Reviewed: December 15, 2004
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Microsoft Game Studios
Developer
Phantagram
Released: October 12, 2004
Genre: Action-RTS
Players: 2
ESRB: Mature
8
8
8
8
8.7
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
50 years have been passed since the Second Great War of Heroes. The legendary artifact that caused the Great War, Ancient Heart, was long gone. Although the Ancient Heart became generally known after the Great War, time slowly made people forgetful and impassive toward the dreadful power hidden inside of the Ancient Heart once responsible for dead of thousands and at last it becomes nothing but a bedtime story for children.
To remove the root of an evil, the Papal Court of Ecclesia concludes the Ancient Heart as a devilish artifact and declares anyone questions about the Ancient Heart shall be permanently excommunicated without exception to be made.
The land of Bersia seemed to in peace while four countries are mending their wounds from the war. However, a history has a tendency to repeat itself all over again. Without a warning, little town at the border near the Sacred Land - where Ancient Heart was once there - had been invaded by merciless Orcs. Responding to this foul act, Hironeiden declares a war against evil Vellond and start their invasion on Hexter.
And thus begins the epic quest of Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders, one of the few strategy games to arrive on the Xbox, and exclusive no less. I’m not a huge fan of RTS games but when Korean developer, Phantagram, is able to cleverly disguise the traditionally slow nature of the genre with a functioning façade of a hardcore action game, I have to rethink my position.
King Under Fire is more or less a system crossover sequel to the PC version, which at the time didn’t fare too well mainly due to the deluge of RTS games on the PC at the time and the fact that their game didn’t really stand out. The Xbox is starved for strategy games, and this one is packed with more solid action than most action games and original strategic gameplay, allowing The Crusaders to carve out its own unique genre and a place in Xbox history.
Kingdom Under Fire is a massive game spanning 60 missions ranging in length and complexity. Make no mistake about it; this game is complicated, at least in theory. Thankfully, there are fantastic interactive tutorials that teach you the skills you need before you have to use them in the heat of battle. As new units become available, so are new tutorials to teach you the new skills. Despite the intense action of the gameplay, this game requires a bit of patience, at least for the first few hours.
At its core the gameplay is a mix of Full Spectrum Warrior strategy and Dynasty Warriors-style action. During the RTS part, you command various troops to move around, change formation, and engage the enemy. The action is heavily based on the type of unit you are controlling. Your sappers can install or disarm traps, your spearmen can defend against incoming horsemen, and your archers can lay down cover fire so your infantry can engage in brutal melee.
The flow of the game is quite nice. Between missions you and your growing army set up base, either at one of the many cities on the massive world map, or you might just make camp out in the forest. Here, you have a chance to upgrade your heroes and officers through the purchase of new weapons and armor at the barracks, upgrade your troops through advanced training, and visit the pub before your next mission.
Troop training is based on experience and stat requirements and features a rather complicated “skill tree” where you have to move your current troops through a series of prerequisite upgrades before they achieve the highest ranking. Given enough time and patience you can turn the lowliest infantryman into a Paladin, an archer into a bombardier, etc.
The story is told through comic book panels during these mid-mission sequences and with real-time dialogue during pre-mission and mid-mission animations out in the field. The opening movie is basically a dynamic exchange between a few of the key characters as they march toward their first battle. It’s a great concept that keeps the narrative tightly integrated with the gameplay.
Once you and your men are placed on the campaign map you must strategically move them toward the objective. You can place waypoints on the mini-map or simply move the targeting pointer on the 3D world. You are often in control of multiple troops so you might need to send your archers off to the hillside to cover your infantry below while your sappers head off into the woods to search for traps. You’ll need to learn to manage all your units individually and together for maximum effectiveness.
