For The King - Turn-based strategy with cartoon graphics and roguelike co-op. Turn-based strategy For The King - review

For The King is a recently released project on Kickstarter from IronOak studios. A turn-based strategy with co-op and eye-pleasing graphics that tells the story of the adventures of heroes fighting for their lands.

Game mechanics consists of two main aspects - turn-based combat and turn-based exploration of the world.

Turn-based battles- created in the style of classic JRPGs. Choose the type of attack, action and use of items. Activate special skills to defeat the enemy.
You can speak out against evil with friends in a cooperative . Help your comrades and support them in battles.

Character knowledge plays a major role in combat and exploration. Having collected a certain amount of knowledge, it can be spent in city libraries. New character skills can be unlocked in any order the player chooses. As players progress, they will find different blueprints for weapons and unusual items. Collect resources to make tools and necessary things.

Step-by-step exploration of the world- just like battles, it is built according to the canons of classic turn-based games. But the game world is completely random, and you can meet dangerous enemies and unexpected events on your way. So you need to spend action points strategically.

World Exploration- one of the main features of the game. Players will explore unknown seas, explore new towns and villages, build shelters and fight through hordes of enemies. In addition to the heroes’ homelands, players will be able to visit other worlds that are home to dangerous enemies and unsolved mysteries.

Explore underground worlds, catacombs, mines and crypts. Explore the dungeons, players may encounter endless treasures or danger, fear and death.

Players will begin their adventures in their hometown of Oarton.

All events and challenges change every day, the weather and environment affects the world, and it will involve both good and bad effects on the environment. Players must be prepared for anything that awaits them: sandstorms, landslides, storms and much more.

Speed, strength, durability, talent, awareness and vitality- the main features that will shape each character. Plus everyone has their own main skill.

In co-op, players can choose their character and begin exploring the world together.

FortheKing is a fairy tale for adults where cartoon characters fight mythical creatures like cyclops and minotaurs. At first glance, everything looks very nice, but in fact, more than once you will have to witness how your opponents fill everything around with blood or burn in fire. The game is currently in Steam Early Access.

The backstory of the game tells about a king who did a lot of good for his people. Everything went like clockwork until one day the king was killed. The country quickly plunged into chaos, ancient monsters emerged from everywhere - in general, only some very powerful wizard could save the situation. There was such a wizard, but he, of course, disappeared. Your team will have to find it. As a matter of fact, both the backstory and the story campaign do not try to seriously talk about the events taking place in the long-suffering kingdom. There is no deep story in For the King yet. But there is a rather nice open world into which a party of three characters finds themselves.

There are about ten available hero options for creating a team, but only three are available from the start - a hunter, a scientist and a blacksmith. As you can understand, the misfortune took the kingdom by surprise, so the most ordinary inhabitants will save it: not warriors or selected killers, but workers from the surrounding area, who decided that it was their duty to protect the world. Each class has its own advantages and disadvantages. So, the blacksmith plays the role of a tank, but with limited damage, the hunter penetrates armor well, and the scientist is a variation of the mage.

Despite the standard class division for role-playing games, the characters' skills are given by their equipment. So, you can give a scientist a staff, and he will be able to heal the party and hurt the enemy. If you exchange this staff for a fire grimoire, you will have fireballs and smoke screens at your disposal. Each weapon found has its own abilities and characteristics, adding considerable tactical depth to For the King. Often you will have to change weapons mid-fight because they will give you the ability you need in a particular situation.

There are a lot of opponents in the game, ranging from ordinary orcs and skeletons to Cthulhu-like mind controllers and liches.

The battle system in the game is built according to JRPG standards. You face an enemy, line up in two lines, and deal damage to each other in the order determined by initiative. It's a little frustrating that the damage is determined completely randomly. Each weapon has focus slots that are tested for luck. Depending on whether you are lucky, the force of the blow is calculated. These cells can be filled with focus points manually, but each character has very few of them, and they can only be restored by resting, which will take the whole day. How the success of a check is determined is not entirely clear, since failures occur very often, although the chance of getting five failures twice in a row is quite minimal. But this happens.

The entire game takes place on a small island, which is a hexagonal field. Each turn there is a speed test that will show how far you can go that day. But, as with weapons, you can spend focus points and move a couple of cells further.

Running alone and far awayFortheKing is quite dangerous, since on any cell you can encounter a random enemy who will jump out of ambush. Fortunately, they are usually weaker than visible monsters.

Your characters move separately, so you cannot combine them into a standard party. If you suddenly start a battle, all the characters who are within a certain radius join it. That is, each hero can fight alone, but it is better not to do this.

For the King is a difficult game even by roguelike standards. The initial enemies are relatively simple, so you can relax. Wolves and various kinds of undead do not pose much of a threat. But it’s enough to go further, and the real problems begin. Even one Cyclops, above whom the “Level 3” sign is lit, is several times more difficult to defeat than enemies of a lower level. In addition, there are dungeons where you have to fight several battles in a row without knowing who you will face.

What makes the game even more difficult is the time limit. Each task from the main quest chain must be completed very quickly, which does not give you time to level up your characters. As a result, you have to go into battle against some evil creatures of the sea god almost with a hammer in your hands. I wish the game gave a little more time to complete such difficult missions.

