Kingdom under fire: Circle of doom

[Chasym]

So ive been playing this game over the past couple days, i expected a nice RPG.
What i got was a hack and slash with RPG stuff slapped on top of it.
Its not a bad game at all, its actually fun, but only in small doses.
You get to choose between a few characters to play through their story line.
I chose Leinhart, The vampire prince with ninja weapons.

My friend is playing through as Celine, the archer amazon lookin chick.

But the rpg elements that are there arent all that fleshed out.
You hack and slash but smashing your X and B buttons through the game, Every character can equip two weapons at a time, one assigned to each button. My character kinda gets three because in one slight he can carry something like dual katanas, while in the other hand i have a big sword or something.
You can learn abilities like heal, clap, jump, dash. But you have to enter the dream world and talk to your leader and choose what you want to learn, and you can only learn the ability once you kill a certain amount of monsters on the list required for that ability.
you then can assign two abilities at a time to the X button and the RT.
You level up as you go, but when you level you can only add points to THREE stats. HP, SP and luck. no stats like STR, INT etc.

You can pick up weapons and items all over the place, and the higher your luck, the better chance youll get on items and more gold.
you can equip one piece of body armor, and some accessories.
You talk to IDOLS located in the middle of just about every location, but the IDOL that appears is random between three of them.
Idol of GREED, LOVE and DEATH.
Greed and love sell basic potions, weapons and armor.
Death sells extra inventory, exp, accessory slots, moon stones to change the moon phase for synthesizing, and some gear.
Synthesizing seems all but pointless. You can snyth any two items together and if you want you can synth an enchantment with them. most of the time this just adds a weak enchantment to the weapon that you dont care about and makes your weapons attack go down anyway.
The only reason i synth at all is for the achievements, for enchanting the same item up to 20 times. Which it costs gold to synthesize with a 100% or less success rate.
And the more you synth the same item, The more it costs the next time you do it, till it costs an insane amount of money to synth after about the 10th time.

I find myself nodding off alot after awhile of playing this game due to the constant button mashing and onslaught of enemies.
The bosses are not that fancy really, but they have proven to be one hell of a challenge.

as for the story, it seems pretty lame that so far the story does not progress on its own as you play. You actually have to initiate each part of the story yourself. You have to enter the dream world at the IDOL and talk to your leader person to get the story to progress a little, and even then, its only talking so far. , then they send you on quests to find stuff which one includes talking to all three idols, which is very annoying since they appear at random and you have to keep sleeping and waking up to see which one appears next. Then they each tell you to talk to the other idol.

The graphics are beautiful, and the enemy design is pretty cool. tho they do have the elemental types of certain mobs that just change their color a little later.
There are also rare monsters in the game with rare drops.
And you can play through the entire story ONLINE with up to 4 people. But sadly, no offline co-op.
When you fight a boss in co-op you will roll for the drops like in HNM battles and BCNM.

The only way to earn combo chains is to be using a blood lust weapon, which if you equip properly and get some nice weapons with high SP regen, you can combo forever. or as long as enemies stay near you.

The Game is fun, but in small doses, the repetitive button mashing causes sleepiness over time. Alot of the elements of classic RPG are missing and only there in half form. Synthesizing is pointless. and even the levels become winding and boring after seeing the game for awile, they just seem to be the same set up with a different design sometimes.

Worth the play indeed, but maybe not worth the buy. Its a rent.

 

[Anglis]

In an interview Gamespot did with the devs, it was stated that the devs were just making a game that was good for Co-op and a game that didnt take itself serious, but still fun. I think they said this game was a filler to pass the time till the real Kingdom under Fire series got moving again.

 

[Makelith]

I don't think the Kingdom under fire seies was ever moving to begin with, much less trying to move again. I tried the one on xbox, and hated its guts. I can't say i know anyone that was actually looking forward to this game.

 

[Skiewalker]

From the trailers I was expecting a bit more. Thanks for the review, Chasym. ^^ Saved me about $60.

 

[Chasym]

i just completed the game as leinhart, and heres the thing. i have no idea what this game was about.
why?
because you can literally run through the entire game without touching one piece of story line.
you never have to enter the dream world if you dont want to, but i was stuck on a quest to get a seed and everytime i killed a plant it said it was blighted and to find another one...i never found it. but i still got completing the game achievement, i started again on hard mode which lets me keep everything i had, my current level, gold, gear and stats and start from the beginning with all the mobs as RARE and higher levels.
Only problem with that is....because they are rare, they dont count toward your ability quests, and some of them wont even take any damage for some reason.
and the plants i need...wont drop seeds on hard mode because they are the rare version, pretty lame.
the end boss was the easiest thing in the game....ranged weapons are TOO OVER POWERED, you can defeat any boss, any mob just by standing far away and constantly shooting it....
when i got to the final boss, i felt weird having no idea why i was fighting this thing..

