setting: The Heretic Kingdoms setting is unique, has a detailed story and have a very good take on religion and spirituality which is the center of the game. A depth you wouldn't expect from a ARPG game. Lore is there on dialogues, books and cutscenes, not too overwhelming but it is there and it is good. ++ Gameplay: Kult has a unique "attunement" mechanic which makes the game going. You learn talents/perks/feats/skills -> Attunements-> from items, by using them. When you learn an attunement, you may activate it without the item if you like. You have attunement slots, which you can change over rest, they increase when you level up thus making you stronger. Attunement learned from an item may require similar type or may work with all types. So, you can learn Might attunement from a 2Hander, which increases crit damage as long as you don't wi…

In game currency is shekels.

So I've had my eyes on this game since shortly after it came out so i wanted to get around to it for almost 20 years... but thats easier said then done. back when i first heard about it maybe i would've been able to run it but never even saw a copy of this irl. later when i finally picked it up on steam for like 1€ i found out my windows 10 wouldn't run it. No matter how hard i tried over the years i never got it to work properly maybe with distorted aspect ratio some time but... it was not playable. Now this year I finally got a decently powerful new machine and finally went linux so time to play some janky old games. And yeah it took a bit. No proton worked. ProtonDB said i had to install some dependencies on winetricks but it still woudnt run. But then 4ltair posted delete 'start /d "." ' from kult.bat and finally after all these years i got to see the intro. (some spoilers ahead) Yeah its not that impressive. I'm really into divine divinity and this game feels a bit like it so thats what got me to play it. The story and lore is actually really interesting and maybe thats enough for me to give the sequel(s) a go. And its comparatively short so it doesnt outstay its welcome. Bu…

I was never much of a fan of half baked Diablo clones, I sigh every time I realize I've put one in my backlog.