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Yearly Archives: 2018
Kings and Heroes Review
By Jordan Hall (ApocaRUFF), OnRPG Journalist
Kings and Heroes is an action MMO recently made available on Steam. It’s currently a buy-to-play title with a $20 price tag, created by Industry Games, a relatively unknown and new studio. Though the game has a price tag, it boasts that there is no subscription and absolutely no micro-transactions. This, combined with the art style and general make-up of the games mechanics, makes it harken back to the days when MMOs were simpler and the field was level for all players, no matter their wallet size. While that’s all good and noble, there is one question everyone reading will have: is Kings and Heroes worth the $20 investment? Let’s find out.
Customization
I am 50/50 on the customization in Kings and Heroes. On the one hand, I love the Dungeons and Dragons style of character creation and the overall setup of the character creation. It makes your character feel more special and unique, especially if you’re someone with pen and paper gaming experience. It brings back memories of creating a character in Villagers and Heroes. V and H had simple customization options, but the way the character creation was set up made the experience a lot more fun than games with dozens upon dozens of sliders and limitless color options for hair.

Speaking of limited customization options, that’s the case in Kings and Heroes. While I really liked the way the character creation was setup, the harsh reality is the bleak customization options. Whether it was a design choice or a limitation, it’s somewhat lame that I couldn’t do that much to make my character look interesting. I have no trouble believing that this could be a design choice, however. Almost everything about the game shouts ‘Early Era MMO’ and I’m almost certain the developers are going to try and play the ‘retro’ card at some point if they haven’t already. Simple character customization fits the MO of Kings and Heroes perfectly.
Graphics
I’m also not completely decided on the graphics, either. They’re simple like what you would expect to see in early 00’s MMOs like World of Warcraft or City of Heroes. Both games (and now Kings and Heroes) had simple textures with low-poly models, but there was character in them that made the world interesting. Kings of Heroes adds a modern dimension: extremely far views and seamless node loading. So you can run to that mountain you see yonder without running into a load screen. Something I’m very fond of in modern MMOs. The developers could have gone with the retro feel, but thankfully didn’t take it nearly as far as Project Gorgon did. Overall, though, I have to say I’m not impressed with the graphics.

The game has a retro style, but I’m not sure if this is a design choice or not.
Controls
‘Alright’ describes the controls in Kings and Heroes perfectly. I wasn’t impressed, nor was I overly inhibited by the controls. There were some instances of clunkiness, but I never thought the game was unplayable. I suppose it’s an occurrence of, “If you’ve done everything right, no one will notice you’ve done anything at all.” In retrospect, though, there are obviously things that could have been done better, especially in terms of the default hotkey scheme. It was annoying to hit J (which is essentially the universally accepted key for ‘J’ournal), and have nothing happen. Still, while I was playing I didn’t have any serious issues with the controls.
Community
There isn’t much of a community yet. I think this is mostly due to the price tag combined with the (until recently) ‘Mixed’ rating on Steam. I mentioned the ‘until recently’ because the recent rating for the game is “Mostly Positive,” so I assume that most of the issues people were having with the game have been fixed.
Gameplay
Kings and Heroes is an action MMO, which is to say that it is similar to a third (or first, if you choose) person shooter instead of a point-and-click like World of Warcraft. This has made it feel somewhat like a modern take on Asheron’s Call. That was a common recurrence while playing this game. I often thought, “This is like X game.” Which, depending on what you’re looking for in an MMO, may or may not be a good thing. Personally, for me, it wasn’t a good thing in most cases.
Past the action combat, Kings and Heroes is essentially your traditional point-and-click questing MMO with a few (very few) features to help set it apart. In your first few hours, you probably won’t be able to tell it apart from any other generic MMO, which is a massive game design issue. There’s charm to be found in the game; the issue is that the charm is hard to find. I found myself asking myself, “Why am I even playing” several times in the early levels before I started enjoying my time in the game. Without the incentives I have (it’s my job) I don’t see too many players sticking through it.

If you played Western MMOs in the early and mid 2000’s, this game will look and feel familiar.
But like I said, there is charm in the game. First, if you’re a fan of pen-and-paper style games, you’ll find the game has a sort of nostalgic taste to it, especially with the character creation. Second, it has a very retro old feel to it. If you told me this was a beta for Asheron’s Call 3, I would believe you. Unfortunately, despite it’s retro-feel, the mechanics are fairly generic for the most part.

Early quests are boring and repetitive.
Questing is your typical, “Talk to X,” “Kill X number of Wolves,” “Interact with X object on the ground” style quests with fairly basic stories thrown on. Some of the stories were interesting enough to follow. More often than not you’ll only read the quest text to figure out what you should be doing on the rare occasions where you can’t figure it out solely via the quest tracker. In short, I didn’t enjoy most of the questing, but some of it was worth while. And since most of the combat (which I’ll get into in a moment) is more hassle than fun, you’re going to be rushing through the questing as much as possible. Personally, I feel like they should have gone a more Project Gorgon route, where the quests were truly interesting and the mechanics were far from generic. I feel most players won’t want to put up with such a generic questing experience when there’s tons of other titles to check out.

