After the fairly successful The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing and Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr the Hungarians from NeocoreGames returned to what they did best – a series of strategy RPGs based on the myth of King Arthur. Only King Arthur: Knight’s Tale, as I wrote in the preview, is more mystical and dark compared to the two King Arthur: The Role-playing Wargame, and also with turn-based tactical battles between heroes, and not between squads of units. Expectations were high and in general they were justified, although there are some nuances..
Dead Knights of the Round Table
The already gorgeous opening video nails you to your seat, demonstrating how King Arthur and his main enemy, Sir Mordred, whom everyone considers a traitor, fought on the magical island of Avalon, created by the legendary sorceress Lady of the Lake. Both eventually died, inflicting mortal wounds on each other. After this, the Lady of the Lake resurrected Mordred, and it soon becomes clear why – on the way to the British version of Valhalla (that is, to the paradise for true heroes and warriors), something bad happened to King Arthur, and he turned into a powerful monster, the “Knight of Midnight”. Ironically, it is Sir Mordred who will have to stop him, finishing what he started. Even the Lady herself is at first unsure of the correctness of her decision.
The videos here are very cinematic and cool.
But first we need to prepare, and for this we have to rebuild Camelot Castle on Avalon and gather the rest of the Knights of the Round Table – the same fallen and restless. Some of the key characters join us in the story, some can be recruited through a side mission (plus there is an option to train hero recruits), and each has their own dark drama. For example, Tristan, looking like a walking corpse, mourns his Isolde, who has turned into a banshee, and asks us to help free him from the curse, although it is not difficult to guess who he is really worried about. And the brothers Balin and Balan, even after death, cannot make peace and argue who owns the family castle.
Right during missions, you can stumble upon a character with a quest in his bosom – and the fact that many ask to put their souls to rest in one way or another is quite natural. In general, everything is dark, gothic, interesting. And on a large scale – the plot in King Arthur: Knight’s Tale epic, there are a lot of missions, but this story is worth going through to the end.
Global concerns
The division of gameplay into strategy on the global map and the battle itself makes the game multifaceted and dilutes feats of arms with other concerns. Here we not only select the next missions and squad composition (maximum of four knights), but also rebuild Camelot Castle using the collected resources. In addition to the infirmary for the wounded, you can build a cathedral in it, where heroes get rid of wounds that affect their performance, a training ground, various shops with ordinary or magical items and other useful buildings.
You can bind specific knights to some of them – depending on their talents, they will give certain bonuses (for example, for treatment in the infirmary). There is also a system of decrees and laws that bring benefits (but not only).
Here, on the global map, we periodically encounter random events that require our decision. Kill all the robbers who are ready to surrender and come under the command of Mordred after the death of their leader, or take them in and get additional resources to rebuild the castle? Restore pagan symbols in one of the settlements or build a church? Punish the castle manager for beating one of his subordinates in a rage, or get off with compensation to the victim’s family? These and many other decisions (made, however, not only on the global map, but also during missions) affect the morality and worldview of the protagonist. He can be fair or despotic, pagan or Christian – and each branch gives its own bonuses.
In addition, the knights have many really interesting personal quests and problems that also require our intervention, and the decisions made by Mordred affect the level of their loyalty. You can also increase it by assigning heroes to key positions in the castle. Moreover, the question of loyalty is by no means idle – those dissatisfied can leave or even start a rebellion.
Finally, it is in Camelot, in between combat missions, that we equip our heroes (items of varying degrees of awesomeness can be found during missions and can also be bought in the castle) and learn skills for points received when leveling up. Skills, of course, are unique to different classes, including warrior, assassin, sorcerer, archer, mystic and others. Skills reduce damage, increase damage dealt (for example, from poison or bleeding), allow you to notice traps, give stealth or rage (bonus damage after each kill), and so on – in general, everything is more or less familiar.
On guard for life
And yet our main occupation is King Arthur: Knight’s Tale – these are battles. As I already said, they are turn-based and tactical, with the participation of specific heroes, and not entire squads. In this sense, battles no longer evoke associations with Total War, as before, but rather with XCOM .
Action points (green ones can be used for movement and skills, and yellow ones can only be used for movement); shelters; attacks from the flank and from the back; observation mode (here called vigilance); placement of fighters before some important fights; formations; the importance of choosing a position; the need to entice and wait; class skills like hitting multiple enemies, setting traps, or firing an incendiary shot are very competent tactics.
This is also a complex tactic that forces you to use almost all available tools. Heroes, as I already said, receive serious wounds, and those killed in battle do not resurrect. It doesn’t even help that, in addition to health, there are indicators such as armor and hit points, which indicate how much damage a character can withstand before enemies begin to hit the “life” directly. Firstly, many opponents also have all these protective barriers, and secondly, some types of damage, barriers, ignore them.
Such mechanics enliven familiar tactical scenarios and force you to think about how to attack and what to restore from bonfires found in locations during missions – hit points or armor. By the way, after missions “lives” do not regenerate on their own. Another thing is that the further we go, the more often the authors simply dump crowds of “meat” on us – it begins to tire. And one more minus I’d like to note is not the best stability, which manifests itself in long loading times and periodic crashes.
