Hellish Quart dev here. Thank you so much for trying out our game, it's so awesome you liked it, it means the world to us, as we are your fans and subscribers for years now! The demo will be out for everyone on October 5th and through whole Steam Game Festival!
The "defeated" animations are REALLY refreshing to see. So used to absurd over the top kill animations, to see a guy just grab his crippled leg and go down and the other fighter just acknowledge that as a win feels a lot more real.
hope they add more animations, maybe even more obviously lethal ones, like if you get a good slash at the neck blood just runs down over their chest and pools and they just collapse, or you get a wide slash on their abomen and they hold it like theyre trying to keep everything inside
@@viysnjor4811 On the steam page I could see some animations where for an example after getting a cut to the head they fall unconscious, also it says that the game shows cutting off body parts, so I guess they have a lot more of content coming in.
I've seen quite a few simple collapse animations for defeated enemies. Sometimes I've seen a group all defeated by the same AoE power all select the same collapse animation and do beautifully synchronised kneeling faceplants. One game that does neither over-the-top nor simple collapses is City of Heroes. The ragdoll effects in that can be hilarious. I know that sounds like over-the-top, but it's more like you're watching a three-dimensional representation of a seven-dimensional starfish washing itself.
I think that's why they made the arena stage, where there's nothing but the two characters and the ground they're standing on. Better performance and higher concentration.
I am totally looking forward to professional tournaments in this game! I loved the old game this was inspired by: Bushido Blade. I was wondering why it's been so many years since anyone has made a game with that combat mechanic.
Really excited to see some people really pour their time into this game and get good at it, maybe start a competitive scene. Not sure that I have any desire to play myself lol
@9 Mm Ghost of Tsushima is a solid 9/10 game, don't get me wrong, not some of the combat is definitely more fantasy. Moon stance sucks as an actual combat stance. Why would you ever leave yourself that open with the blade pointed away?
@9 Mm Even the spin moves? Don't get me wrong, stone stance is fucking great, but things like the water stance power attack? You can't smack a shield out of someone's hand by spinning. Like I said, great game, but it's not the best sword game of all time, let alone the most realistic.
I like how the fighters survive all these cuts. It’d be so tempting to just go full video game and see gallons of blood while the physics engine throws severed body parts around, only for them to just start up again like nothing happened. But instead you see them reeling in pain and it makes me imagine just how many scars they must have after all this.
@@FairlyUnknown Which is why (I guess) duels were short and single strikes. If you go all in, you're only going to get hit back, and you'll both die, most likely from injury complications.
Funny how skal played this like a HEMA practitioner, not like a gamer. Within like 2 minutes, my friend and I realized that: 1) The L and R buttons are shortcuts to the grapples, and 2) If you land a grapple and continue to hit either the L or R it's an instant EXECUTION -L1 = decapitation, R1 = stomach slice 3) There seemed to be no way to stop this execution once the arm is grabbed, so seemed super OP (but it's possible we just couldn't figure out how) There's also a chance to cut off opponent hands while fighting, but this seemed fairly rare considering how many solid hand shots are registered.
They were drinking... and one or the other tossed an insult. Or hit on a wrong girl.... or they just disliked eachother moustaches.... Hard to say really :P
No dude, getting cut with saber would instantly make you unable to continue fighting, that wouldn't make much sense in the game, unless you want to start with lower health after lost round
@@gamergrill4933 Fuck off with the realism argument. We like games that add in high amounts of real world logic but doesn't kill us in real life when we die
i allready feel that people are going to break the shit out of this game like they always do in the highest levels. Hope they polish the shit out of the game cuz it looks like it has a lot of promise
"You will duel Zaporozhian Cossacks, Polish Hussars, Tatars, Turkish Janissaries, Swedish Reiters, French Musketeers and more." LOOKS LIKE MEAT IS BACK ON THE MENU BOYS
Swedish Reiters? Ive never seen Swedes represented in medieval times other than "Raah, Vikings, Valhalla blargiblargi!". Would be awesome to see Swedish Caroleans or some of Gustav Adolf's troops but that might be too similar to polish saber on the Carolean part. The Swedes also had this interesting concept of a weapon that can almost be called a "Sword-Spear". Its basically a spear-handle with the guard and blade of short-sword on one end.
I like the setting very much, there is not often we see Eastern Europe in games, aspecially of that time period. Good luck to the developers, will definitely watch their progress!