 

[Anglis]

i just completed the game as leinhart, and heres the thing. i have no idea what this game was about.
why?
because you can literally run through the entire game without touching one piece of story line.
you never have to enter the dream world if you dont want to, but i was stuck on a quest to get a seed and everytime i killed a plant it said it was blighted and to find another one...i never found it. but i still got completing the game achievement, i started again on hard mode which lets me keep everything i had, my current level, gold, gear and stats and start from the beginning with all the mobs as RARE and higher levels.
Only problem with that is....because they are rare, they dont count toward your ability quests, and some of them wont even take any damage for some reason.
and the plants i need...wont drop seeds on hard mode because they are the rare version, pretty lame.
the end boss was the easiest thing in the game....ranged weapons are TOO OVER POWERED, you can defeat any boss, any mob just by standing far away and constantly shooting it....
when i got to the final boss, i felt weird having no idea why i was fighting this thing..

I guess something must have kept you interested in it though? lol

 

[Chasym]

I guess something must have kept you interested in it though? lol

achievements! XD

 

[Firestreak]

You do realize achievements are meaningless numbers designed to sell games to people with OCD?

 

[Makelith]

MS has had achievement prizes before if you have >X amount of points or something like that.

 

[Anglis]

Though I never pay attention to achievements, it was pure marketing genius on there behalf. People buy games JUST to raise there achievement score, even if they hate the game lol.

 

[Chasym]

iv won alot of things with my achievement points, i fail to see how they are useless if i get free games and money for them...
They are fun to get too.

 

[Anglis]

Also, some games add Achievement awards for replay value.

 

[Firestreak]

Achievements add nothing to a game at all, They only play well on the nature of a lot of hardcore, competitive type console gamers. You think you're accomplishing something because Microsoft is telling you that you are. For the 200 hours you waste getting these meaningless points and hundreds of dollars you've spend on games you didn't want, they let you download a 4 dollar game for free if you're lucky.

I barely have time to play all the games I actually enjoy playing, I can't fathom playing through a game just for competitive purposes, especially if the competition is something that won't generally be respected outside of a sterile, virtual environment with people you'll never meet. I just don't understand and you're talking with a guy who spent unthinkable hours in FF farming sky, sea and camping the 3 kings.

If you're really playing through games you don't even enjoy for achievements alone, and there are games you actually do enjoy that you could be playing that are on the wayside, then honestly you and I have nothing of relevance to discuss as gamers, because all your opinions are null and void to me. If you have honestly ran out of games to play, which is astounding because Xbox 360 has tons of them and you seem to love a lot of games I wouldn't even touch, it's probably time to go multiplatform, I know I will the day I run out of games I actually wanna play.

 

[RaidrX]

I only like achievements if they are fun to get and in a game I like playing. Like Halo I got all of them because it was fun and didn't take that long. However I would never take the time to get the orbs in CD or all the flags in ACreed because to me thats just not fun and/or worth the time.

 

[Chasym]

Achievements add nothing to a game at all, They only play well on the nature of a lot of hardcore, competitive type console gamers. You think you're accomplishing something because Microsoft is telling you that you are. For the 200 hours you waste getting these meaningless points and hundreds of dollars you've spend on games you didn't want, they let you download a 4 dollar game for free if you're lucky.

I barely have time to play all the games I actually enjoy playing, I can't fathom playing through a game just for competitive purposes, especially if the competition is something that won't generally be respected outside of a sterile, virtual environment with people you'll never meet. I just don't understand and you're talking with a guy who spent unthinkable hours in FF farming sky, sea and camping the 3 kings.

If you're really playing through games you don't even enjoy for achievements alone, and there are games you actually do enjoy that you could be playing that are on the wayside, then honestly you and I have nothing of relevance to discuss as gamers, because all your opinions are null and void to me. If you have honestly ran out of games to play, which is astounding because Xbox 360 has tons of them and you seem to love a lot of games I wouldn't even touch, it's probably time to go multiplatform, I know I will the day I run out of games I actually wanna play.

and for what point in the real world does even playing a game hold?
ENTERTAINMENT.
if its fun, its fun, so you do it.
and for just about anyone who has a gamercard, Achievements are fun because WE feel they are fun.
If you think they hold no purpose and are stupid to have, your just plain wrong.
i mean come on, why the fuck is sony trying to implement an achievement system if its not doing so well?
They add plenty of replay value to games, They give you the option to earn something for doing things you would have 0 reason to be doing in a game otherwise.
"hehe i got every character to level 80 in this game for no real rhyme or reason but bragging rights but cant prove it"
well, now we can.

And as for playing games you wouldnt normally like for achievement points, That plays out very well too.
You end up playing a game...that otherwise would have never appealed to you or ever have been played by you because you want the achievements, so you start to play...and surprise you actually like this game. Suddenly you have a new game or series youll be buying all because you picked up a game for a few achievements. if you dont like it, youll just never play it again, just like before achievements.

And when the next MS challenge rolls around, ill be happy because ill be able to win easily. Some MS points, a free game/arcade game,t-shirt, cash. whatever they offer.
It doesnt matter if you like it or not, no one asked you to come to the 360 board AGAIN and start bashing something because you dont like it.
I enjoy achievements, Its a new part of my gaming experience thats here to stay, and gamers are screaming more for it. Its a hit for gamers, and if you dont like it, then whenever sony implements one of their own, which they have mentioned they would like to several times before, then just dont play games so you dont have to unlock any of your "pointless" achievements, because for many of us they add ALOT more reasons to play a game than before. They are fun.

