The Legend of Khiimori

I want to start this off with i love this game. It has been lots of fun to play. However i really wish steam had a neutral option in stead of recommend or not recommend. Things I love * The Horses and animations for them. They have done so well with the breeding and implementing the different species so they don't feel out of place in the game. Most of the animations are seamless and look good. * Giving freedom to explore. Most games that are in this style your locked to a quest and cant just ride around on your horse enjoying the world around. * The World. The world is beautiful in this game you can see so much care and attention in it. They clearly had a idea in mind for this game and the world of it. The world and game may be beautiful but this does however lead into what I Dislike about the game. Things I Dislike * The Corruption... Everyone hates it. This has significantly impacted how i view this game. There are things that needed work before adding something like this that no one asked for. I wanted a game about riding horses and delivering packages not a RPG. If i wanted a Action RPG id go play Skyrim, WoW, Diablo or something of the like. This was supposed to be my relaxing get away form those games.. Now it feels as if it has been corrupted [haha get it..] with this update. It feels out of place and doesn't feel properly implemented into any form of the story. Yes you can turn it off but that is besides the point.. What makes me more mad with this update is there are other features that needed added before this.. I don't want to turn this into a huge rant over the corruption so ill move on but there is far more i could say about it.. * Cant move horses between stations. Like you have to take a horse all the way over just to ride one back.. I wish i knew that before spending a few hours working to get horses only to find i cant breed them or anything because they are at a different station... its ridiculous. * Not being able to see the Traits of horses before you buy them in the merchant. What needs to change They need to prioritize adding what players want to the game. this is things like the story of the game, Being able to move horses between stables and seeing their traits.. You can only do so much in early access yes but they can start adding actual parts or chapters to the game. If you wanted to add corruption even if most people didn't like it if you added it with a huge story update explaining that maybe it came from someone disrespecting the land or something people may have been ok with it... but you didn't you just threw it in and expected people to like it. Implementing moving of horses or adding traits to the merchants would have been better since those have been being asked for for so long but you have failed to implement them. You instead took that time to add something no one asked for. This is why the community is turning against you. I've also seen remarks that you promised more things to be added but they where also ignored for the corruption update. Over all this is a beautiful game i enjoy playing it but i can not recommend the game in its current state. They need to add some major overhaul updates for things like moving horses or even letting you choose what stable they are sent to. They need to be more transparent with a proper timeline for how they are going to do future updates. Even if they mark a few things as "Hidden Content" or "Secret" so that they aren't spoiling everything. A proper timeline may help put some of this to rest. Their lack in this leads for much to be desired.

Dont want the corruption

**Would recommend that before you buy, you look up the corruption update and see if it's something you're willing to have in mind while you play. Because you WILL if you want to pass through places in peace. Thing is, I don't think this game is awful. Far from it. I really enjoyed the game in the beginning. I loved the idea of being a courier and transporting deliveries as well as being able to breed better horses for travel. However, I unfortunately bought this game after they added the corruption update. I was just enjoying the base mechanics of the game and then next thing I know a place I needed to deliver to was blocked off in corruption before I even knew fully about the mechanics of it. I can see why others would like it, but it's a really big put off for me when I was just still exploring the game leisurely. I believe corruption should be an optional threat to add or something like that. I was mainly interested in the original idea displayed on the store page.

Corruption ruined a good game.

This is not the game I initially paid for. Not sure where the corruption switch-up came from but I am highly disappointed and haven't touched the game since. After a lot of negative feedback, corruption can be turned off in the settings... but I don't imagine that the devs will be planning development for what is essentially two versions of the game-- one with corruption enabled and one without. The game for horse girlies is no longer about the horses. This isn't the historically accurate Mongolian horse game anymore. It is now about managing the spread of corruption, fighting fantasy ghouls, rigid survival mechanics, and mindlessly collecting resources.... while on a horse.

