I was really excited to see this game on Vizz because I remember playing the crud out of this when I was younger. I had a whole notebook dedicated to the passwords and I plugged away day after day getting a bit further every time. It became a family affair; we'd all cluster around the TV and discuss the different puzzles, working out different ways to work through them.
Is this an awesome game? No, not really. A lot of people are going to be turned off by the speed of the game-it's so slow, so plodding, so deliberate. Sometimes you just sit there and watch this little guy carrying a barrel for five minutes at at time...but half the time you sit and watch the little barrel guy get half way where he's supposed to be and then explode, hit by a sniper-accurate sling-shot enemy that was hiding unseen on top of a tower. It can be really boring sometimes, I'll admit. The one thing I wish that they had included was a way to fast-forward the game. It would have really helped out quite a bit with the overall game-playing experience.
It's a strategy game, from start to finish. You have to learn how to handle different groups of people, all with their own abilities, strengths and weaknesses, to conquer increasingly difficult, convoluted levels. And you only get a certain amount of each group, so you need to be careful about how you put them out. The groups are engineers (they can build bridges, build platform 'ladders', break down doors, fill pits, build catapults, and build new bases at the right places), archers, soldiers, knights (you get one at a time, and pretty much all they can do is block, but they can be very important later!), white mages (they have healing spells and strengthening spells), black mages (with my favorite all-time spell, the instant death spell), barrelmen (they blow stuff up. That's all they do, but it's very important), and your King Iwho can fight, but it's most important that you simply KEEP HIM ALIVE.)
And if you accidentally kill your king-usually I'd accidentally leave him in-screen for the black mage's fire spell or have him too close to either a barrelman explosion or the back-splash from the engineer's cannon-again, you're done. Or if you let him get killed by enemies, or walk into a pit, or get caught by a fire barrel releasing a torrent of liquid death...well, take it from me, there's a lot of ways to accidentally kill your king. That's a very frustrating thing about the game-you're half the level away, dealing with something, and you see the little king icon suddenly light up indicating that he's being attacked by someone you missed in passing the first time. Then you switch back to take care of whatever is killing him, and while you're dealing with that, the group of engineers you were working with gets slaughtered by the group of enemies that came strolling up from the other direction that you didn't realize were there...getting everything taken care of at the same time takes practice and a good sense of observation...and patience. A lot of patience.
BUT all that aside, it's a really unique little game. It's kind of like lemmings, but more interesting. Once you get the hang of the different groups, figuring out the correct combination and executing the necessary groups of commands-sometimes very quickly-can give you a really strong sense of accomplishment. And that's what keeps you coming back: that sense of fulfillment you get when you see that complete screen of Arthur backslapping his men in victory.
A note on failing the level: in the training levels, you just fail and have to start over, but once you get out into the 'real' world, you can continue by ransoming your king if you've managed to find enough gold laying around, so collect that gold!
Graphics: 5
The graphics on this game are not great. Not terrible, but not great You can see the differences between groups rather well, and the colors are pretty clear and bright, but they're pretty typical Super Nintendo graphics. The backgrounds are pretty but very repetitive, the enemies typically look a bit blurred and alike (the sling-shot guys may be centaurs. Or satyrs. It's hard to tell, really.) Later, when you get to other world areas, it's a bit dark and weird.
Sound: 4
As with many of my reviews, my main problem with the music in this game is that it's very repetitive. And loud. And electronic. At least they tried; the music attempts to be regal and exciting, leaning towards more classical stirring themes, but it gets really old really fast...especially since it never really changes. The whole of the 'training' levels have the same soundtrack. You do get new music for the later levels, but the change grows old quite quickly as well. And the amount of time you spend in each level only makes this problem worse, as you sit and listen to the same song over and over and over and over...I ended up muting this game as well.
Addictiveness: 8
This is one of those games you will either hate or love. For me, the thrill of figuring out each set of puzzles was enough to keep me coming back. For other people, they'll find it repetitive and annoying. Each level is different, but once you start to get all the groups, you'll find the puzzles tend to have the same kind of solutions-there's only so many different combinations you can put together with a limited amount of choices. But they do a very good job at forcing you to actually use all the different groups and abilities. I couldn't stop until I finished.
Story: 4
There's not a lot of story to this game. You're told that Arthur needs to gather an army...and that's pretty much it. We're given a bit more information about the enemies we're facing a little later, but to be honest it's all about conquest. We're going to take over some other guy's land, everyone! Whoot!
Depth: 5
In terms of time it takes to finish this game, it's long. Not really because of the levels themselves although the ones towards the end get fairly long and complicated. The length of the game mostly comes from the slow pace of the characters and the times you're forced to stop and wait for things to come into the right place and the right time.
The story is extremely linear. You're taken from level to level without being able to go back or anywhere else. And there's not a lot of things to find, either. There's gold scattered around to find, and keys that will open secret (not so secret, once you see what they look like) doors. But pretty much you're just going through each level to a predictable end.
The depth in this game actually comes from the sheer amount of things you have to do. Every problem has an obvious solution, but sometimes there are several different ways you can actually do it, depending on how you choose to go about it. You can do it the hard but fast way, the easy but slow way, or find some middle ground solution. It's up toy you.
Difficulty: 8
This game is actually fairly difficult, especially in spots. The controls can be a bit complicated to get the hang of, as there's a lot of things you need to learn how to do quickly-switching between groups, switching between abilities of groups, getting them to actually do their abilities...there's a lot of button combination pushing that you need to remember how to do on the fly.
The puzzles sometimes seem straight-forward, but once you actually get into it you find that it's not as easy as it seems. Positioning each group in just the right place can be fairly frustrating. Expect to kill your king accidentally more than once-learning the way the blasts from the barrelmen spread is probably the thing that killed me the most to start with. Oh, and ladders are flammable, and if someone is standing above the ladder on the floor up, they'll catch on fire and die. Every time. And those stupid little innocent looking lamp-like things randomly pour fire down on your poor guys.
Overall: 8.5
This is never going to be one of the classics; the combination of the slow pace and the lack of real fighting and excitement are going to make it boring for most of today's players. However, if you have the patience to play through it and can appreciate something that makes you think rather than react, you should give this game a try. Just be prepared to wait. And wait. And wait.
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Jordanv78 is Offline
| ID: 719254 | 110 Words
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