Reviewed: November 28, 2002
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Strategy First
Wanadoo

Developer
Spellbound Studios

Released: November 12, 2002
Genre: Strategy
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

10
9
8
8
9.4

System Requirements

Spellbound is here to change all that with Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood. Many of you may remember Spellbound as the creative geniuses behind last year’s amazing Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive. While this game wasn’t as widely received by the gaming public as it should have been, it was a tremendous hit with almost everyone who reviewed it, and it is still one of my personal favorites to this very day.

This time the designers have traded in their cowboy boots and six-shooters for green tights and a longbow. Our rugged band of outlaws has been replaced with an eclectic mix of merry men, each with their own unique skill set that contributes to the ingenious game design and puzzles found within this title.

Just like Desperados, Robin Hood is an action-puzzle game with a good dose of strategy mixed into the formula. You are presented with a set of goals and objectives and you get to determine the best way to meet these goals. Using the characters’ skills and abilities is important, but not nearly as important as using a clever mix of the entire party’s combined abilities.

The story in the game follows the legend quite closely, even to the point of putting our hero in his traditional green leotard and cape. If you are one of the few who have never read the book or seen the movie the story goes something like this. Robin has been off fighting in the Crusades. When he manages to make it home he finds his father dead and his home is now the property of the evil Sheriff of Nottingham, who is also heavily taxing the local citizens to the point of poverty. Even worse, King Richard, the only man who can right these wrongs is being held in prison. Robin must pursue a life of honorable crime, stealing from the rich, giving to the poor, and skimming a bit off the top for the King Richard ransom fund.

The game follows these events fairly close with an opening level that has Robin returning to the castle in disguise. As the story progresses Robin will set up a base camp in the famous Sherwood Forest and create his famous band of merry men including favorites like Friar Tuck, Little John, Will Scarlet, and many others.

The skills for each of your merry men are much more diverse and compliments the entire team. Robin is a skilled sword fighter and archer while Friar Tuck can knock out a guard and have him hog-tied before he wakes up. In fact, he is the person in charge of binding and gagging any of the unconscious soldiers so they do not return to active duty when they wake up. Maid Marian is a decent fighter but more importantly, serves as the chief medic for your crew. I still have to smile when Robin has only a few pixels of health remaining in his bar and she heals him despite his protests of, “It’s only a scratch”.

Little John is a one-man army and his staff weapon can take out guards with a single swipe. A realistic, but often annoying touch is the fact that Little John can also take out your own team with a careless swipe of his staff. It’s always a good idea to keep this warrior at a safe distance from the rest of your men. If you do knock someone senseless you can smack them around to wake them up and usually hear a humorous comment in the process.

Your team size and composition varies based on the mission and the time it takes place within the overall story. Obviously, you won’t have Will Scarlet at your disposal until you have finished the mission in which you rescue him. Suffice to say, you will always have the resources to finish each mission if you use a little strategy and thought.

There are over 30 different missions that vary in difficulty. These are presented in a refreshing non-linear campaign system that allows you to pick and choose your missions to suit your current comfort level. Of course, if you do all of the easy missions right up front you can expect the game to become quite challenging near the end.

Missions feature multiple objectives and many are optional. In the case of the Will Scarlet rescue mission, there is a tower full of treasure that you have the option to raid. This is a tough object with many guards between you and the gold, but the reward is well worth the risk, or you can choose to simply slip out the back door with Will.

Stealth is a small portion of the gameplay but the combat system is functional and fair enough that if you do get discovered you have a good chance of defending yourself, at least to the point where you can escape and regroup. There are plenty of buildings you can hide in to avoid the patrolling guards and you will always want to be mindful to hide dead or unconscious bodies. The AI is strict enough for them to notice these things as well as any breach in routine. In one of the earlier missions I failed to notice that two groups of patrolling guards routinely met and checked in with each other. After taking out one group of guards the other group noticed their failure to appear and summoned reinforcements to initiate a thorough search that kept me in hiding for several minutes. When the men were not found they were replaced with a fresh batch of guards and it was business as usual.

The interface in Robin Hood is certainly one of the best I have seen in a game such as this. Selecting and grouping your characters can be done by clicking on their portrait or their figure within the game world. Their weapons and inventory are at your immediate disposal with the nice visual interface that is integrated into each character’s portrait complete with health and status bars.

The command icons used in the game are quite clever and intuitive. There are obvious icons for using items, picking purses, climbing walls, tying up enemies, slapping friends back to consciousness and even a target that changes color so Robin can effectively use his bow. There are scrolls scattered about the levels that give you clues and hints on how to play the game effectively. You can even find and pick the lucky four-leaf clover, which grants you the ability to avoid death by falling into unconsciousness.

You can link movements and other commands into “quick-actions”. These are useful macros that making controlling a larger party much easier. You can easily and effectively orchestrate complicated tactics, traps, and melee’s using this function.