Character development in the game is automatic. You gain levels, and characteristics are distributed as needed for the selected class.

Even ordinary battles in the game are interesting due to the considerable number of possibilities for destroying the enemy. There are dozens of different tactics and weapons to try. Unfortunately, cool swords break very quickly, so you won’t be able to beat the game with just one. And the map is generated in a new way every time, which makes each of your attempts different from the previous ones. You won't be able to get through everything the first time, so you'll have to try many times.

It is worth noting the unusual visual style of the game. Looking at the cute six-eyed monsters that can kill a character in two hits, it’s impossible not to be touched. But appearances, as we know, can be deceiving. There's still a lot of work and work to be done on For the King, but the game has a lot of potential and is well worth trying out now.

Today we have the debut project of the young Canadian company IronOak Games - For The King. A roguelike strategy game with a procedurally generated world and gameplay in the style of classic board strategy games. There is some D&D stuff (mostly dungeons and dragons). A typical “bagel”, to use gaming slang. It won't be easy here. One life - one try. Lost, all over again. A message warning about this greets players already at the start.

Funds for the game For The King were collected on Kickstarter (which, in general, is not surprising for such a debut). As development progressed, the preferences and desires of connoisseurs of turn-based role-playing “bagels” were taken into account. Apparently, we should expect a good cocktail of the best elements of D&D, Heroes of Might and Magic, and the like, in a modern creative design. Well, let’s proceed to a detailed analysis of the project.

Plot For The King

We are ordinary citizens of the fairytale kingdom of Fairul. Suddenly, certain forces of Chaos attack our state and brutally kill King Bronor. Queen Rasamona mourns, and our entire country mourns with her. At the call of the queen and at the behest of their own patriotism, many residents go out to fight Chaos. For three of these, the player will have to go through the story campaign. These are ordinary citizens of different professions with their own unique characteristics, gameplay advantages and disadvantages. Everything here follows the canons of a classic role-playing game.

Old school. No staged videos or cinematic inserts for you. Text only. Between main quests, the player is introduced to entire walls of text. They tell the whole story about the kingdom, the Chaos wars, etc. In addition, there are also plot dialogues. They are also presented only in text, with an avatar of the speaking character.

As we progress through the story campaign, we carry out the queen’s orders, solve new problems that arise, and stuff like that. Each time we discover this world in a new way (procedural generation is very appropriate here). Of course, there is leveling up of game characters.

Bottom line: the plot does not stand out with any special features or literary devices. It is likely that many players will simply skip all this text in order to quickly get to action without bothering. Moreover, there is no trace of localization here. English text only. Therefore, it is unlikely that everyone will appreciate it. If anyone is interested in him at all.

Graphics For The King

The picture of the game is pleasant, bright and cute. At the same time, the character and landscape models are quite simple. They are angular and poorly detailed. To put it simply, puppetry. It looks like a game. But no. This project is clearly at a higher level.

Most of the time the player observes the map from above. Makes character moves in designated areas, takes on quests, moves from point A to point B, which are placed randomly. The bottom of the screen is occupied by character panels. There you can click on them to perform an action, monitor current parameters, available inventory, etc. At the top of the screen are health bars for everyone. During a meeting on the map with random opponents (wild animals, monsters, goblins and other game) or plot antagonists, the camera lowers to ground level. Then the player watches the fight up close. It’s worth saying that such fights are animated very poorly. Although, given the general graphic part, there is no need to do anything differently.

Bottom line: the game For The King is made simply, but tastefully. It's not very often that step-by-step role-playing games with such a cute, pleasant picture appear. Of course, we could add more detail and work on the models. But this will do.

Gameplay For The King

Gameplay for For The King is typical of a turn-based, strategy RPG. You need to customize the three main characters and consistently complete plot tasks. Characters belonging to different strata of society and professions have their own individual characteristics of leveling up and wielding weapons. You need to distribute experience points correctly and learn from your strategic mistakes (there will definitely be some). We move along the plot, take on the necessary quests. Key, scripted quests remain unchanged, but the map on which they take place is generated procedurally and differently each time. Plus there are various random events as you progress through the maps. We make moves in cells, plan further movement, and launch our protégés into the attack one by one. Besides colorful forests, fields and villages, there are also traditional dungeons with dragons.

Bottom line: lovers of detailed, turn-based RPG gameplay will find what they are looking for here.

Conclusion

Quite a worthy debut for a young Canadian studio. This RPG is not a clone of anyone in terms of setting. An interesting and original world. In terms of the quality of execution, there are enough minuses, but making allowances for the first project, the rating is “good”. Fans of turn-based “bagels” are recommended to play through.

For The King System Requirements

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows 7
Processor: 1.4 GHZ dual core CPU
RAM: 4 GB RAM
Video card: 256 MB GeForce 8800, Radeon 3850, or Intel HD 3000
DirectX: Versions 9.0c
Disk space: 2 GB

RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows 7, 8, or 10
Processor: 2 GHZ quad core CPU
RAM: 8 GB RAM
Video card: 1 GB
DirectX: Versions 9.0c
Disk space: 2 GB