i just got into this game (post-corruption update) and i think the negative reviews are a bit dramatic, but not overly wrong either. the corruption IS very strong and there was pretty much no tutorial on how to deal with it (in-game, not from outside sources) compared to other mechanics in the game (i.e. you receive a tutorial for how your deliveries work, how to handle hostile animals, etc.). the materials used to completely negate the affects for the corruption are 'locked' behind cartography related exploration/quests (i.e. motherwort is outside your initial gameplay loop area and the corruption escalates quickly in comparison to the much slower paced cartography/exploration). the corruption does escalate quickly, as i said, even when set on the forgiving custom setting. the biggest issue with it is that it comes back and never fully clears away, even on lower difficulty settings, and will often build up quickly and without any warning at all. so for now i personally have it off mostly because i just want to gather the actual resources i need to counteract it before i enable it again. BUT! THIS GAME LETS YOU DISABLE IT!!! most games dont! and the devs listen! if they didnt we would have that setting! i have full trust in them that they will finetune it (after all, its early access)! but besides that, this game is AMAZiNG: its not simply just a 'hold w' riding experience, like a lot of other horse games ive played/tried. it's not as simple as just holding shift in one direction until you get to your destination, it has nuance. if it rains and you're carrying a sack of water sensitive dried ginseng, the ginseng is going to get ruined unless you respond and react to that situation. it also means you cant just swim through the lakes and rivers without consequence. there's also harsh cold and harsh heat, both of which can exhaust your horse and also harm them if you are not prepared with tonics and bandages. besides weather getting in the way, there's also terrain effects: mud slows you down and forces you to walk or trot, reducing your speed meaningfully, forcing you to either plan routes around the terrain or pushing through it. if you have items that are sensitive to rugged terrain like rocks, you also have to slow down or else you will crack and break your fragile cargo, reducing your payout or destroying/failing the delivery completely. horse breeding is nuanced and actually incredibly interesting: there's so many combinations, and it's been one of my favorite things to play around with. each horse has unique traits which give them their own personalities, making every horse feel unique. for example, i personally bought an akhal-teke from the horse market instead of breeding, mostly because he had so many amazing stats. the problem was, his traits made him an incredibly moody horse: he hated the wind (which blew pretty much all the time), got angry if he was low on food, and thus it made him so difficult to ride in comparison to my previous horse, who had lower stats but a gentler temperament. it made my gameplay more dynamic and incentivizes careful breeding to ensure you get a horse that fits your riding style and needs, rather than just being a horse (which is just like real life honestly). riding itself also feels incredibly amazing. it's the main thing you do in this game so it SHOULD be the best part, and it is. it feels smooth, comfortable, and enjoyable. it relaxes me like nothing else, very similar to how horses feel in Red Dead Redemption 2 for those familiar (and those virtual horses are highly praised in their craftsmanship). you can resource gather from atop your horse (thank god), and in fact the mechanic of bending over to snatch something up with a quick-time event is very rewarding and satisfying when you hit it right. it takes practice instead of being immediately easy, which can also help break any monotony (not that there is much). delivering mail is basically your motivation in this game. it rewards you with a lot of gold, and while you can sell items you gather, they aren't ever going to make the same amount of profit as doing a job, so the economy is balanced on doing the thing you actually are supposed to do, haha. resource gathering is not for profit because of this, and is instead to craft important items you need for your travels, such as tonics, arrows, and more. you CAN theoretically profit from breeding horses, however, as grown-up foals (as in, adults), will sell for nearly the same amount as a low difficulty mail mission. this means even if you don't like how a horse came out, you still get something out of it, and, also, you can theoretically just focus and enjoy on the breeding aspect if that's something you're into (like me, i love genetics). hunting, however, is a little clunky. you do not get rewarded for the amount of damage you do to an animal. regardless of whether you aimed for its heart or head, it's always going to take at least 2-3 shots unless it's a rabbit (in which case one usually works). so there's no incentive to actually aim beyond doing lazy body shots, so it's not as enjoyable as other aspects of the game. given that we are in early access, though, it might see improvement, but it's also not the end of the world. you can also tame wild horses in this game, which is more gentle than in other games. you simply toss a lure on the one you want and stand in front of it, constantly trying to stay in their line of sight so they know you're not there to hurt them. other games often herd wild horses into pens or use lassoes to break them in. ULTIMATELY, i find this game to be wonderfully enjoyable. IF you like horses, riding, the ability to customize your difficulty settings, breed horses, or deliver mail whilst dealing with actual challenges, then this game is for you.

