A beautiful presentation that doesn’t show the game itself rarely excites me, but few titles have managed to interest me as much as King Arthur: Knight’s Tale with just a cinematic video. I loved the dark and gritty clip about the most famous legendary English monarch, making me a big fan of NeocoreGames’ strategy title. Despite its problems, I more than enjoyed it when I tested it two years ago, and now it’s time to read it again.
All in all, this is no longer Knight’s Tale for several reasons. Firstly, despite its similarities, King Arthur: Legion IX is a complete product in its own right, requiring no knowledge of the previous title. Secondly, we are no longer knights as we now control a Roman legion led by the tribune Gallius Julius Mentus. While it’s still set in the land of Avalon and you’ll meet many of the Knights of the Round Table, the story is about commanding your immortal troops from Tartarus and building an eternal Rome in Avalon before heading to the world of Avalon return to life.
I would like to mention again that anyone who has played Knight’s Tale will feel comfortable with this new title, as it was originally created as an expansion before becoming a standalone product. With this in mind, it is not surprising that there are no major changes to the game system or presentation, narrative, interface and other aspects. The core story is different, featuring new characters who approach combat differently, but the systems introduced by its predecessor, including the morale table and progression, have been fully retained.
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This has its good part, but also its bad part. Exploration and level design were never a strength of Knight’s Tale, despite its great stage design and aesthetics. The characters and combat are highly polished, but they also have dents in their armor as the missions continually send out enemies with little opportunity to heal and prepare for other battles. There are a variety of progression systems that offer many playable customization options, but the game explains them poorly, leaving the player to figure out how to use them using a short text for reference. We also have the Morality Table, a great idea with questionable implementation, as it is the player who should decide whether they are good or bad, and should not be forced down a path based on difficult and polarizing decisions. The narrative itself suffers from the same problems, having a great overall concept but somewhat lacking in sophistication and elegance and dialogue that isn’t always the best.
Knight’s Tale, as good as it was, had its problems, but they could be forgiven or at least accepted. Legion IX, on the other hand, came out two years later, so it would be understandable to assume that they would have fixed some of these complications or tried to improve them, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, which puts the blame on the game’s better elements, to compensate for that.
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Don’t get me wrong, this “expansion” offers an excellent combat experience with great depth and many tactical elements to explore. You can customize characters to suit your play style by giving them better items and equipment and using upgrade points to unlock the skills you like most. This aspect, along with a branching dialogue system, an approach that reduces some of the complications of its predecessor, and a new range of creative and challenging enemy types that include supernatural beings, humans, and even rival members and deserters of the Legion itself, creates a game with a lot Appreciation.
All in all, performance is a part of Legion IX that I can’t excuse. Aside from the characters getting stuck on invisible objects in the levels and the UI failing and not being able to use certain buttons in combat, I also experienced some of the most catastrophic crashes I’ve ever seen as they not only ended the game, but also ended up shutting down my entire PC (twice!). Frankly, this is unacceptable and severely detracts from the overall experience.
King Arthur: Legion IX is best described as something a little more like Knight’s Tale, as it doesn’t contain enough new and defining elements to set it apart or improve upon its predecessor. This isn’t a purely negative thing, as the previous title is a competent strategy game, but I can’t help but imagine what could have been if Neocore had instead taken more risks with the design or playable system to make this new title stand out acts like an additional appendix to the original product.
