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Realm of Rikonia
Rikonian Revuze
(Video Games)
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Reviewed By: Lord High Rikonian ( 11/8/2009 3:56:44 PM)
Overall Rating: 2.00 nagging undead dreams
Quality:
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Review: note: this review was written for the XBox 360 version
Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom, aside from being the unholy union of two potential Steven Segal sword and sorcery movie titles, is also a haunting, yet disappointing union of old school and contemporary RPG video game design.
The Kingdom Under Fire series was originally an RTS series, but Circle of Doom is marketed as an RPG. Technically this is true. It has a few NPCs who you buy stuff from and get quests from, and it has levelling. But this is the VRPG distilled to its most basic form. A cliff's notes RPG. There were a few NPCs: 3 magic idols that randomly appear in preset locations that you trade with, and whatever one or two people are in your dream world (more on that later). When you're not in the idol/sleep safe zones, everything is a monster. There's not even one single moron who can only repeat the phrase "there are monsters tot he north!" whenever you get near.
And the "quests" are for the most part just "kill # _________s" laundry lists. Even your quest to find a plant seed for an idol to make a magic seed conists of killing 10 plants (the first 9 don't have a seed, tenth does, no matter where that tenth plant is).
Combat is simplistic. You can have 2 weapons equipped, A and X buttons are mapped to those weapons. Melee combat is a standard "first couple hits are normal, third is a flourish" system. You can also assign 2 special abilities (to the B button and R trigger), but that just brings me to another complaint: Learning skills is another of the "hey kill a bunch of these things" quests, and you can have only 2 of these quests active at a time.
To make matters worse, this is one of those games where the maps are predefined paths. Think of the most restrictive parts of KOTOR, and realize the whole damn game is like that! And a lot of the time, the path you're supposed to tread upon is visually subtle so you miss where you're supposed to turn. This is particularly a problem in places where the paths move up and down and you must walk above or below other paths,thus making the overlay map far less useful.
But the game isn't all bad. The visuals are stunning. Truly beautiful graphic design. And the dream world angle is interesting, though far too limited in scope (a game concept that will hopefully be refined for future games).
You choose one of 5 characters (there's a 6th unlockable one), each is weak or strong in speed and HP. I picked Leinhart the half-vampire prince because he's a high-speed character and I do well with those. His dreamworld is kind of funny, it consists of a graveyard with his dead dad (who was a real dick. "Oh my stupid son, how you've always embarassed me, blah blah blah") and some hot half-naked vampire elf chick.
Though to be fair to undead douchedad, Leinhart is kind of an idiot. When trying to get the Idol of Death to help him, he opens with "hey you old bag of bones!" and he calls the Buddha statue idol of greed fat. Though he is apparently capable of learning, because I was half expecting him to tell the Idol of Love to take her top off or something, but he didn't.
Playing Advice: Don't rent this, as it may take you a while to beat it. If you really want it, you can find it for cheap. I bought mine at a Blockbuster going out of business sale for 5 bucks.
If you get it, then be prepared for lots of repitition. You will be swarmed with mobs of monsters, then advance forward to face more mobs. Remember to have a strong melee weapon and a ranged weapon to hold the hordes at bay. Using left-trigger to enter targetting mode and left thumbstick to strafe side to side is highly effective against shambling hordes, while Magic Shot ability is very useful against enemies that lurk on the walls or the ceilings.
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