Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders
Posted November 10, 2004
Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders is the Xbox-exclusive sequel to an apparently mediocre and derivative Warcraft II clone that I've never heard of, Kingdom Under Fire: A War of Heroes. After 50 years of peace following the conclusion of that game, a human border town is attacked by the Dark Legion, an empire of dark elves, orcs, ogres, and other various nasties, all kept in line by their vampire overlords. With war thrust upon them, the humans ally once again with the high elves and dwarves to fight back the hellspawn and, in the process, try to reclaim the Holy Ground for themselves.
Gameplay:
Although it's an action-tactics game, Korean developer Phantagram has chucked the base building elements found in its PC predecessor to focus entirely on combat. There are two seamlessly-integrated modes, maneuvering and combat, and each has its own controls. Depending on the troops selected, you can use your pull-down mini-map to give directions, set waypoints, cast spells, send out scouts, retreat, set traps, and even launch a volley of fire arrows to ignite a forest or campsite. When in combat, players directly control the hero and can use combos or special moves to help cut through the enemy.
There are four playable characters in Kingdom Under Fire: two good guys and two bad guys. Each hero advances a single story from his or her point of view. For example, in one battle you play Gerald, general of the human forces. In the next campaign, you play as Lucretia, a dark elf warrior, and experience that same battle from the other side, with Gerald performing the same actions he did while under your control. Remember Back to the Future Part II? Battles unfold the same way each time, but interestingly, each side has different objectives, so neither side "loses," provided you meet those goals.
Unlike Dynasty Warriors, Kingdom Under Fire isn't just a hack-and-slash. Although you can just use sheer strength to win missions early on, eventually you'll have to start thinking like a commander. Position your archers facing the sun and they might as well be blindfolded. But force enemy archers into that position and you have a distinct advantage. Try to take on heavily-reinforced positions on a hill with only a handful of troops and you'll just be committing suicide. But patiently sneak through the woods in tight formation using scouts to lure enemies away from the main group and you'll have much better results. These strategic decisions make a huge difference on your ability to live to fight another day.
After winning a mission, you'll most likely return to base, where you can upgrade your hero, officers, and troops with the experience points and gold you earned in the previous battle, RPG-style. Troops can even change jobs depending on the commander's skillset. Infantry can be upgraded to undead-slaying paladins, for example, or spearmen, or mortar infantry. There is a dizzying amount of weapons and armor to be had, and they actually appear on your troops in combat. In the pub you can gauge the morale of your troops based on events in the story and recruit all sorts of unique mercenaries, each with their own special skills, to be officers.
The game's not perfect, of course. Although the easy campaign is a moderate challenge for a new player, future campaigns ramp up the difficulty significantly. There are cases where I became pretty hopeless about passing a mission. Difficulty is not a bad thing except when campaigns are completely linear. If I could suggest one thing to Phantagram, it would be branching campaigns, so that you could assign some of your troops to fight one branch while you take the other. It would add variety and an extra level of strategy to the game.
There are some other minor issues. Once or twice I had trouble getting triggers to go off. In one case, after spending an hour and change escorting some messengers, I had to make an all-out run to the finish, while dodging troops and being bombarded by meteors. The first time I did this, I sent all of my soldiers sprinting. Unfortunately, the finish area trigger was too small to hold both my main troops and the messengers. I flustered about trying to move my main troops out of the area and the messengers inside while troops and giant flaming rocks of death descended on my position. But it was too late, and I had to spend another 60-plus minutes recreating my progress, since you can't save within a mission. It was a frustrating technicality.
There's also a significant learning curve. Although I think simplifying the controls would detract from the game experience, players need to be aware of it. To help with this, there are training opportunities as you gain new troops. These are extremely useful in learning the subtleties of controlling, say, cavalry.
The game is a single-player game first and foremost, but there is an online component. Two players can fight over Xbox Live while controlling up to four troop regiments. With all the on-screen action there can be significant lag (likely why four-player support was removed at the last minute), and battles feel sort of empty without the weight of the story behind them. Combined with the fact that there are not even options to cooperate (since all battles are now head-to-head), the Xbox Live support seems like an afterthought. It's also sad that there's no two-player simultaneous in the same room -- it's one of the reasons I enjoyed Dynasty Warriors as much as I did.
Graphics:
Brilliant. I love everything about the look of this game. Troops are highly detailed and heroes even more so. That there are literally dozens and dozens of these troops on screen at any given moment, often accompanied by ogres twice their height, giant scorpions that take up an entire screen, or enormous eagles and wyverns swooping down and carrying men off to their deaths -- all moving believably with little to no slowdown -- is quite an achievement for the developers, as well as a testament to the Xbox itself.
Beyond the look of the game is the nuance of the atmosphere. The camera occasionally jitters during cutscenes as if held by an embedded cameraman. If it's raining and the camera angles up, incredibly realistic drops of water hit the lens and slide down. Touches like these really go above and beyond in adding to the gaming experience.
Thankfully, the game supports 480p, as well.
Audio:
If this game has one weakness, it's the soundtrack. It starts on a high note, introducing our hero with chugging guitars and generally getting the player amped up for the rest of the game. But then monotony sets in. There's one slow song for the main menu, one slow song for between battles, one slow song for the credits, and maybe three identical chugging guitar songs that loop throughout the game. It's not irritating, but it could have been better. You can, however, thrill to them all in Dolby Digital surround.
In addition, you can set the audio to either Korean (with subtitles) or English. As usual, the Korean voice actors inject more emotion and believability into their performance. There's a lot of dialog in this game, though, so only the most important mid-battle comments are subtitled.