I'm a big fan of this game! Having a well made horse game is rare enough, but having one that is more realistic and isn't cozy, is even more niche! So, I of course jumped on this when it became available. However, in the state that it is in, I cannot fully give it a thumbs up. I am going to keep playing this and enjoying it, but there are a few things I hope the devs see with this review. You guys are doing amazing! But with the recent update, there's a few things that stop me from giving a positive and playing it everyday. I have a decently beefy PC and this game absolutely tanks my frames. It runs poorly often, even more so with the new update and their corruption spread. I'm on the fence with this part of the game. It was cool and shiny, added a challenge when exploring or travelling got a bit stale - but it's an ever present threat that really starts to become stressful if you're not ontop of it. Now, you CAN adjust settings to slow the spread and even turn it off completely, which is awesome! But the corruption update feels like such a jerk in a different direction than what I expected from this game. I expected indepth horse care & riding, maybe more traveling events or objectives that fold into the mongolian culture. But what we got was... demons and spirits. I could overlook some of the angry spirit stuff that you encounter before the corruption update. But a full eldritch infection was not on my bingo card. And now all the NPCs are so depressed! This game felt a lot more chipper and light when everyone wasn't expecting the world to end, even after I cleared the majority of the map of corruption. With the new horse breed, I expected a lot more aspects with horse riding, care and transport. Definitely a whole lot more fixes and quality of life things. I really wanted some more bugfixes and adjustments, because some UI, shop inventory and interactions still break my game. Even after the many updates. I still get stuck unable to mount my horse if an animation glitches out or an NPC tries talking but just doesn't. I also expected more cultural representation and educational things as well. Because it seriously feels like there hasn't been anything substanial circling the core foundations of the game in a while. But then they go ahead and throw an otherworldly threat into the mix, into an EA game that feels like it is NOT READY for something that is continuous and can heavily effect your gameplay. I really tried to overlook the fact that catching WILD HORSES wasn't in the game until recently. A very vital and important mechanic, you would think, in a open world HORSE game. And that the horse icons in shops and your UI break sometimes. And that sometimes the horses just...start marching on occassion for some reason. And there is still no way to protect your goods from water/weather/terrain! Why do I get 'heat sensitive' goods that are wanted in the desert but no way of protecting them other than "run fast"? It's EA. I accepted that when I bought the game on launch. (Though, tbh, I didn't know it was going to be an EA title until it launched. That's on me. Not the devs. BUT I did still expect more since Ive been keeping an eye on their developement for a loong time.) But with everything happening now, it's getting harder to make excuses to myself to "just accept what I'm given" So please devs! Listen to your audience and be a little more open with where your taking this game. For anyone interested in this, just know that when I say it is in EA - it's so deep in early access that you'll find all sorts of bugs and problems. The game might not even run, so check that first. I adore this game and there's a lot of things that I am so happy to see in a game like this. But until it gives a little more on what it promised, more horse related content and cultural education/representation - I am giving this a negative. It'd be a middle if there was one.

I backed this game on Kickstarter from the beginning because I loved the idea of riding around the steppes, taming horses, bonding with them and exploring the world. I prayed for peaceful mode to be unlocked to have an even more cozy experience. My hopes where so high and the early access looked so good until the last update. Now I feel cheated out of the game I was promised. The game I put money on!!! Literally noone asked for this update and there are so many backer goals that haven't even been touched but the developers decided to spent their time on this?! Honestly, I feel like both me and my money have been disrespected by this decision. If I wanted to fight enemies on horseback I'd play Zelda. You know the game where you can shoot enemies while riding your horse and the final boss fight is exactly what Khiimori is doing with the corruption? People with ill intentions might suggest that the corruption looks very similar to the corruption jelly in Zelda too... For a long time Zelda was regarded one of the best horse games out there... because there was simply nothing like it. Just riding through a big open world on a cute horse you could tame yourself. All we wanted was to have more focus on this specific part of the game and it would've been perfect. Let me rephrase: Taking the enemies out of Zelda Breath of the Wild would've made it the perfect horse game. Then Khiimori comes around and promises to be exactly that. Everyone was happy and hopeful but then they decide to add the unwanted enemies back in. Completely negating what made the game so great in the first place: a peaceful, open-world horse game! I guess I will just go back to playing Zelda... Edit: I haven't played yet because I didn't have a PC with the right specs until now. Like I literally got a new pc to play Khiimori (among other games). Well, I got the new pc last week and now I will still never play Khiimori because it's not the game I bought anymore.