Despite being action-based, the combat wasn’t that interesting.
Combat, at least for your first few hours, will probably be boring. As a spell-slinging wizard, I found myself bored of combat immediately. It got a bit better as my character progressed, but it was mostly a chore through-and-through. Combat begins to shine when you get to the dungeons the game has, some of which are fairly long and complex. The issue is that, compared to the rest of the game, these are few and far between and you’ll probably have more fun getting into another game (that is probably free) that has more overall content and potentially better mechanics.
Conclusion
If you want an OK dungeon crawling experience that may potentially ‘click’ with you, Kings and Heroes may be it. However, it’ll come at a price ($20 normally) and getting to the really good dungeon crawling will be a bit of a slog. It seems that, at least from Steam Reviews, you’re likely to find some enjoyment in the game if you can at least force yourself to endure fifty or so hours. Personally, I found myself not wanting to put too much time into the game. It has fun dungeons, but not much else yet. I feel like it’s more akin to an Alpha game and should probably be in Early Access at this point. I can’t exactly say the game isn’t worth playing, but be careful with your purchase as it’s the type of game that takes a certain type of player and probably won’t appeal to most readers. So, be wary with your purchase, but do a fair amount of research before you make your decision.
- Features: 2/5 – Not much, and nothing new.
- Customization: 3/5 – Interesting character creation, but with few choices.
- Graphics: 3/5 – I liked the style as it gave me a nostalgic feeling.
- Controls: 3/5 – Not bad, not good.
- Community: 3/5 – Small, but friendly.
Overall: 3/5 – This is a game that you’ll either love or you’ll hate.
Kings and Heroes Screenshots
Kingdom Come: Deliverance – Launch Trailer
Henry’s adventure begins tomorrow in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. It’s a hard path he must walk, but like Henry, we must not fear.
Dynasty Warriors 9 – Launch Trailer
It’s almost time! Tomorrow is the official release of Dynasty Warriors 9 for PS4, XBox One and Steam! An open-world version of China awaits.
A-Lim
A-Lim
ARK Survival Evolved: TLC Pass 1 Trailer
ARK: Survival Evolved‘s update 278 has many new features, fixes and some good ol’ fashioned TLC for some of the older beasts. The Rex, Procoptodon, Gigantopithecus, Direwolf, and Direbear all find themselves receiving both gameplay and visual upgrades! Patch Notes can be found here.
Kingdom Hearts III Reveals New ‘Monsters, Inc.’ World
News has been scarce about Kingdom Hearts III as of late, but over the weekend a new trailer was revealed, showing off new game footage and a new game world: Monsters, Inc.! During D23 Expo Japan 2018, a special event for Disney fans was held called, created by D23: The Official Disney Fan Club, held at Tokyo Disney Resort. The new Disney-Pixar world would be based on Monsters, Inc., in Kingdom Hearts III. During their epic adventure, Sora and his companions join forces with Mike Wazowski and James P. “Sulley” Sullivan, with a special appearance by Boo. Fright team all-stars Mike and Sulley lend their scaring talents and special combination attacks against their enemies. They also revealed another trailer with cutscenes and gameplay from the Toy Story-inspired world, Disney Princess Rapunzel (of Tangled) in the party, cool Keyblades, Ariel’s link system, and a few of the villains.
A New N64 Game is Coming to Kickstarter
Piko Interactive is a video game company based in San Antonio, Texas. They are proud to announce that the first N64 cartridge is being developed by them, since the Nintendo 64’s demise! It’s called “40 Winks” and it’s an action platformer where you control the brother and sister team of Ruff and Tumble. The ultimate goal is to collect 40 Winks scattered around the world to stop the evil Niterkap. Nitekap wishes to turn the winks into hood-winks who are responsible for giving children nightmares. He must be stopped! PIko Interactive is seeking 20,000 base funding for the game on Kickstarter to produce cartridges that will be compatible with American and European Nintendo 64 consoles. The cartridges will also come packed with a cardboard box and color instruction manual, just like you remember from your youth. A link to their Kickstarter can be found here.
Game Features:
| ▪ | Transform into different characters! Attack as a stealth ninja, fight as ferocious monster, or fly into action as a super hero! |
| ▪ | Tons of mini-games as well! Race dragons, strap on a rocket, and more! |
| ▪ | 6 themed levels – a scary castle, shipwreck city, outer space, deep down underwater, back to the prehistoric world of T-Rex and giant wasps and into the nightmare world of ghosts and monsters. |
| ▪ | Co-op 2 player mode exclusive only to the N64 version. |
Removing My Rose-Colored Glasses: Legend of Dragoon (PSX)
by Jason Parker (Ragachak)