When battle begins you are only in control of your hero while the rest of your men fight using AI and a morale system that is based on how well you are doing. As you land blows your skill meter will slowly rise and when it fills you can summon a special skill attack from one of your officers. In the case of Rupert, he starts spinning around with his giant hammer and becomes a whirling funnel cloud of death for 10-15 seconds. Or you could call upon the archery skills of Ellen and she will unleash a stream of arrows that would put Van Helsing to shame.
The battles can be quite large with up to 100 units on the screen at anytime, but the interesting hook is that often, you only need to find the enemy leader to win the encounter. Sometimes this is easy, like finding the lone Orc riding the giant boar, while other times the leader might be in a different color uniform or carrying a fancier shield that the rest. It’s almost like a bloodthirsty game of “Where’s Waldo”, and it can be easier if you have others watching the screen for you while you play.
As for your own bad self, you have a few modest combos available with heavy and normal attacks and even a functional block command that rewards you with a damaging counter-attack. The combat is simple enough that you can generally mash the buttons and kill several enemies per second yet eloquent enough that you’ll be compelled to master at least a few of the basic combos. The only real skill involved is knowing when and who to summon for those skill attacks, and finding the enemy leader as quickly as possible.
While the action portion of Kingdom Under Fire requires little thought, the strategy portion of the game is a bit more involved. Not only does it include careful planning and upgrading of your heroes, officers, and troops, but you must also do some real-time battlefield planning like positioning your troops in just the right place, taking into account the terrain and lighting.
Archers aren’t very effective when their targets are under the canopy of trees – this goes for you too – and even the direction of the sun comes into play. Archers are at an extreme disadvantage when firing into the sun, and likewise, it’s best to plan your approach with the sun at your back. You can also pick from high-lobbing shots or fast horizontal arrow strikes depending on the proximity of the enemy. You can also send out a lone scout to survey the terrain ahead and perhaps bait the enemy into following him back into a sapper trap or archer ambush. The strategic possibilities are limited only by your imagination and the skills of your available troops.
I only have a few complaints with Kingdom Under Fire and most of those have to do with control and AI. Obviously, RTS games are better suited to a keyboard interface with all of the management options and numerous commands required to keep everyone fighting efficiently. The Xbox controller does a good job with what it has to work with but you will still find yourself struggling through multi-layer menus during real-time combat. Either make the commands more accessible or pause the action.
The AI is rather poor, at least when you leave your hero in its care. The AI simply can’t fight at half the skill level I can (and I’m not bragging), and when you are forced to leave your hero to command another group of men you might be surprised to find out just how bad you are doing when you return. There’s no way around it as you are forced to micromanage your other various toops like archers and cavalry who are totally reliant on your formation and waypoint commands.
The poor AI only caused me to lose about four missions and once I learned the weaknesses I was able to compensate, plus the longer you play the more adept you get at skimming through the menus and ordering your men around. It’s all just part of the ongoing learning curve that tapers off about two hours into the game but still exists clear to the closing credits.
Kingdom Under Fire is exactly the type of game you want to play online and thankfully there is support for Xbox Live multiplayer for one-on-one matches that play just as well as the single-player campaign. You start off with a preset number of troops including three divisions of infantry, one archer group, and some aerial support. You can upgrade these with a fixed amount of experience points then head into battle. Defeat your opponents to earn more skill points then you can start playing around with new skills and troop combinations.
I would have enjoyed some other online game modes like CTF or domination and the four-player game that was dropped at the last minute is a significant loss. The versus mode gets a bit stale after a few matches, but I still have to commend Phantagram for giving us what they did. Kingdom Under Fire is just as much fun online as it is off, but without the staying power, and you’ll likely play the solo campaign more than the online component.
The visuals in Kingdom Under Fire are truly remarkable. My only regret is there was no progressive scan support causing the characters and environments to shimmer at times. There is so much detail in the units, especially your hero and the officers, and the enemies are all unique with excellent animations that play out at various speeds so you don’t get a hundred troops all swinging their weapons in some choreographed stage show. Everything looks very chaotic – just picture the final battle of Return of the King, only zoomed in to a cluster of 100 combatants.
