1. AmonB

   9

   Text-based adventures, yeah! Nowadays when I read 'RPG elements' it usually means you can add points to skills and here we have some true oldschool stuff. Good ol' 'Defender of the Crown' breeze. I am surprised no one (haven't seen it in any review) mentioned HoMM series as an inspiration. Though the TW associations are clear, we have also one great stronghold to manage and build something in, armies turn idle without a hero.. I would give it 10 if not for jumping difficulty level and somewhat broken auto-resolve, but that's me.… Expand

   • Helpful?

     7 of 7 users said yes
2. orctowngrot

   6

   This game is an ambitious effort to combine role playing and strategy elements. In the end though the game play is not satisfying but incredibly IRRITATING. Arthur has beautiful art and design elements, which is about the only thing you can enjoy as you sit and waste hours and hours watching loading screens. All of the game mechanics are good. The Unit design, RPG elements, Text based adventures, are all fun. Too bad about the scenario design however, which pins you into a tedious exercise of strategic and tactical "whack the mole". The end game for Arthur is to be forced to play HUNDREDS of battles as the enemy force spawns unlimited max-level armies all over the map. These armies can dash about and claim all your teritories in the wink of an eye. So rather than having any plan, you are FORCED to maintain armies in defence and FORCED to fight battle after battle after battle, all the same. In these battles the powerful archer units can teleport away from mellee, so again it becomes an exercise of whack the mole. It all becomes incredible tedious, and wastes many hours of your real time in continuous repetition of the same crap OVER and OVER again. There are plenty of other small irritations like inventory that fills your sacks with hundreds of useless items that cannot be sold. This game has amazing promise. It is almost good, and could have been if the design team had playtested it properly and created an end game that wasn't endless PADDING. Rather than the great game it could have been, we end up with a B title that fails. Unfortunately none of the upgrades or later scenarios fix the problems, they just repeat them or make them worse. Fallen Champions is even more tedious. Neocore should wake up to the needs of players, who do not have unlimited gaming time, and do not enjoy endless repetition. I will be cautious before getting Arthur 2. If it is more of the same it will be like this, another tragedy of great potential ruined by poor scenario design. Oh yes and BUGS! Expect this game to crash to desk top regularly. Save games a lot and load when needed.… Expand

   • Helpful?

     2 of 4 users said yes
3. Oberrill

   3

   I cannot review the later stages of the game as I quit playing about halfway through. The only part of the game I really enjoyed was the text-based "questing". There are small parts of the game that are also enjoyable but not nearly enough. The game is mostly about fighting and that is just bad. You can actually lose a battle even if you have lost no soldiers and the enemy has lost all but one. Camera sucks near the edges. The enemy almost almost always has stronger and more units which means winning really comes down to being able to control your forces. Of course you really cannot because the game forces you to send troops all over the map. Of course while you are doing something with a unit or group of units, the others are doing something stupid like a unit of light horse charging into a wall of spears. It is actually not that difficult to win battles, but if you lose too many soldiers, you are not going to have enough money to replace your losses. You are able to make laws and decrees. Some of them are pro peasant and some of them are anti-peasant. I thought this was going to be a nice element of the game. I was wrong. I used all the pro laws and decrees and none of the anti. To what end? At the same point where Sidhe armies suddenly begin popping up all over the map, so too do rebellious peasants. It was soon after this that I quit playing. The reviewer who called it "whack the mole" was exactly correct. Did I mention that you have to buy your forces and pay upkeep? You do. This makes sense. What does not make sense is that even with all of the economic upgrades it is not possible to field even three armies strong enough to deal with many of the enemy armies. I think the trigger for the ":whack the mole" part of the game is attached to something the player does. If so, then you could just let time pass and build up your money until you have enough to finish the game before you run out of money. The enemy of course always manages to field several large armies no matter how small is his economic base. If you can get this game very cheaply, you might want to give it a try. But I do not recommend it.… Expand

   • Helpful?

     4 of 5 users said yes

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