I'll almost feel guilty if i don't address at least some points in a 2-page debate for my benefit, so here goes:
It isn't. There is a difference between the crowds that look for saves and gallery - those are the ones who don't want to deal with gameplay, just look at the smut - and those that ask to cheat and edit. The latter clearly intends to play the game and not just watch pretty pictures, but cant deal with the egregiously antagonistic approach the game takes towards players.
Lets not sugarcoat it here: its not "some" information that's hidden. you're heavily downplaying it. The "tutorial" npc cover mostly basic stuff, nothing of substance. The useful things they are vague about and in 2 instances they outright lie to you.
Just some examples of vital information hidden: enemy stats, combat act order, actual numerical values for health, overblow protection breakpoints, basic damage estimates - like how the hell do i know the difference between slam and blunt attack's effectiveness?? Does cleave use different damage formula from slash? Does skewer have either higher or lower base chance to hit than thrust? Player is given nothing to make an informed decision about pretty much anything.
To say nothing of the extremely vague descriptions of edicts who express effects in arrows up or down, as opposed to anything you can clearly calculate or plan out. Just one example is "staff efficiency" - 0 explanation - its just there as a statistic. Riot chance arrow up/down? Well bully for me, that still does jack in helping me plan or calculate my odds. It resembles nothing close to how a proper risk management mechanic should be.
And do they say enemies level up for each riot that happens? I had to look at the code to learn that one. Thats just 1 example; most of the actually important stuff is only accessible if you scour the game files with a fine-tooth comb. All of this is on purpose. They even go the extra mile to design the game so that even if you simply defend yourself long enough, you will *still* turn out a massive whore. As i said before, they take the time to make fun of the player, saying that they are expected to repeatedly fail and game over, which goes way beyond an average metric of player antagonism.
And they know it. That is why their steam description of the game is so defensive: "the game is fairly unfair", my ass.
I'm gonna borrow the Elden Ring simile here to make a point. I'm not critiquing KP's difficulty. I'm saying that the game is hard for all the wrong reasons, hence why i said "poor design choices". Its hardships are tied to purposefully vague, timewasting and convoluted gameplay. Withholding information, forcing you to stumble blind, 1 failure at a time. And even if you fail, it does nothing to teach you what could've been done better. It just says "take whatever titles you got and try again".
KP is not difficult in the traditional sense of the word. Elden ring and Sekiro are difficult. I've finished Sekiro's mortal journey boss rush gauntlet. I know "difficult".
The fights are insane, their special moves come from every which way, can 1/2-shot you easily, have an excessively aggressive AI, demand split-second reaction time and a posture break mechanic that makes it unfavorable to the player to stall for time and turtle.
The great difference here and there is that no matter how stacked the odds, everything is dependent entirely on the player. All the game mechanics are laid bare and nothing is hidden. Its up to you to negotiate the difficulty through your own skill, reflexes and judgement. That i why there are videos of some maniacs who kill the last boss in FromSoftware games at level 1, with 0 equipment or upgrades. Because insanely difficult as it, success is still reliant solely on the player. THAT is what you can call "fairly unfair".
Can KP be finished without edicts and accessories? No. It intentionally denies player agency in what goes on inside the game.
Untrue. How many games posted in 07.2019 can boast 1284 pages? I'll tell you - not nearly close to that many. My speculation is that people are interested and *want* to play this, but they end up cutting their losses when they realize that learning the game will require them to live in its .js files for a couple of days first, break down and ask for cheats and edits or just quit instead. Like this person:
Or like me: I didnt feel gratification after finishing my plays. I felt like i spent far too much researching, learning and playing this, than I should've. For what it is, the artificially inflated learning curve required to play the game, siphoned far more time than is remotely reasonable.
Which, again, seems to support my initial argument.
Moving on to the thug thing:
And how is a new player supposed to know that?? Ok, you have that one npc that squats in the yard that warns about thugs. Big whoop - that does nothing to tell you how to avoid them. A metric for good game design is the ability to finish it successfully on your first attempt, with no prior knowledge, if you pay attention, manage your risks and make use of the various mechanics, tools and information made available to you.
How the hell is a player just starting the game supposed to know which packs have the gameover thugs in them? And not just walk straight out of the first 2 corridors of the game into a fight he cant possibly hope to win. More to the point - the sprites of the enemies have nothing to do with the actual enemies inside the fight. You can approach that goblin sprite and see 0 goblins. You can approach that prisoner sprite and eat 2 thugs.
Yet another example of a design choice that is purposefully vague and antagonistic towards the player. No experimentation or breathing room for failure allowed - take your rape scene and either try again, crippled with passives, which sets you up to fail later, but not before realizing that you are an inescapable downward spiral, several hours in.(word for word what the devs' cat actually tells you)
Or start over.
I have absolutely no idea what this sentence meant.
I made no absolute statements. I described my experience in an entirely neutral summary. And with regards to "playing to full potential" at the risk of sounding conceited, I'm fairly certain finishing 2 prisoner challenge runs puts me in the upper percentile of people playing this, meaning i *do* have an inkling of what i am talking about, so you shouldnt dismiss my views so entirely.
I never fought the bar enemies in any of my games. Dont know why this became a narrative as i never once mentioned the bar.
More importantly, the game - in a very rare show of courtesy - actually *tells you* not to fight the bar when you first enter, so I wouldn't actually have grounds to say anything in the first place. The 2 thugs were located in the rooms above, using a basic prisoner sprite, because , well, fuck me.
The "mathematical impossibility" i addressed was winning the fight that included two thugs+prisoner as its 2/3 wave. Again, not the bar. I was all of 5-6 level at the time with 0 accessories, and as stated in my summary, it was the absence of +10 accessories that made it hard.
You can beat the bar fight 1st day on Prisoner and no accessories?
Ok, I said how and why your magical, threading the razor's edge 19-29-39-49 Prisoner herobook, no losses, no halberd, armor or stat upgrades, all in one shot strains believability, and then i dropped it, but this one i will call you out on - you are full of it.
And im not talking about trying it until it eventually works out, no.
To fit with what you just implied, plus the espoused narrative from the herobook conversation, where you can calculate down to a hair's breadth all things RNG that may, could or will happen, you'll need to work beating the bar into an actual play you intend to finish. No re-tries, obv.
Your words: Prisoner. Day1. No accessories. Go for it, champ.