Don't worry, if this game world is located in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, then the scenery will be very diverse. From the Ukrainian steppes to Alpine type mountains, from huts, to Hanzeatic cites, from wooden fortifications to Polish stone and Teutonic brick large castles, from khutors - farms to renesaince palaces. So the combatants will be very diverse, from western style, to Tatars. Surely there will be anachronistic giant Longinus with a double handed sword, so he is probably the everyones favourite character from the Sienkiewiczs trilogy, however it looks like he will be the woman in menu ;)
I really hope so, too. According to my pop-culture experience, that region is basically a blank space only relevant when conquered by Mongols, Ottomans or Nazis. Even Age of Empires II didn't bother until later add-ons.
@@HiopX Except the whole Witcher series, that happens in imaginary by still based on Central-Eastern European scenery (ok there are also Scandinavia and France ;). Hearts of Stones addon is a loosely adaptation of a Polish literature of the period, the number of references in other parts is countless, like "Gaude matter" hymn of Redania and the red Eagle in theirs emblem. Iron harvest also took places in this region. There is also a Czech game Kingdom Come, but probably it is more of Central Europe. However you probably refers to a romantic look at the wild steppes of Ukraine, then yes it is under rated topic indeed, there was only one mount&blade addon I remember (and STALKER, Half Life 2 (loosely), and a dozen of battlefield simulators that happens in unknown eastern European country :P
@@broyogurt3000 I mean it could be both. The mouth expression does look like they're catching their breath, but when you breathe like that your chest also will move. So polishing it up will make a proper feel
The reactions from the character models when hit from varying degrees is pretty amazing, the recoils from a blow to the flat out just falling to the ground from what looks to be a death blow is so damn good. Sword play looks very fluid and natural given the state of the game. For early access this is looking to be a gem in the making, congrats to the devs for creating something unlike the other sword fighting games on the market. I hope this video gave them tons of attention to keep the project going for a long time, thank you for posting this Skallagrim \o/
"You only have 4 buttons to attack? You have little options" Me who's played a lotta Fighting Games with just the 4 buttons used and the D-Pad: Are you sure about that?
I honestly hate how fighting games have moves. Like you have to do Up + B + Y + Y very precisely or something stupid to do a single special move. Injustice is a big offender in that trope.
@@cadunkus how else would you fit all moves on a controller? if a character has 50+ moves, you kinda have to use button-combinations :P besides, not all fighting games are like that. some have a very limited amount of attacks--one of the most popular being the Smash-series.
@@ecMonify Smash bros is fine. You have basic attacks, charged basic attacks, and special attacks and all of these can be used neutral, up, down, and sideways. That may result in a lot of moves but they only require pressing one button and moving the control stick which is easy to do. But then you get games that have you press a long line of buttons in rapid succession to pull off a single move unique to a character and there's no way you could remember all those moves.
@@cadunkus That's why its considered to be one of the easiest fighting games. Think of it as an exception, most fighting games are supposed to be like that, even the not-so-hard ones have those combinations that honestly are just a matter of training.I used to suck at them but I wanted to train and get good to beat my friends so here I am.
"Ahhh brother! it seems you took a four on one beat down from a halberd, greatsword, kanabo, and a gladius! If not for your companion ordering that catapult to fire directly on your position and crush all five of you simultaneously... you surely would of died by the enemys hand...you would appear to require first aid, allow me t-" Brother Mighty: "that will not be necessary my deeply voiced nobushi friend, tis but a flesh wound.. Now let us away! We must prevent them from doing the same as they did to me to our teammate! If we do not, they may just rage quit! Have at thee Minions of zone B!!"
Ubi: we want for honor to be realistic Also Ubi: lets add an execution where you actually lift little rocks with the power of your mind, also lets add a big-ass snake (jormungandr) and mjolnir and also lets add a fucking shinigami...yeah (also why did they give jormungandr enemy of Thor a Hammr...?)
@@kcyccyck6556 the big ass snake was confirmed to be a folk lore by the devs. meaning we were playing a exaggerated story people of the time were telling about the jorm event.
The developer said that he won't implement the Sword and Buckler because of the controls and gameplay, he thought about it but decided to scrap the idea because it would be to complex and too much work/trial and error to implement it in the way that it would be good enough.
L2/ Left Trigger changes to a state with the sword held further out btw. Also the pause menu has a movelist including combos and advanced moves. The depth in this game is pretty incredible.
16:25 Yeah, actually Richard was wrong about that one. He confused "Eunuch's Cut" with Hellish Polish Quart. The Quart is an upward cut a bit similar to German "Zwingerhauw" and is actually aimed at the opponent's upper body usually face and neck.
@@Skallagrim If we want to be precise, subjective hellish come from the dealing that specific upward cut using sharpened end of false blade, which was messing with distance estimation of non-polish fencers. Or at last that is what I was always been told. BTW. Fun fact - animations in the game are based on motion capture of few accomplished polish HEMA practitioners.
