King Arthur: Fallen Champions
Be the hero of a glorious past.
Reviewed by RON on Dec 29, 2011
After defeating the enemy in the South the great King Arthur decides to swell the lands beyond the Bedegraine forest. A fraction of his realm has yet to be dominated, where life is still wild and haunted by the old gods who fought and bled in the long past. This magnificent tale has been sculptured in a story-driven, real-time strategy series by Paradox Interactive in the most upright manner. The Fallen Champions comes with the tales of three champions. A brave knight from Britannia, Sir Lionel, on a quest to rescue a damsel in distress; a creature of the twilight, Lady Corrigan of the Sidhe, seeking the secret pathways that could lead her back to her lost home; and a shaman of the North, Drest the Chosen, driven by visions of greatness and voices in the night. The sequel also slices the gap between King Arthur I and II.
King Arthur: Fallen Champions takes place in the region of Britannia. As predicted, the game consists of three key storylines of the heroes mentioned above. Each of the heroes has their unique stories with adventurous quest and heroic battles, and the incidents from their battles lead to a grand battle in the end. In the game there are arrays of battle fought in this region from a scale of small, technical to large engagements. Each sequence is separated into two different fractions: the adventure and the battle itself. The adventure sequence is where you get to know the story of the scenario. Which tell you about this history, takes you to different circumstances and eventually to the battle sequence. During the adventure, a player can make choices in different situations which impact the game during the battle. The choices made play a great deal on how the battle will take place and decides the type of allies for aiding. Right before each battle starts, players are given the opportunity to level up their heroes’ abilities. This added benefit is there to be utilized fittingly based on the approaching encounter. These abilities can also be used during the battle based on the different situations. Don’t assure yourself that these abilities will help you win any battle at ease, though, because if not properly utilized, they can be as good as nothing.
A successful conclusion of any battle provides usable artifacts and valuable points which can only be outfitted before starting another battle. Still, you can always save both these artifacts and points for a greater battle upfront. Controls of this game are just like any other Real Time Strategy game. With the mouse and keyboard, players can control their units, and moving the mouse in different directions will highlight different locations of the map. Players can click on the unit icons given in a block at the bottom of the screen to select them or simply click on the unit to open the command panel with the options for walking, running, attacking, formation and more. They can adjust the battle speed based on its length. A battle which is taking place for hours is advised to be played in an increased speed. Any RTS fan will be surprised as the game offers zero features for empire building. Players don’t get their chances to build cities and walls, train or recruit soldiers or to conduct any economical trades. Only the text based adventures and their drained battles are what this game has to offer. However, it’s obvious to demand such features when the publisher is none other than Paradox Interactive a leading strategy game publisher for many years now. Perhaps their intention was only to focus on the story, where as this plot which had such potential for a massive RTS game remained unexplored. I suppose that explains why I’ve categorized it only as only a basic strategy game.
Fortunately on the brighter side, the battle strategy is very detailed. Unlike any usual strategy game, Fallen Champions presents a unique battle experience. It’s not only limited to sending units and crushing the enemies, it’s a composure of selecting the right units and abilities against any given enemy. Placing all parts together properly usually leads to victory, or else battles fought hard for hours will go in vain. Many might complain because the game can’t be saved during battles, but it’s understandable that the feature wasn’t added to keep things intense. A single mistake an hour long battle can be lost and it can be very frustrating at times. That just tells you how cautious you need to be during battles. To me, it simply doubles the intensity and it can’t get any better for the real time battle simulation fans. For those who find the battles harder than they suppose to be, there are options to select difficulty modes and they are flexible during battles too. There is a fine tutorial to set you on the mood for more and I highly recommend finishing the tutorial if not familiar with this series.
There can be criticisms about the text based adventure and some might call it effortless, but it is not. Each adventure offers various choices and as said earlier, they need to be select watchfully. Each choice leads to another and there’s always a consequence for each decision a player makes, whether gain or loses something from the forthcoming battle. Sometimes the choices are easy to make but most of the time they are tricky and paying less attention could cause some grief during play. Below is a walkthrough for someone unfamiliar with this series, as well as our review for the King Arthur Collection.
Even being limited in two main features the game is still fun to play, and the stories of each hero makes it more pleasing. It might not be considered as a good real time strategy game but as a role playing strategy game it decently gets the job done. If you are a fan of this genre and played its previous releases, Fallen Champions is worth a try.
Sarwar Ron, NoobFeed
Admin, NoobFeed
Verdict
75
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