I fell in love with the Hero of the Kingdom franchise since the 1st game. The simplistic gameplay consists of its own point n’ click mechanics with basic RPG function, defining the series as a product of its own design. The Lost Tales serves as a prequel to the events of the original games, where you’re the young protagonist going on your own adventure and find yourself in an intrigue of the local town involving corruption, goblins and huge beasts.

Sticking to its formula, the game progresses by your skill learning, resource gathering and problem solving. Due to its dialogue-driven narrative and quick navigation, the pacing can get fast. However, it can also get uneven when you’re forced to sidestep from your path and gather/trade for resources required to progress. Fortunately, it doesn’t get much grindy as the resources are well attainable and thankfully doesn’t depend on respawn mechanics (which HotK III is infamous for).

The Lost Tales should get beaten and completed at about 2-4 hours, which is relatively short but worth its retail value for adventure game fans of this niche.