Game Review: King Arthur II - The Role-playing Wargame.

Hello Ladies and Gentleman!

Today I'll be reviewing King Arthur II - The Role-playing Wargame!

A bit about the game and developers.
King Arthur II is a game made by Paradox Studios, the same company behind the famous Magicka, Mount & Blade collections and the newly released and yet very loved, War of the Roses. King Arthur II is a long awaited sequel to the previous game called King Arthur (who figured?). I have never played King Arthur, so i can't tell you anything about it, but from what i've learnt from playing King Arthur II, the first and second game are connected.


About Gameplay.

King Arthur II is a Turn based, fantasy strategy game. Well, wargame to be more exact. In this game you can build just few buildings that you don't even see, and they only boost your army up. Or give you more magic deffence or offence.
For as long as I have been playing the game I have never seen any other place to build your army except in the army camp, which you can set up almost anywhere you go. You can even use your turn to walk over map, do a battle or two if you manage, and then at the very end of your turn (when your unit already lost  the movement option) you can set up a camp to retrain your hurt units which will then put your current unit size to maximum (for example if you can have 120 archers and after the battle you have 30, you put the unit under training and you'll have 120 archers again) or to recruit even newer units to your group. All those units are able to fight starting from your next turn, which is in my opinion great! No wait time needed.

The reason why this game is called a "role-playing game" is because it really is an Role-Playing game. In this game you follow the storyline in which you are forced to make your own decisions. You usually have few choices that you can make, which will then be an impact on the future battle. Or maybe you will chose so good answers that you won't even need to go to the battles. And sometimes you should just go with a safer option and just fight, in stead of walking into a trap and losing your troops or get some sicknesses or something. There are, of course, some missions on which you will not get into a battle no meter what choice do you get, but there will still be a difference in your reward. Or maybe you won't even get any.

As i stated before, King Arthur II is a fantasy game. Which means that you don't only battle humans in this game. You battle various monsters which include undead warriors, furious battle mages, large spiders or some weird flying worms or even dragons!
That made me like the game more because you can see the world of which we can only daydream of.


Graphic and Audio

One surprising thing about this game is the audio. The songs are put so nicely that you just can't get bored of them. They fit every situation that you are currently in. And while you are on the map area the songs are somewhat peaceful and calm. I loved the songs very much.
Graphic on the other hand... Is absolutely amazing! There are tones of different mountains, tones of different units and tones of details on each unit! The land scope is very beautiful and in my opinion, it looks amazing for a strategy game. Very amazing indeed! All creatures, demons, dragons, humans, castles, spikes and all the trees are just gorgeous in this game.


Story -- EPIC SPOILERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! --

In King Arthur II your main mission is to find a healer that will heal your father, Arthur himself, from a deadly sickness. You need to travel across the land, talk to various Lords, be in good diplomatic relationships with them, and at the same time you have to fight the evil demons, undead, and other Lords who do not like you nor wish to help you.
You may think that your search is easy, but it's not. First you need to find one healer which is hard to find. Once you find him and travel to that location, you find out that he has left that castle a while ago, and thus you need to go after him. Once you go to the other castle you find out that he left few moments (which i think are actually days) ago and that you need to help the Lord of the castle to deal with demonic possessions. And once you finally manage to catch the healer, he tells you that he can't help and thus you need to find Merlin's apprentice. I didn't finish the game due to a massive lag that I had because of my weak CPU. But I think that a hardcore gamer should finish this game within 5 hours, while a normal gamer should take no more then 10.


Pros, cons and final grade.
Pros:
- Wonderful graphic and audio.
- Units have a lot of detail.
- You are able to chose your own choices.
- You unlock new units as you progress.
- Unit building / training is instant.
- The game is in a Fantasy world even thought you play it on United Kingdom.

Cons:
- The game is very CPU dependent so i had a massive lag.
- Storyline mission is a bit too short.
- No multiplayer.
- The items that your character wears are not shown on him. He always has default armor.

Final grade: 8/10

Extra info:
King Arthur II is really a fabulous game. If you are searching for some good storyline and you don't have time for something too long and time consuming, King Arthur II is a great game for you. Great game indeed!
If you want my advice in buying or not buying this game: go for it. Trust me, you will not regret it!

Wolfie