@@kamilszadkowski8864 To tell the truth, I don't know. It just explanation I heard from someone who was much more into saber than me and I think that it make sense. But who knows if its true, I'm not a historian. Still, if we stick to that explanation, then according to it "polish hellish quart" was term used by foreigners who were mark by it when they think they are out of distance and in Poland the same move was probably called differently. In other words historically clear distinction between those terms may not be present, as they probably originated from different group of peoples.
Poland and sabre fighting are super underrated in games. So proud of the devs to shed light on this setting :D Heh, if only there was an Olgierd von Everec skin...
@@emotionalvideos6897 Wrong. The clothes are Polish-Lithuanian, and the sabres are mostly Polish, and one character, Alexander, wields a North African nimcha.
@@TrueMentorGuidingMoonlight Lol what, you copied it from ottomans which it also was copied from arabs, the swords were also copied from arabian swords, Tf you are smoking, it is arabian, stop stealing others culture.
@@Dornatum Shit man if this game takes off they could have all kinds of stuff. I really hope it does, it simple but looks like a lot of fun. And that's coming from a fighting game player.
Can guarantie you can say this is a realistic as you want but when it goes online matches will just be 10 year olds massing as many moves as possible and just hoping to hit you
@@LiminalHorror Look, there may be some terminology lost on me, but I see clear parallel between the game and my own (fairly limited) HEMA experience. In game, if you spam, your opponent just relies on automatic parry and then picks a moment for a riposte. If you mess up the timing you can get struck, but you have plenty of time to time it. In real life, if I just strike at a more experienced opponent, they step away or knock my blade to the side and stab me while my guard is low from inertia. So, the only way to win in both game and real life is to anticipate the opponent's attack and time your strikes to it. Not as in "passive fuck" but as in ''basic sense of self preservation". Seems great and spam-proof to me.
The game needs: 1- WIDE variety of fighters from around the world. 2- Variety of weapons from around the world. 3- Variety of stages. 4- Character clothe customization based on their cultural background. 5- Character creation. 6- Lutes. PERFECTION. I hope more games adopt this mechanics. Imagine a Souls game like this.
I do wonder if it can be feasible. In this fighting game you are fighting 1v1 and with the camera fully and constantly oriented so you can see the attacks clearly. In Souls the camera changes position and you can fight multiple enemies so the player needs more visual cues for their attacks because of the amount of stuff happening around them. It would be worth trying it out tho. Get some testers in it and get feedback.
ahistorical situations involving ancient Greeks fighting modern period swordsmen bbillyk as a playable character that represents American martial arts baseball bat as a weapon Frenchie musketeers that stab everyone with one hit because their weapon is longer Spaniards who can one-hit a samurai Don't show that game to Reddit
Tbh customization possibilities are always really important for me in games, unlockable stuff also increases the player engagement, would love to see something like this
@@lucasmroczynski5543 it's a fairly complex political issue with lots of backstabbing, spying and shit, but long story short - by having their high duke Yogaila enthroned as the King of Poland, which led to both countries unionizing after his line of dynasty died off. It was actually 100% unified into one organism in late XVIII century but it was a purely theoretical exercise since by then Poland was de facto a russian client state and the process of dismantling it in order to absorb it into 3 neighbouring empires had been going for a while
Its an amazing feature that, even if the saber doesn’t connect, the duelist still positions his saber to block. You barely see that in games, but in real life, you would never try to estimate the reach of a weapon and not react because of that estimation.
Something I just noticed: the way that Skall's character loses (by being struck non-lethaly on the crown of the head and forehead) is almost exactly how Andrzej Kmicic loses his duel against Michał Wołodyjowski in Potop. Coincidence?
Fun fact: My RU-vid adverts for this video were Bushido Blade and Die By the Blade Vlog! I really enjoyed this video. I can't help but wonder if the developers are one of Skall's subs. Edit: To anyone replying to this comment that the Developers said they were. I posted this an hour prior to them seeing and leaving their own comment.
@@thecanucklehead3034 yea, for honor is "fun" but its a headache and the balance issues just ruin it for me. I was soo hyped over that game and the devs just shit on it lol. Lets all hope this game sees a healthy release
compared to the jellyfish dueling simulator that Exanima was 4 years ago, the characters today look like they have an actual and even improved osteomuscular system lmao
@@nivelle641 I'm using "ragdoll" as a loose term here. I mean that the animations are reactive. doesn't matter the height of the character or where he attacks from, he will always parry correctly.
