King Arthur - Review @ PopMatters

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magerette

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PopMatters posts a review for Neocore's hyrbrid wargame/rpg, King Arthur, with an overall positive tone and a score of 8/10:
A game with with a title like that is bound to have some identity issues, or at least a clutter of features and ideas. King Arthur doesn’t disappoint in this area: it really is a role playing game, a wargame, and a game about King Arthur. While all of that sounds rather interesting (Arthurian legend being rather fresh territory for any video game, and most strategy games needing as much role playing as they can get), the game actually combines them in interesting and fun ways. This isn’t a laborious Frankenstein’s monster with each gameplay element carefully and tiredly regurgitated. It’s its own brand of game, and it’s never less than inventive.
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Conclusion:
King Arthur is an impressive accomplishment on almost all fronts. It melds wonderful retro text quests and skill-based challenges with some great leveling and item-collecting mechanics, and it really oozes atmosphere from its sometimes soft rock pseudo Celtic score to its lush landscapes. However, every time that you try to immerse yourself in the game, it pulls you out by killing you or hamstringing your campaign for reasons you couldn’t possibly have anticipated. Patches may help, but even then, the game needs a major overhaul from a readability and comprehensibility standpoint. It’s fun, beautiful, and clever, but it’s difficult to enjoy unless you really work at it. If you can stomach its shortcomings (and school yourself in its ways as quickly as possible), King Arthur is a unique and rewarding game.
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More information.
 
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Avoiding spoilers so won't read the review... Playing this now and enjoying it a lot. I've heard there are difficulty spikes, but I'm probably too early on to see them (Books 2 and 3 have just opened up.) Enjoying the quest and battle mix - I just lost the unit of giants I managed to recruit in a quest, to a lightning bolt :( It looks great (seems to be taxing the GPU from the fan-noise). Control of your units in battles seems more reliable than the recent Total Wars... I'm still reserving judgement about the battles - I've enjoyed them all, but I'm not sure how much depth there is there yet.

Well worth a look. Try the demo.
 
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This is another game I really want to get back and play more than the tiny bit I managed between other stuff ...
 
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I saw it yesterday in an electrobnics chain shop. Almost 50 Euros, they charged for it.

Still I don't know enough about it ...
 
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I plan to get this one eventually. I'm waiting for a patch or two and a drop in price, because games over twenty bucks are not in our budget these days, but I like the setting and the concept a lot.
 
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I haven't seen anything yet that needs patching to be honest. It could be enhanced even further, but there's nothing wrong with it as far as I've seen so far.
 
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Alistair said:
I haven't seen anything yet that needs patching to be honest. It could be enhanced even further, but there's nothing wrong with it as far as I've seen so far.
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Last time I played bowmen were overpowered. They needed to patch them so they aren't these killing machines or the game would become boring really quick.
 
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They included an option on the menu to tone archers down a bit... Since I have not
played that much of the game, can't say what sort of difference it makes though...
 
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Yes, I had that turned on, so that probably helped me. In game, there are formations, weather and terrain types that hamper archers, along with spells that hamper archery, and of course spells that wipe out units at a distance. Along with teleporting units (!) and fast moving units. Taking victory locations can provide some of these spells if you lack them, but managing the campaign, quest and research games will help... and of couse you choose what to put points into for the units that will face archers.. and gain access to tougher troop types through research and quests. So there are a few anti-archer options.
 
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