Legend of Dragoon was an early Playstation RPG, and as such, it has a very special place in many hearts. Legend of Dragoon, Breath of Fire 3, Final Fantasy VII, Legend of Mana, Legend of Legaia. These were the hallmarks of the early Sony/Playstation Era. Some of these have aged much better than others. Legend of Legaia’s Combo System (Tactical Arts System) was engaging and clever, where players had to figure out the best combos to use for a variety of situations. Breath of Fire 3 had the Master system, where characters could adjust their stats and abilities by mentoring under more powerful Masters in the world. Final Fantasy VII’s Materia System was a first of its kind, though inspired surely from Final Fantasy VI’s Esper System. Everything about Legend of Mana was clever, cute, and it was another Mana game! Though the World system was kind of vexing. What did Legend of Dragoon bring to the table?
It brought a sixty dollar Super Sentai game to us, that’s what it did. I love Sentai, I do! I love my wacky costumed heroes doing ridiculous things, posing and transforming. But that’s what Legend of Dragoon essentially was. Instead of five members of the team, you had seven. The main character even wears red like your standard Sentai leader! The hometown is even named “Neet”. A “Neet” is a reference to a person, “Not in Education, Employment, or Training”, first used in the UK, but it spread to places like Japan. He’s disgustingly brave, inherits his father’s “Dragoon Form”, and is a standard anime hero, for all intents and purposes. And he’s boring. Everything about him and the plot is formulaic and substandard. His home village is destroyed by “The Black Monster”, that only appears every 108 years. And as it turns out, that “Black Monster” isn’t even the main villain! They’re supposed to help him! They are in the damn party. Yes, Rose was one of the original Dragoons in the Dragoon Campaign and destroyed his home. That’s so trite.
Legend of Dragoon (or Legend of the Dragoon) is a four-disc game, which sounds really impressive. But is only four discs because of the size of the FMVs that are included in the gameplay. This is the same reason Final Fantasy VII is Three Discs, and VIII being Four Discs. I mean, you could do Disc 3 of FFVII in one sitting if you really wanted. So it’s less that it’s a sprawling, long, epic journey and more that it simply has very pretty (and they were, I won’t lie) cutscenes. It’s a fairly pretty game, better than Final Fantasy VII, but not as good as VIII or IX. This is not a bad game though. But this was Sony’s first serious attempt at an epic JRPG, in my opinion. It wasn’t as powerful as Squaresoft’s Final Fantasy and Enix’s Dragon Quest (or even 7th Saga, if I’m being 100% honest).
However, Legend of Dragoon did have a terrific combat system! I feel like it’s the precursor to several “Ring Systems” used in later games like Lost Odyssey on the Xbox 360. Though it was turn-based, which wasn’t new or revolutionary, the “Additions” system was. You had two buttons on the screen when you pressed Attack. You have to time the press of the button with the shrinking circle just right, and doing so will give you more damage. As the game goes on, you’ll gain more of these Additions, creating long chains of incredible damage. However, the longer the chain, the greater the chance of an enemy working a counter in (but you can do another timed button press to evade their counter and continue dealing damage). Then there are the Dragoon Forms, where you transform to do new attacks and better damage. It felt like a combo between Super Mario RPG’s timed attack system and the Breath of Fire “Dragon Form” system, where Ryu/Hero turns into awesome dragons to deal more damage.
A Fine Start:
Legend of (the) Dragoon is not a bad game by any means. But many people romanticize its existence, fondly remembering it as a wonderful, sprawling, epic RPG worthy or note and narration. Unfortunately, it does not quite hold up to those memories. It was a great start for Sony, but their strength was not in RPGs. They were much better at doing action/platformer titles, but they tried. And to their credit, it was certainly not a terrible game. The combat system was delightful and engaging, but the story, the characters were bland, uninteresting, and honestly a little disappointing. It’s formulaic and not hard to guess what’s going to happen next if you have even a little familiarity with anime/rpgs of the era. It managed to be the top-selling PSOne classic on PSN for three months which frankly, shocks me. That is the power of nostalgia though, friends. Not all of these games we played way back when were quite as wonderful as we remember.
Iron Sky
Iron Sky is a kingdom management sim RTS set in the vast expanse of space. Construct your base, manage resources, and command units to conquer the universe one galaxy at a time. Available in the browser.
Features:
Heading to the Mine: Build resources gathering machines to bolster your economy.
Willing Warriors: Recruit and gather fighters for the cause.
Always Improving: Upgrade everything including your buildings, units, and assisting adviser.