I know in this is in the 17th century but I really want them to add a medieval mode where you can play as knights with different weapons and armor to protect you so that you have to wear each other down and the fights are longer.
This game has a lot of potential and already looks pretty good. I would like to see polearms and if possible a sort of character customization if possible
A customization to stats like move speed, swing speed, stance change speed and such would be interesting because when you fight against players that difference will test your skills and make it so every match will be different than before.
@@r3ll282 that sounds pretty wicked. Setups like moving slowly but able to strike like lightning or a fighter whose guards can be a gamble to take due to a low stat but very quick on their footwork
@@czaro8006 Lol what? Most communists countries allowed guns, it's a pretty big part of communist philosophy. That's more of a European problem in general.
What's up with Polish saber and realism? First the excelent Richard Marsden sparring videos, then the fight from the movie "Potop" and now this game? Did Poles manage to come up with a fighting style which is both effective and entertaining to look at? It's flashy and deadly at the same time.
'Polish Sabre' is a modern creation based on what we THINK people used to fight like. There are no existing materials, treatises etc that actually cover it. Be wary that anything you see regarding 'Polish Sabre' is basically a 'best guess'.
@@WozWozEre There are treatises from the 1800's and the descriptions from previous eras are pretty comprehensive. There are also mention of this style in foreign treatises, especially the German ones. Richard Marsden, the owner of one of Skall's former fighting schools wrote a book on the topic. You should check it out.
@@Gew219 in other words, there are no surving primary sources, so it is as PCU stated.Sad, and hopefully the style that has been developed is close to what was, but even harder to know than most.
@@scottmacgregor3444 exactly. Polish Sabre was a thing, but the thing that calls itself Polish Sabre today is just a reconstruction based on tenuous evidence. It's still cool though.
@@scottmacgregor3444 From what I know, the closest thing we have to a "primary source" is one Polish books from late 1800s, written based on interviews with retired duelists from late 1700s/early 1800s and a lot of second-hand mentions. This is due to the lack of any formalized schools. If a young noble was to be taught how to fight, he was taugh by older family members, their friends or hired veterans. So what we have now may not be exactly a perfect reenactment of this style of fencing, but there may well have been a number of Polish duelists who fought in similar way. PS: saber duels were suprisingly quite popular in 19nth century Polish higher society, and even between the World Wars (despite being officially outlawed, there was a set of unofficial and quite code outlining both the rules of actual duels, who could challenge or be challenged, on what basis, and so on). So potentially saber manuals from the interwar period could also be used (as they at least partially evolved from the earlier style of saber fencing).
The combat looks really interesting and the bushido blade style of fast kills really sells it. My only concern with a lot of realism focused games like this is that they tend to lose out on character design, limiting their possible audience. You can have more appealing, recognizable designs without dipping into anime ridiculousness.
They could always go the road of historical plausibility, making up their own designs that fit with the time periods aesthetics and what they could feasibly have made and worn in that time and place without altering the sword fighting
It's definitely based on that scene from The Deluge. And rest of The Trilogy. You have Kmicic, Zagłoba and Bohun (ok, maybe not Sienkiewicz one, more Komuda but still).
Hey Skal! So glad you're showing this beautiful game to the world! I actually asked you to look into it when the very first trailer was posted months ago, I told Kubold and he was worried about your harsh criticism! :) As for the grapple, you're using the wrong grapple button. There's 2, one is a push which you're using, the other is a grab and you have to be very close. Also if you use a cut at very close range you will do a strike. Also, if you hold left trigger, you will go into "long guard" mode. If both players go into long guard, they can bind swords. I personally really love the long guard for single tempo attacks! If you double press back or forward you will change stances. I double press back to put left foot forward, go into long guard, and use the right high cut. It's really effective. Yes, the opponents do slow down after being cut. There's actually a "fatigued" state and animations, though the fat guy doesn't have them fully implemented.
I've been playing the demo for over 2 hours and never realized you could change stances. When Skall said "You only need 4 buttons" it's kinda misleading lol... I only recently discovered the long guard mode, been abusing the heck outta that.
Because Olgierd is based on a Polish nobleman style from this period. The Hearts of Stone are full of Polishnes, there is no one minute without reference to polish literature or polish history. Seriously I don't know how people frome outside can play it. Sad that nobody else will take much pleasure as we do from it.
I started hearing Taiko drums while watching this. At first I thought it was part of the video but then realized it was coming from outside. I don't know why there are taiko drummers there but they have great timing! :P
I agree, its more about skills to reading and feeling the opponent rather than picking weapons, map strategies and so on. It all comes down to skills and timing
This looks interesting but I feel like most people would get over this within a few days to a week at most, except for those few people that will play this and only this game for the next 10 years.
