Legends Of The Round Table Review

Legends of the Round Table is a hybrid game of turn-based tactics mixed with a kind of point-and-click adventure, the lightest sprinkling of some role-playing narrative choice and the tiniest bit of squad management for garnish. On top of this, all these elements are driven by a card-based skill-testing system. A retelling of seven adventures from the Arthurian canon that play out over a consecutive series of years, you will designate knights to sit at the Round Table before they then lead skirmishes and quests for the kingdom. That is, if they can endure beyond the old age of 55 or one of the many mortal dangers that lie in wait when away from the table. Canadian Indie outfit Artifice Studio has approached these popular grand tales of British myth with musical flair, some impressive vocal delivery and a bold visual aesthetic. It does a commendable job at presenting these myths, but the various gameplay elements are simultaneously doing too much, not enough, and getting in the way of a good show. 

After players have completed an amusing opening tutorial that tells the classic origin of Arthur as an incompetent squire who pulls a sword from a stone, you will see his quick ascent to the crown. He then recruits his mates and family to the Round Table before sending them across the realm on missions. At the Round Table, there is some basic squad management at play. Each knight can bolster their inspiration (ability to manipulate skill tests), get healing, accidentally execute themselves by sitting on the throne, or form a party for the main quests. The decision space here, like most of this game’s systems, is novel but usually has one correct or viable option to choose from.

The tale of the Green Knight nails the story’s dreamier elements, making for a fantastical and surprising quest

Quest adventures begin with a brief squad management sequence where the player will designate which knights will make the questing band, while also outlining which skill proficiencies (there are at least 12) will be most tested over the course of the lengthy quest (more on those skill tests later). The quest then progresses to a storybook sequence where a poem is sung to the player in theatrical fashion, before our sole narrator then lends voice to our characters and the proceedings. The delivery was one I warmed to. These Arthurian stories can run the risk of being a bit hard to digest for contemporary audiences, being so consumed with the moral quandaries of medieval chivalry. Having a narrator who is able to lend emotional heft where necessary, with fun layers of snark and sarcasm, is my favourite part of this game. I cared about these stories and these characters far more due to the delivery, and would classify these renditions as the more digestible tellings.

Quest writing is similarly compelling, with our knights ignorant of the famous perils that await them, and thus, the player can alter these tales. There are plenty of opportunities to twist fate and bring the narrative arc of a known story to a markedly different conclusion, often with gameplay ramifications that backfire against our mortal knights. Most of the time when I broke canon, the game responded by limiting my access to the highest valued cards, which the game calls upon in virtually every interaction and event. My ability to succeed in combat and skill tests is hindered, making it far more challenging to reach a satisfying conclusion for the given quest.

I don’t have enough will and courtesy to succeed in the rizz. I will need to play my trap card.

Quests also happen to be where the game showcases its best music and art. Artifice Studio has pulled together a collection of stringed instruments, musicians, and illustrators that help make this Arthurian video game stand out as one of the most artistically distinct takes on this mythology. Illuminated manuscript defines the 2.5D landscapes with a notably limited colour palette owed to a defined selection authentic to the early medieval period. Players ride or walk from left to right across these vivid backdrops, maybe entering a lane in the foreground or a door in the background. You’ll see Hadrian’s Wall and Stonehenge as your knights travel between the adventures’ non-player characters, their animated 3D models shadowlessly gliding across the mostly static environments. There is an attempt at a visual magic trick in Legends of the Round Table that grew on me over time, a bold mix of 3D models and 2D illustration styles, also adhering to schools of artistic motifs that should probably clash but mostly work in the service of this game’s unique identity. Of the many Arthurian video games on the PC market over the last three decades, I truly think Artifice Studio has defined one of the most aesthetically striking and visually memorable entries, and there’s no shortage of adequate competition with the likes of the recent Tainted Grail games and Sworn. 

For such a well-considered aesthetic, I was disappointed that parts of the core gameplay experience miss the mark of an engaging player experience. Specifically, the combat feels limited in its execution and too demanding for its relative simplicity, with the pervasive card-driven hand management constantly getting in the way.

This 3v1 fight took forever; my knights struggled to land hits on the behemoth

No matter the combat scenario in the game, fights play out in largely the same slow manner. Your knights typically either begin on horses and armed with lances, or on foot with swords, facing an equal or greater number of foes in similar arrangements. You and the computer both spend the first round moving towards one another on a three-lane grid. You then finally get in attack range, and do a weapon attack in either a general or limb-specific flavour, à la Fallout. Six points against a limb, the character dies. Attacks are carried out with slow and sometimes overly long animations as characters struggle to elegantly pathfind their way across the combat map or position themselves for an attack. Speaking of which, there’s virtually no positional tactics or terrain modifiers, so most combat is just about throwing your knights into the fray until they get exhausted and then rotating them with your rested knights waiting behind. Every sword slash, shield block, horse scare, and rallying call demands a skill test. Several variables will be called upon, from the knights’ stats to their wounds, exhaustion, and enemy morale. Despite all the numbers being thrown around on the screen, this all plays out as a fundamentally basic turn-based tactics game of dudes attempting to hack at other dudes in an orderly manner back and forth for far too long. 

There is a magic system in this game, but it is hidden away in favour of displaying those knight stats that will be repeated elsewhere on the screen when relevant. The magic system seems to be the only tool available to players seeking alleviation from the demanding card system, in which a deck of roughly 20 cards will be half-filled with low values that won’t get you far on skill tests. The frequency of these tests is so constant that Artifice Studio could have thrown the player a bone with a few dice rolls, automated outcomes, or at least some save-state rollback feature that isn’t as nuclear as auto-save scumming and complete chapter rollbacks. This game is committed to its card-driven test system, using it in almost every element of the game, including dialogue, but having to navigate a five-card hand management mini-game every time I wanted to interact with any element that pushes the game forward, I felt like it too often bogged down proceedings. The inevitability of a bad hand can be frustratingly costly, with the possibility of permanently losing your few knights, which results in an increasingly harder experience that the game fails to prepare the player for. 

I wish the magic system were emphasised more to the player, as it is essential for managing your cards 

Final Thoughts

Legends of the Round Table pulled me in with its approach to telling classic Arthurian tales with vivid visuals and a playful approach to narration. Its writing is able to present a role-playing-lite experience through narrative choices that somewhat accommodate players unfamiliar with the details of the classic myths, or those seeking to make their own mark. Despite the narrative flexibilities, the threat of failure hangs heavy. You will lose on quests, and the game will move on, your loss recorded against a final campaign score. Even if you manage to fully understand the numbers-heavy systems driving skill tests in this game, you will never be able to adequately account for the many instances where probability is hidden from the player, with the consequences of failure so brutal to the player’s long-term prospects of seeing any of the game’s conclusions. In play, Legends of the Round Table was more concerned with pushing me slowly through cascading failures without adequate support, while waving its uninteresting card management system in my face. Too frequently would it boot me out of the loving embrace of this game’s bold, artistic approach to these stories and into its paint-by-numbers combat that lacks any engaging texture or decisions.

Reviewed on PC // Review code supplied by publisher

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