The world map is exquisite and I spent a lot of time scrolling around the first time I played “ooo’ing” and “ahh’ing” making note of the fantastic locations that I couldn’t wait to explore. A temple carved into a mountain, and a city built on an island rock formation in the middle of a lake were just two of the eye-poppers that stood out on terrain that went from mountainous to forest, to plains, to snowy tundra, and it all looked like it was ripped out of the pages of National Geographic.
Special effects are solid with advanced lighting and shadows that play a huge part of the ranged combat tactics. There are also night and day missions, sunny, rainy, snow, all with appropriate lighting and weather effects. Fire effects are wonderful, both on arrows and incoming catapult fire. You can torch an entire forest and the trees will burn leaving behind charred wooden skeletons.
There are also fantastic magical effects with unique lighting and particles. Healing your party will create a pulse of white glimmering light that erupts into particles that shower down over your troops. Other spells are even more powerful and impressive.
The HUD and menus remain surprisingly easy on the eyes. Despite their complexity to navigate, the menus are easy to read and understand. The troop skill tree is laid out nicely and weapon and armor upgrades are easy to figure out. The city and camp interface is fun and easy to navigate.
At first the music seems totally out of place, but then it starts to grow on you. During the opening cinematic you get this really harsh rock/metal hybrid and the rest of the soundtrack features energized rock and metal rather than the traditional medieval fanfare you would expect. It’s about as jolting as the movie soundtrack to Knight’s Tale and just as fun when you get used to it.
Sound effects are excellent and you will hear your men traipsing through tall grass, splashing through water, or moving through the forest. Combat sounds are intense with hundreds of overlaying sounds of metal on metal, slicing flesh, and powerful skill and magic attacks. You’ll hear your men shouting (and screaming), and there are plenty of one-liners delivered by Rupert and your other officers.
The dialogue is pretty good from a scripted standpoint with a bit of contemporary jargon thrown in as early as the opening movie where Rupert is boasting about his bulging muscles and drinking prowess. Some of the dialogue gets a bit stale and repetitive, and there is a bit of overacting and forced accents, but none of it is truly bad. Take it or leave it, since you can skip the dialogue as fast as you can read the captions.
I did miss the lack of Dolby Digital surround. The Pro Logic mix offered was simply ok, but I can only imagine how much better this game would have been if I could have heard the thundering of cavalry hooves coming at me from behind or circling me during combat. The encounters are huge and very three-dimensional and the sound just doesn’t match.
You can play through Kingdom Under Fire as any of four characters; each represents their own increasing skill level, with the harder characters being locked until you finish as the other characters. You can probably finish the game with Gerald, the easiest of the characters, in about 12-15 hours and the other campaigns will take at least that long. Expect a good 50-60 hours of gameplay to totally conquer this game.
The online mode is a nice addition and there were a surprisingly amount of challengers out there on Xbox Live waiting to play. The lack of variety in game modes will ultimately cripple the online experience, but there is enough here to keep you busy for another 8-12 hours.
There is also the promise of new content, maps, missions and possible new characters so this estimate could go up if Phantagram delivers.
I usually have a hard time getting involved with strategy games, even on the PC where they are meant to be played, and when it comes to my console gaming I usually prefer action or racing titles. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined me becoming totally addicted to Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders.
The learning curve can be a bit steep for average console gamers, so make sure you give this game a fair shot. The first night I played turned into an eight hour marathon session, and the second time I fired it up was when I had some other GCM [strategy] reviewers standing by to give me their expert opinions, and that session lasted nearly five hours.
It was unanimous; Kingdom Under Fire is a fantastic game with amazing action and a solid, if somewhat fidgety RTS interface. The story is interesting and entertaining and combat is intense and totally addicting. Phantagram has the perfect mix of action and strategy with an emphasis on action. Play at your own risk but make sure you play.