Maybe in your case as this is what you see in this games potential. This game is in Early Access so its still being finished. Who knows what other combat mechanics we get to play with... As in only Saber's? what about Rapier's or Long swords , or Cutlas or Scimitar's. Maybe even a pike or Polearm. can you imagine the possibilities mastering those weapons. I do hope there is more to come.
You never know. With very in-depth mechanics it might be able to keep people interested. It also needs a lot of things added like some others have said. Leader boards, ranked matches etc will help prolong its lifespan.
It's sad that when I was growing up, I thought Assassin's Creed was a historical representation of swordfighting in the 15th century (I started playing on AC2)
I'm not really sure it would have taken off, there's a reason why alot of games have completely unrealistic depictions of the protagonist as a one man army. That's just my opinion In This
Panowie Bracia/ Lords Brothers, We finally have some quality historical fighting game. Get your karabellas, get your moustache wax, get your friends, and let's roll.
That is a generic Slavic folk straight from Witcher. The guys in Kontusz, listened to rather a different music. I hope that they will include a different music styles, like Polonez for fights in renesaince palaces, Oberek in Central Poland manor houses. German Fauns tavern music will also fit in Polish region of Prussia if they will include some location there same as the Hu through singing for Tatar camps :P Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a vast and very diverse country.
This looks awesome! And so much potential. Not just different types of swords and styles, but also using shields, armor, axes, shields...any combinations of equipment to make interesting matchups. Make a longer video/review when it gets out
i always felt like real sword fighting, especially with sabers, was very elegant and exiting. At least as enjoyable as the over the top shit we get in Soulcalibur and so on.
This name Jacek is of course Polish name, and it reminds me of the book "Pan Tadeusz" (or Mr. Tadeusz in english) by Adam Mickiewicz. Greetings from Poland ;)
@@felixthecat0371 Me, seeing character being on a pudgy side and with a tankard: Oh, they put Zagłoba in their game. With a name "Gedeon" he might be a representation of Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Barabasz is clearly representing Ukrainian Cossacks. I wonder what names female characters will have. If the one behind Barabasz is the rapier wielding she might get a German sounding name, thus representing Baltic Germans or Scandinavian sounding one, to represent Sweden. The one behind Gedeon looks to have darker skin then rest of the characters, so I am expecting Spanish or Italian sounding name for her.
@@pyroparagon8945 It's a bug pit worse than Skyrim, but opposite ti Skyrim, KCD is very boring and it has nothing to do with what they promised in the Kickstarter, like no back and forth missions, "realistic stuff", while people clip trough anything, horses literally teleporting, broken AI, and lots of other ridiculous shit
I hope they include loads of different martial arts from across the world. Watching Da'mon Stith demonstrate different types of HAMA is really awesome stuff, and it always makes me wonder how different styles of combat across the world work against others. I'd love to see how they'd implement different styles from different international cultures and how the styles of combat would interact in game. Definitely a challenging thing to program, but it'd be a great celebration of worldwide cultures.
I'd really like it if they took another bit of inspiration from Bushido Blades: the ablity to choose different weapons, not just be assigned one. But have strengths and weaknesses with each character so each performs very differently in terms of speed and power. It's so cool to me that this, like Bushido Blade, has such simple controls but so much depth potential :) My only problem is whenever I watch videos about it I wanna go play it more :D
They have a gem on their hands here. If they add a few more styles and make sure online runs well I can see it blowing up. Adding gore and brutal kill animations would be like a chef's kiss lol.
Put the video on 6:26 and 0.25x speed. The enemy magically got a cut in their chest while Skallagrim's sword was still in the air, and then a second cut in his chest when Skag's sword hit his BACK. Collision detection DEFINITELY needs a lot of work.
Never heard that realism can't be fun. An argument that I hear often and is usually true would be that realism usually comes at the expense of balancing.
It's not that it can't be, I don't think anybody claims that outright. It's that _not everybody_ enjoys realism of - let's say - getting a plane ready for takeoff or manually doing the math involved in setting up a torpedo shot. The switchology, the steep learning curve, the amount of effort needed puts off many people that just want to relax a bit in-between the work and house duties. I don't blame them in the least, to be honest.
AFAIK, it was sort of a counter-movement against the idea that realism=better games. You still hear some people say that a game being unrealistic automatically makes it worse. Personally, I think it’s going to depend on the game. As an example, this game can give you things Soul Calibur can’t, and vice-versa. Both have their own separate value, and realism is more important in this game than it is in SC.
