King Arthur II: The Role-Playing Wargame + Dead Legions

This game is similar to the Total War series. At the time, it provided a greater variety of strategic and tactical choices - to be fair, the Total War series caught up with some of the improvements made by King Arthur around Warhammer 1. Why play this, then? The story is unique (you'll learn the difference between Seelie and Unseelie and where the word 'silly' originates; edutainment!), the gameplay still fun, and the lovely text adventures are a sheer delight. There are some negatives as well; the camera is somewhat hard to move, according to modern standards; the unit control is serviceable, good even, but obviously doesn't have modern features like drawing paths on the map. The most glaring issue at the time of launch, performance, should no longer be an issue with any semi-modern gaming machine. Overall, a solid 4/5, raised further still by the fun I've had playing the text adventures.

For sure this is what I wanted to have when Total War Warhammer came out. Deep story, nice graphics and RPG aspect. For me TWW only has the one thing, the graphics. King Arthur II is a 2 dimensional game. You have your strategic map when you can see all of the Britain and the battle view which is baisiclly identical to TTW. Battles are great there are a lots of unit. Maybe the roster is small, but it is definetly bigger than you need for only one region of the world. Also it is accurate to the arthurian legend more or less. Overall the game is great experience, but.... The optimalization. I do not own the most powerfull rig in the world but gtx 1050 + i5 should have launch this game without issues. But the frame rate is below 20! Even on the lowest preset! For now i have not found any tweaks for this. I will give it another try on GoG (i owned it on the steam for quite some time) and i believe in GoG's team efforts to bring this game to the platform are worth it.

I had a lot of fun playing this. Image a game in the same vein as total war, but not total war, with King Arthur's Legends as the backdrop for the story. The game takes off where the first game left, after Arthur has reunited Britannia, there is yet again chaos throughout the land. You fight to either rule the land with an iron fist, or be a just ruler. There are some recurring characters you may notice and some new ones. I actually skipped the first game, but theres not much to miss. I played starting as the romans, and I was only vaguely aware they were in the story. I bought the game with dead legions, and I have to say I really liked that campaign. The story was pretty cool, and roman units uniquely and slightly aloof compared to the english units. The battles are decent, the graphics alright, and combat is not terrible. There are quests with mini-stories for you to read, though most if not all these are optional. Management of provinces has been simplified, leaving you to focus on the military and combat. There is a bit of diplomacy and hero development , with some special weapons and items your hero can equip. But it mostly revolves around your armies and conquering the map. How you do it is up to you, and being allied with certain factions give you access to units (and will also change your reputation). I believe there are different endings, and you will face non-playable enemies. Theres a decent amount of fantasy here, but it was enough to tickle the battles. Performance was kinda..ok. My pc surpassed system requirements , but the game doesnt want to seem to run past 30FPS. I'll have to update it sometime, as Ive gotten a new pc since playing. But the graphics are pretty decent. Didnt matter to me, as most the time I'm playing from overtop. People also mention camera issues. The camera is fine. Not amazing, but it works. Overall, not a bad game. For the price I paid, it was fun. If you want total war without the complex strategy, this is it.

There are many retellings of Arthurian legend, though most of them are, I think, completely derivative. He's degenerated in the public consciousness into nothing more than the most boring archetype of a king. One that I think is a great antidote to this is John Boorman's Excalibur, a film that embodies the bizarre nature of Arthur. The mysticism, the mysterious world of otherworldly mists and unknowable magic. A man who will be seen as a great hero, but in reality did no more and no less than he was always fated to do. This game and its predecessor take that to another level. There is NOTHING normal and familiar about this telling of Arthur, yet it is more deeply routed in the best aspects of the myth than almost any other modern adaptation. Arthur's knights are beset by foreign invaders like the saxons. They stand in the ruins of imperial Rome. They battle ghosts and fairies and monsters and foul sorcerers. They are plagued by internal conflicts, and Arthur is forced to mediate between Christians and Pagans, and between good men and evil. The gameplay itself goes from good, to serviceable, to basically unplayable depending on the day. Don't be afraid to use cheats to skip the bad and get to the incredible.