Conclusion:
Fans of Dynasty Warriors, take notice: Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders is here, and it's bigger, smarter, and more aggressive than its PlayStation 2 rival. Despite some difficulty issues and a weak soundtrack, it is easily one of the best action games available for the Xbox. Highly recommended.
Gameplay:
Although it's an action-tactics game, Korean developer Phantagram has chucked the base building elements found in its PC predecessor to focus entirely on combat. There are two seamlessly-integrated modes, maneuvering and combat, and each has its own controls. Depending on the troops selected, you can use your pull-down mini-map to give directions, set waypoints, cast spells, send out scouts, retreat, set traps, and even launch a volley of fire arrows to ignite a forest or campsite. When in combat, players directly control the hero and can use combos or special moves to help cut through the enemy.
There are four playable characters in Kingdom Under Fire: two good guys and two bad guys. Each hero advances a single story from his or her point of view. For example, in one battle you play Gerald, general of the human forces. In the next campaign, you play as Lucretia, a dark elf warrior, and experience that same battle from the other side, with Gerald performing the same actions he did while under your control. Remember Back to the Future Part II? Battles unfold the same way each time, but interestingly, each side has different objectives, so neither side "loses," provided you meet those goals.
Unlike Dynasty Warriors, Kingdom Under Fire isn't just a hack-and-slash. Although you can just use sheer strength to win missions early on, eventually you'll have to start thinking like a commander. Position your archers facing the sun and they might as well be blindfolded. But force enemy archers into that position and you have a distinct advantage. Try to take on heavily-reinforced positions on a hill with only a handful of troops and you'll just be committing suicide. But patiently sneak through the woods in tight formation using scouts to lure enemies away from the main group and you'll have much better results. These strategic decisions make a huge difference on your ability to live to fight another day.
After winning a mission, you'll most likely return to base, where you can upgrade your hero, officers, and troops with the experience points and gold you earned in the previous battle, RPG-style. Troops can even change jobs depending on the commander's skillset. Infantry can be upgraded to undead-slaying paladins, for example, or spearmen, or mortar infantry. There is a dizzying amount of weapons and armor to be had, and they actually appear on your troops in combat. In the pub you can gauge the morale of your troops based on events in the story and recruit all sorts of unique mercenaries, each with their own special skills, to be officers.
The game's not perfect, of course. Although the easy campaign is a moderate challenge for a new player, future campaigns ramp up the difficulty significantly. There are cases where I became pretty hopeless about passing a mission. Difficulty is not a bad thing except when campaigns are completely linear. If I could suggest one thing to Phantagram, it would be branching campaigns, so that you could assign some of your troops to fight one branch while you take the other. It would add variety and an extra level of strategy to the game.
There are some other minor issues. Once or twice I had trouble getting triggers to go off. In one case, after spending an hour and change escorting some messengers, I had to make an all-out run to the finish, while dodging troops and being bombarded by meteors. The first time I did this, I sent all of my soldiers sprinting. Unfortunately, the finish area trigger was too small to hold both my main troops and the messengers. I flustered about trying to move my main troops out of the area and the messengers inside while troops and giant flaming rocks of death descended on my position. But it was too late, and I had to spend another 60-plus minutes recreating my progress, since you can't save within a mission. It was a frustrating technicality.
There's also a significant learning curve. Although I think simplifying the controls would detract from the game experience, players need to be aware of it. To help with this, there are training opportunities as you gain new troops. These are extremely useful in learning the subtleties of controlling, say, cavalry.
The game is a single-player game first and foremost, but there is an online component. Two players can fight over Xbox Live while controlling up to four troop regiments. With all the on-screen action there can be significant lag (likely why four-player support was removed at the last minute), and battles feel sort of empty without the weight of the story behind them. Combined with the fact that there are not even options to cooperate (since all battles are now head-to-head), the Xbox Live support seems like an afterthought. It's also sad that there's no two-player simultaneous in the same room -- it's one of the reasons I enjoyed Dynasty Warriors as much as I did.
Graphics:
Brilliant. I love everything about the look of this game. Troops are highly detailed and heroes even more so. That there are literally dozens and dozens of these troops on screen at any given moment, often accompanied by ogres twice their height, giant scorpions that take up an entire screen, or enormous eagles and wyverns swooping down and carrying men off to their deaths -- all moving believably with little to no slowdown -- is quite an achievement for the developers, as well as a testament to the Xbox itself.
Beyond the look of the game is the nuance of the atmosphere. The camera occasionally jitters during cutscenes as if held by an embedded cameraman. If it's raining and the camera angles up, incredibly realistic drops of water hit the lens and slide down. Touches like these really go above and beyond in adding to the gaming experience.
Thankfully, the game supports 480p, as well.
Audio:
If this game has one weakness, it's the soundtrack. It starts on a high note, introducing our hero with chugging guitars and generally getting the player amped up for the rest of the game. But then monotony sets in. There's one slow song for the main menu, one slow song for between battles, one slow song for the credits, and maybe three identical chugging guitar songs that loop throughout the game. It's not irritating, but it could have been better. You can, however, thrill to them all in Dolby Digital surround.
In addition, you can set the audio to either Korean (with subtitles) or English. As usual, the Korean voice actors inject more emotion and believability into their performance. There's a lot of dialog in this game, though, so only the most important mid-battle comments are subtitled.
Conclusion:
Fans of Dynasty Warriors, take notice: Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders is here, and it's bigger, smarter, and more aggressive than its PlayStation 2 rival. Despite some difficulty issues and a weak soundtrack, it is easily one of the best action games available for the Xbox. Highly recommended.