Battle Kingdom (C64)

Battle Kingdom (Icon 64) $4.99 USD (digital) / £8.99 to £24.99 (physical)

Game title: Battle Kingdom

Game description: Battle Kingdom is an action adventure game where a tranquil kingdom has been overrun by undead souls, savage beasts and evil dragons who have captured the kingdom’s princess. You play the role of Sir Bob who needs to go out to explore the kingdom - dispatching the evil that lurks within, collecting fragments of the master sword and rescuing the entrapped princess. Starting the game off - we are presented with an overhead map view of the kingdom. In this view Sir Bob and enemy characters are portrayed as dots and we need to guide Sir Bob around to enter the buildings with door entries highlighted in yellow while avoiding the enemy. As you enter a building, the view changes over to an internal top down view of the building floor plan and Sir Bob needs to eliminate all physical enemies with his trusty bow and arrow. Spectres cannot be killed but must be avoided. Finishing off all the perishable enemies within a room results in a reward item being revealed - which may be jewelry (bonus points), a quiver of arrows or a fragment of the Master Sword. When navigating outside around the kingdom if you take too long to enter another building then you raise the ire of the evil dragon who comes out and heads straight for you - costing one of your 3 lives. When all fragments of the Master Sword have been found only then can you enter the castle in the middle of the screen to do battle with the evil dragon. When you kill the dragon, you have saved the princess and are rewarded with an extra life. It's then time to do it all again and save another. There are 8 princesses in total to rescue

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  • Production - 80%
    80%
  • Fun - 40%
    40%
  • Depth - 50%
    50%

Summary

Battle Kingdom is one very good looking game that has all the potential to be a good arcade adventure game but it is stifled with its repetitive and non-progressive game play, making the game a bit of a chore to complete. The only difference across the 8 levels on offer is the number of Master Sword fragments that need to be found increases and the end of level dragons become harder to defeat – otherwise each level has the same kingdom map with the same room configurations with the same way of killing the enemies…even the princess in need of a rescue looks the same. Adding game play elements such as the requirement to find items to unlock areas, skill upgrades, variation of map layouts, etc would make Battle Kingdom a must play but without these the whole experience feels a little hollow.

Overall
57%
57%
Sending
User Review
2 (1 vote)

Pros

  • Colourful & detailed graphics
  • Balanced difficulty

Cons

  • Game lacks progression
  • Repetitive game play
  • No save game function

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