Another wonderful addition to the combat is the freeform weapons interface that actually lets you draw your attacks, much like the Madden chalkboard interface you see on the NFL. When engaged in sword or staff combat you can click and draw little swirls or figure eights to represent the motion your character uses to swing his weapon. While it sounds like a gimmick it is actually quite effective, and you will be surprised at how much more damaging your blows become with some creative tactics. One good circular motion and Little John can lay out a half-dozen soldiers.

Each mission features a rich landscape that spans several scrollable screens. There is a mini-map that gives you the “big picture” in a small window and also shows you the location of other people within the level. These are color-coded to let you know friend from foe, but often they are unknown and simply grayed out. You can often find someone in town who is knowledgeable of the population and if you pay him enough he will tell you exactly who is who and those gray dots will start to turn into red and green. It’s nothing you couldn’t figure out yourself with a bit of stealthy reconnaissance, but it’s a nice alternative for those of you with more gold than patience.

Gameplay is further enhanced by a rudimentary resource management system that is quite clever. While it is certainly nothing as advanced as the stuff found in RTS games, you will find you have the ability to train your men to increase their performance in upcoming missions as well as actually fabricate many of the tools and weapons used in these missions. Surprisingly, there is a finite amount of resources in the game and you will want to make sure you have a good supply or arrows, herbs, purses, and other items on hand. Many of these items can be gathered during the mission but you will always want to be mindful of what the rest of your merry men are doing back in Sherwood while you are out in the field.

While you are free to tackle this game from a variety of angles, keep in mind you are playing as Robin Hood and he has a particular reputation with both his enemies and his fans. This should always be in the back of your mind when deciding whether to storm a castle by force or slip in undetected and relieve the naughty sheriff of his gold. The people will be more forgiving of thievery than they will of senseless murder, and public opinion is one of the attributes the game monitors and will directly affect your ability to recruit more merry men.

You will seldom have the need to zoom in to this level. Sticking with the medium or long-range views offers you the best tactical view of the action and any nearby hazards. The interface is worked seamlessly into the game so you hardly even notice it. The portrait icons of your team occupy minimal space at the bottom of the screen leaving you to enjoy the wonderful world displayed before you.

Passing your mouse over a building will reveal any doors leading in or out of it. Sometimes you use these buildings to hide and your character will simply disappear from the screen. Other times you will enter a larger structure and you will get a cutaway view of the interior, often with items and people with which to interact.

The isometric view works for the most part although there were a few times where one of my men would be knocked unconscious and hidden behind a building. While you can normally select your hidden men using the portrait then move them into view, it was rather hard to find the ones who couldn’t move and smack them around.

Every level looks like a gorgeous painting and is realistically rendered using atmospheric conditions such as weather effects and realistic lighting based on the time of day. Doors open and close, draw bridges lower or crash down when you cut their ropes, and you can fully interact with your environment to perform all sorts of fancy combat moves like jumping onto low walls or onto table tops to engage in sword fights right out of the movies.

There are icons to represent each of the commands and clever emoticons to indicate a particular guard’s attitude or awareness. He may have an exclamation mark over him if he is alerted or simply a question mark if he is curious or puzzled to a noise or movement. You can also see any guard’s immediate field of vision by clicking that option then passing the mouse over a guard. Unfortunately, you can only do this one guard at a time. It’s annoying but probably more realistic and definitely more challenging.

The game can be run in several resolutions, but the 1024x768 will certainly offer you the most enjoyable experience with a larger and better view of each mission area. A word of warning though – you will want a system much more powerful than either the minimum or recommended specs listed. While my 1.4Ghz had no problem scrolling around this game, my 600mhz system had noticeable slowdowns when moving around in this high-res mode. And since this is a 2D game, that $400, 3D video card isn’t going to do a thing to help you.

And finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t give props to the wizards responsible for the incredible opening movie. I still remember the amazing movie that welcomed me to the world of Desperados, and this one easily rivals that western epic with plenty of traditional Robin Hood action, archery, and gymnastics, all combined with modern cinematic camera work that would make John Woo proud. It’s one of those movies you will want to watch every time you load-up the game.

The voice acting was really good in both the movies and the game. Each character had a nice distinct personality to their voice and there were many witty one-liners and humorous comments made by all. It gave the entire game a very lighthearted feel, which is exactly what Robin Hood is all about.

There is no multiplayer and there is really nothing to entice you back for a second romp unless you skipped some objectives or want to tackle a mission from a different approach or with a different group of characters. Even so, there is more than enough fun to be had if you only play through the adventure a single time.

This is an enchanting title for young and old alike, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves puzzles, action, strategy, adventure, and good old swashbuckling fun set in the spirit of Robin Hood, the Legend of Sherwood Forest.