King Arthur: Knight's Tale (2022)

Fun tactical RPG game, leaning more towards RPG than tactics.

I found the gameplay getting a bit stale by the end once you have recruited all the knights which you like, and unlocked the 3rd (and final) tier of abilities. That being said there is a wide variety of abilities to experiment with and upgrade; different classes each have their own speciality, and each character having a slightly different set of abilities from others of that class. The abilities themselves were fun to use, and you can synergize the abilities of your character with your equipment, and with your other characters.

There are a few different groups of enemies each with a number of different classes, but you fight so that I found it getting repetitive. It would have been nice for the different enemy types to gain more abilities or mechanical changes throughout the game, eg: undead which you fight from the very beginning to end of the game.

The story is interesting enough and a fun twist on the classic tale and cast of King Arthur. Between each main mission there are side missions you can do, including ones which allow you to recruit new characters, which kept things interesting. There is a small kingdom management portion which allows you to choose what to upgrade to customize some benefits.

The setup of the game is one where you have many more characters than you can take on each mission, and seems to encourage you to switch them out. If characters take enough damage in a mission they get permanent debuffs which can only be healed by sitting out at least one mission. I don't really enjoy those types of mechanics, but the game wasn't so difficult on hard that it came up much. You can save freely throughout missions so if you want you could certainly avoid that mechanic entirely if you only want to use the same 4 knights the whole game.

There is a morality chart where you will make choices between two options of religion and ruling style, with different unlocks when you reach certain points in each direction. This included the ability to unlock some characters which was great, but I didn't find the other unlocks that interesting of useful. The morality chart will also change a few side missions which was cool

Overall the game is fun and a nice mix of tactics and RPG, but not amazing and gets a bit stale after the first half.

3.5/5

Mordred and Arthur managed to kill each other. Arthur was revived by the Lady. Something went wrong. Now Mordred is bought back from the dead too, to finally finish what he started. So starts this edgy interpretation of Arthurian tales.

You play as Mordred in this turn-based tactical game with strategic level focused on improving your heroes and minor morality system. You get to pick whether your Mordred is Righteous/Tyrant and Old-Faith/Christian, mostly influencing what late-game heroes you get and other minor bits.

Tactical part is pretty well made, but unfortunately, strategic side is pretty dull, tarnishing this otherwise solid turn-based romp that is just a bit too long.

Mordred is the hero of the Knight's Tale. The hero managed to kill King Arthur, but suffered a fatal blow himself. The Lady of the Lake brought the monarch to the mystical Avalon, not expecting that his suffering would change him beyond recognition. The king then led a dark army that turned Avalon into a land of nightmares. The Lady of the Lake has no choice but to bring Mordred back to life and give him the task of stopping Arthur once and for all. The fate of both the protagonist and all of Avalon depends on the decisions we make during the game.

In King Arthur: Knight's Tale, the battle is shown from an isometric view. The game's story-advancing quests and numerous side quests that we choose from the vast world map. These quests take us to various locations such as dense forests, steppes or dark tunnels. While traveling through them, we often have to fight our enemies; there are more than fifty normal enemies as well as ten much more powerful bosses. Battles with them take place in a turn-based mode, and during these battles we have to act tactically, placing members of our team appropriately and skillfully balancing their abilities.

As you progress, Mordred is joined by other heroes, there are more than thirty of them, each with different characteristics. Interestingly, we can both recruit them for our own missions and give them separate tasks. We have to be careful here, because their death on the battlefield is permanent and the treatment of their wounds is an extremely time-consuming process. In addition, the fighters often come into conflict with each other and closely monitor our movements, so if we cross them, they can leave our team and even turn against us.

In addition, as we play, we have to develop Camelot Castle, our command center, and the structures built in it give us access to various improvements. In addition to this, we often make decisions of great importance. It's up to us to decide whether to help people or rule with a firm hand, ignoring their needs. After completing the main storyline, we can participate in special missions to test our skills. These various missions include battles with powerful bosses. In exchange for their completion we have access to valuable rewards. The game offers an average of 50 hours of gameplay.

The biggest problem with the game is that the gameplay is very difficult and very long, which makes it very repetitive and boring. I tried so hard but I couldn't finish the game.. There's not enough character development. Because we can't get enough levels and strengthen characters with new items, which makes it impossible to deal with the obstacles the game throws my way. After a certain point, unfortunately, I lost the will to continue. In short, I couldn't find what I was looking for in this game and it wasn't for me.

This game is great, definetly one of the best tactical turn-based RPGs on my list. There are plenty of good things i love it for: fantasy and mythos, cool looking knights and mages, good graphics and CGI cutscenes, great soundtrack i got stuck listening outside of the game, awesome voice acting, deep gameplay and plenty of mechanics, different strategies to play with. List could go on and on.

The only significant flaws i could mention about KA:KT are few bugs and extremely weird looking Lady of the Lake in CGI, her facial animations could be done better. But the most important thing is that campaign is pretty long, and decimating enemies of the Round Table becomes a bit boring and repetitive.

Besides, RPG elements of this game dont fit well together with morality chartmechanic. In my first playthrough i decided to play as harsh but just ruler, and tryed to choose correspondingly in all events. Also i didn't want to dismiss or loose in battle any of my loyal knights, despite their morality or religion. With that i ended up really struggling in second half of the game, when difficulty spiked high. Not to mention that i in fact lost big chunk of optinial content in the form of unique character missions from Morality Chart, because my choices often contradicted each other. After that i decided to start again and stick to Rightful-Old Faith choices and really enjoyed it.

Now i am at 200+ hrs in and i want to try other builds and strategies (Christian-Tyrant crusader cosplay with knights in heavy armor only would be fun) , but im not sure it would be a great idea, considering how straightforwarded and story-oriented campaign is. Honestly if King Arthur had more replayablitiy and some sandbox elements like HoM&M, Darkest Dungeons and Battle Brothers do, it would definetly be my favorite turn-based strategy EVER.

Jugablemente ha sido una buena experiencia, las mecánicas de combate me parecen sólidas y divertidas. Aun así no he conseguido terminar el juego, llegados a un punto y aunque me divertía bastante no tenía muchas ganas de volver a lanzar el juego porque pensaba "¿para qué?". El problema viene en dos aspectos generales:

• Historia que no me ha atrapado en absoluto, desde un principio me ha parecido una épica de fantasía pseudo mitológica genérica. A pesar de haberle echado casi 20 horas no ha conseguido interesarme en ningún momento, por no hablar de que los personajes se sienten sin un peso real en su propio mundo más allá de una introducción descafeinada.

• Progreso: No me refiero al tema habilidades, que se sienten muy satisfactorias de desbloquear, pero que ya en el ecuador del juego pierde la magia. Camelot parece un lugar sin mucha chispa, hacer avanzar la fortaleza se siente bastante frío, no tiene encanto más allá de unos avances (muy lentos) en recursos. Los eventos que se dan entre misiones pecan de la misma falta de personalidad.

Mis sensaciones es que es un juego verdaderamente adictivo, sin duda divertido, pero que llegados a la segunda decena de hora empieza a cansar y uno pierde el objetivo y la motivación, le falta el gancho y la personalidad de una historia y universo con carácter.