King Arthur: Knight’s Tale turned out to be a big, atmospheric game (and the graphics and gorgeous music work great for this atmosphere), where there are complex tactical battles, strategy on the global map, many adventures, and unobvious moral forks. In some places it may seem drawn out and overcomplicated (and in primitive ways), but it is still very difficult to tear yourself away from what is happening.
Pros: dark plot; the mix of https://bigwinboxcasino.uk/games/ strategy on a global map, role-playing game with moral choices and exciting turn-based tactics is seriously addictive, for 20-30 hours; gorgeous direction and videos; the game is very atmospheric, which is largely due to the artists and composers.
Cons: sometimes inadequate difficulty and reliance on “spamming” overpowered enemies; the technical side is lame.
King Arthur: Knight’s Tale
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Dark fantasy healthy man! It took 22 hours to complete. Among the advantages I would like to note:
1. Careful work with the original source
2. Clear combat system
3. Interesting moral system
Disadvantages: fatigue from the game when playing hard due to the large number of battles
He’s probably talking about the second game in this series, subtitled The Fall of Avalon, which isn’t even in early access yet .
I just don’t understand what’s in the game with 120GB of disk space. I wanted to buy it to play, but now the traffic limit and 120 GB are scary.
And thanks to the author for the review! educational
At the beginning I thought “oh, the Defiled Grail has arrived” But no, another Dark Fantasy also in the King Arthur universe
It seemed so drawn out to me… I quit halfway through the game. I don’t know if I’ll sit down to playthrough again.
Pros: relatively interesting combat, reminiscent of a mixture of Banner Saga and modern XCOM, as well as good (albeit for an amateur) visuals in the style of “gothic decadence” – if you like Disciples II and Elden Ring, then this game may also appeal to you. However, in none of the named components does King Arthur: King’s Tale surpass any of the named games, that’s for sure.
Cons: Lots of bugs and sometimes frustrating gameplay. I would largely explain the last problem by the fact that the game is built on the principle of “one game act – one type of location and one type of enemy”. Roughly speaking, for the first 10 hours we walk through the same bone swamps and kill the same dead men and robbers; for the second 10 hours we are transferred to the forest to monotonously kill local savages, and so on. If the authors had mixed all this from the very beginning, the game would have felt much more invigorating due to the constant change of image and tactics, and so… not only does it make you feel sad, but when you switch to new enemies you suddenly have to “relearn how to fight” – for example, in the third act my ass just burned out from the fact that the new opponents were all dodging attacks, freezing my fighters, blinding them and doing a bunch of other tricks, which the previous ones didn’t do. Very abrupt transition, IMHO.
In general, I continue to play, because I love everything turn-based too much, but I would recommend people who are not interested in the genre to spend their time on something more interesting.
Apparently uncompressed cinematics)
OG has been here for exactly a year now, if not more. Watch Tainted Grail on Steam.
The main disadvantage is that the translation ends in the middle of the game)
P.S. Oh yes. The plot and dialogues are just an appendage to somehow connect what is happening. Somewhere in the middle of the game I stopped reading everything except the characteristics of items/skills. However, the “Pokémon effect” slows down the game a little – collecting new knights is still fun, although mostly pointless.
The plot is very good, which made me think a little.
20 hours? I played for 4 months, well, yes, on a difficult level without saving, I started over three times, but it was worth it, I have long wanted a medieval X-com, and here is also a dark fantasy and a well-developed plot.
How did you manage to go so quickly?? In 30+ hours I’m only halfway through the second act. I’m playing on hard level. About the shortcomings are straight to the point, I would like a little less fighting in each mission, you start to get tired.
I really liked the game, I haven’t been so engrossed in a game for a long time. Excellent combat and great atmosphere and style. Of course, you can find fault with the loot system, character development and too many fights, but the pros of the game outweigh the cons for me.
well, it’s unlikely to be a conspiracy, I just wouldn’t have noticed such a problem myself when there was normal internet.
so to speak, you quickly get used to good things.
and now that I’ve returned to the “stone age” with traffic restrictions, I’m already paying attention to the size of the game.
96 of 121GB are occupied by… textures. The trend is old, but here we can only take it for granted, there is nothing to reap in the textures.
Well, the taste and color. What games did you like most recently??
I really like the game. I play on hard, so far there was only 1 wound – in the first battle with Arthur the boss. Many complaints are unfair – different enemies with different skills, but more interesting to play. Then, in Act 4 there will be all types of enemies. Although the game tries to throw meat at you, the magicians rule as usual, and the best among them is Merlin. I also advise melee players to take an accessory to restore armor after killing enemies – fires are often not even required. As a rule, I pass all fights the first time and without loss of vitality. Sticky game. But everyone has their own priorities. For example, I don’t need Elden Ring for nothing, but someone is crazy about it.
Nowadays, many people do not compress assets properly, which is why even ordinary AA games have 50+ GB in size. Or maybe this is a special conspiracy to force users to purchase larger and larger SSDs.
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