( 18 reviews )
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Posted: Jun 7 2009
I normally play FPS games. This is the first RPG in my game collection. At first, I was stunned by the beautiful graphics. The game creators put a lot of work into visual details of the scenery. The next thing that struck me was the originality of the gameplay overall. I loved the concept of the "Idols" in each board. Each of the three idols has slightly different items for sale, each idol's appearance depends on the moon's phase. The idol alters are also where the character "sleeps" - slips into a haunting dream world where an old guru grants abilities, quests, and advice. This is the kind of originality that too many games are missing in today's market. I only have a couple of gripes about the game. One is the tediousness of grinding through the boards to accomplish quests. For example, in order to get a certain ability, you have to kill the "Forest Guardian" twice. BUT, to get to the Forest Guardian, you have to start at the beginning of the Forest realm, and grind your way through all the boards of that realm. Needless to say, it gets a little monotonous the second time around. I also thought the EQ purchasing could be greatly improved by limiting what a character can BUY, not just use. Certain characters are limited to certain EQ, fair enough. But, the limitations are in the written descriptions of the items. A character can spend a ton of gold on a killer weapon, only to find he/she can't use it because they failed to read ALL of the item's description. It would be nice if the developers could either gray-out the items not available to certain characters, or create character-specific lists of weapons and armor.
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Posted: May 29 2009
The gameplay of KUF:COD is so slow that it makes it incredibly boring. Seriously, had the designers just doubled the pace of the fighting and ground covering alone, it would be way more fun. The fighting engine is still a joke, but if were sped up it could be playable. Then toss in the worst item combining system I have ever seen, a story so loose you will be scratching your head, and camera issues that constantly crop up, and you have one of the worst games ever made. I made it through 8 hours of gameplay and just couldn't take it anymore. And since I play Ninja Gaiden 2 a lot, which has an unbelievably deep fighting engine, this was even harder to try to sit through. I will still give it 2 stars because it had potential, but in the end was poorly executed. Eff this turd of a game and buy Ninja Gaiden 2 instead if you want actual action fighting.
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Posted: Mar 5 2009
I've been a fan of the Kingdom Under Fire series since I played The Crusaders when it came out. As a fan of strategy games, I loved the fact that you had so many different units, weapons and armor to choose from, and I loved the fact that you could play as so many different characters in Heroes. I downloaded the Circle of Doom demo off the XBox 360 marketplace, mostly because I was SOMEHOW hoping that, despite all the bad publicity and reviews the game has gotten, it would be a good game. Boy, was I wrong. To start, what happened to the strategy elements? That was the main point of the first two games, so why take it out of this second one? Secondly, when did the game reduce itself to pure hack-and-slash-styled gameplay? I compare it to Dynasty Warriors for that reason (though I WILL say that Koei's Dynasty Warriors franchise is LEAGUES ahead of this game.) To give you a rundown on the gameplay, it's like this: You start out by playing as one of the main characters, then engage in a tutorial mode after a cutscene (which I skipped, because I could barely hear the characters talking, as well as the fact that the voice acting sounded horribly lazy.) This tutorial mode teaches you how to fight (not very well at that.) You use the A and X buttons to wield your weapon(s), as well as the B and Right Button (don't confuse the button with the trigger) to use your magic. The first thing I noticed was how slow the response times were. Another thing I noticed was that, when holding the right button (as it tells you to do to use one of your special abilities,) it didn't always respond. You end up clicking or holding the button. Another thing: The combat. When I engaged in battle with a few simple enemies, I found a fourth of my health knocked down based on the pure fact that I couldn't attack them fast enough (The Crusaders and Heroes' respond times were MUCH better and faster.) I don't recall there ever being a block button (which was in the previous two games.) Added to this slow combat, movement is also slow. I can understand that the characters are carrying a good amount of weaponry and armor, but that gives them no excuse to move like snails. (The only excuse for that would be if they were carrying a hammer or some other weapon, which my character--Leinheart--wasn't.) Finally, the map has you following a set path. In The Crusaders and Heroes, the map was free roam--meaning you could go ANYWHERE you wanted. In this game, you are stuck to a set path, which makes moving frustrating (and even more tedious.) They're trying to pass the game off as an RPG, but the only RPG elements I see is the story (which doesn't seem all that good, considering you can't even enjoy the voice acting) and the weapon/armor customization (which there is hardly any.) I didn't try the co-op mode, but I didn't plan on playing more of this horrible game. I wouldn't be surprised if people didn't buy the fourth installment based on the fact that this one was so bad. The only reason I gave the game two stars was because... well, I played it for ten minutes, and enjoyed that small amount of time I played it (though I had no intention to play it further.) One final note: I see that CoD was made by Blue Side and The Crusaders and Heroes were made by Phantagram, which is an obvious indicator as to why the gameplay (and everything, for that matter) is so different. I CANNOT, however, fathom why Phantagram would entrust a different company with their series. Seeing how CoD turned out, I hope they reconsider giving another company a right to make another game in one of their series. If you plan on playing the Kingdom Under Fire series, skip CoD and play The Crusaders and Heroes (in that order)--you won't be disappointed in either of the two.