 

[Firestreak]

Basically all I am gathering out of your rant is this.

1. You don't think it's pointless because you say it's fun.
2. It's pointless to do things that would be fun if you can't prove you did it.

As in, it's fun for you to reach level 80, but if you don't get an achievement it's pointless. But the point of achievements are only to have fun. It's really just nonsensical. Did you not have fun playing games before achievements came out? Do you need achievements to shape your experience by telling you what to do, because otherwise the game doesn't produce anything of entertainment? Or do you somehow take a sense or pride that if someone for some random reason, doubts the fact you made level 80, you can say, "haha look at my achievement list bitch," because otherwise it wouldn't be worth doing.

I'll say it again, they don't add anything to the game. You can do everything exactly as you did without achievements, you can just prove to some random people on the internet what you've done in game. If that's enough to make you buy a game you don't even like, it's pretty fucking sad.

 

[Chasym]

yes i had fun playing games before achievements, but now i have way more fun because theres more to work for than just beating the game and playing again just to play it.
There are achievements with goals in mind that you would have no purpose doing in the game if there was not an achievement for it, My usual is example is bowling over 10 zombies with one throw of a bowling ball in dead rising, now why would anyone care if they got a strike when doing it if there were no achievements, how would they even be able to really know or care?
Why would you set out to save only 8 women at one time instead of just grabbing whoever you can to save?
Why would you photograph every single survivor that really wouldnt give you any PP points or bonuses if there were no achievement for it?
Its things that people would normally not even bother to do or think about doing if the challenge was not set by the achievement, it adds on and gives more challenges to do in a game than were there before.
If the gamer score is pointless to you or not, it would still be just as fun if they didnt give me points and just showed up as a trophy saying you did this, that you accomplished the challenge.
Its a fun add on to gaming that lets me put more time into a game i otherwise would just play through once and be done with and bored until another game came out i wanted to play.
some people get into achievements hardcore, others are just casual at it, either way people enjoy getting them.
Achievements are pointless, yes.
But since when has anything you have ever done in a video games been for anything but entertainment purposes anyway?
anything you work on doing in a video game is just as pointless in the real world as an achievement.
but its still fun.

besides, achievements have been around since long before 360
http://kotaku.com/gaming/activision/activision-patches-the-first-achievements-252429.php

 

[Firestreak]

I don't think... you're getting... my point...

Gonna have to dissect this for you.

"There are achievements with goals in mind that you would have no purpose doing in the game if there was not an achievement for it,"

-We've already established that nothing has a purpose except fun. If it's fun, that's your purpose as there's no actual intrinsic value to doing anything video game related, just as there's no actual value to achievement points.

"My usual is example is bowling over 10 zombies with one throw of a bowling ball in dead rising, now why would anyone care if they got a strike when doing it if there were no achievements,"

-If you wouldn't care when there was no achievement, why would you care when there was? Let me give you an example, Elder Scrolls Oblivian.

Firestreak's Achievement Challenge: Kill 10 enemies in a row without any pants on.

I've just given you an achievement goal. Now something tells me nobody is going to race to their Xbox and start up Oblivian to do this. Why not? Because it's a completely pointless task. If a little notification however that said, "Acheivement unlucked: Pantless Killer" flashed on your screen, you might.

Now let's examine this situation. If killing 10 enemies without pants is actually fun then this user defined goal should be enough motivation. If you need Microsoft congratulating you, then it's something entirely other than "fun" you're looking for.

"how would they even be able to really know or care?"

-If it's not fun, why would you care in the first place?

 

[Firestreak]

By the way now, if someone says to me, "this multiplatform game that I want... I like both controllers equal, they look as good on both systems, ext... but the Xbox 360 version has achievements and I wanna get those" I'll understand them. You, who are taking the attitude that you're representative of 'what gamers have been wanting' are of the vast minority of people who'd actually play through a game just for the achievements alone.

It's got nothing at all to do with console wars, most 360 owners aren't like that, they buy their games because they like the games, period. I'm also sure if/when Sony implements it on PS3, trophy system or whatever, you'll have people with the PS3 buying games just to get more trophies that they don't even enjoy playing. It's not about the console wars, because to most people it's not even a point worth debating about for "which console to get," as nobody is going to base their decision on if they can get achievements or not. It's entirely my stance based on a wish that games are bought based on their merit as a good game as oppose to a piece of shit game with easy achievements for people to jump on. Since devs are gonna give what people buy.

 

[Pupusa]

After downloading the demo last night, I would say this game definitely falls in the rental category. It was fun, but it can really repatitive, it follows the Dynasty Warriors formula but with more RPG elements thrown in. The synthesis system looked interesting, but somewhat overly complicated to be enjoyable.

Meh, it was okay, but I doubt it'll sell much, even with the focus on Co-op, it just doesn't look very interesting...