Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Arthurian Legends - Witchaven-like medieval first-person slasher

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
https://arthurianlegends.net







Arthurian Legends is a medieval first person action game set in the land of Albion during a time of myth and legend. Uther Pendragon, a once righteous king now turned petty and cruel, banished magic from Albion and exiled those who practiced what he decreed as 'the old religion'. The exiled have returned to Albion aided by Saxons spreading a plague of darkness across the land. Battle hordes of Saxons, demonic beasts, the undead and more in intense melee and ranged combat. Discover awesome weaponry alongside magical runes and ancient relics to aid you in your quest to save Albion from The Masters of the Old Religion.

Features
►Three chapters with environments ranging from forests and swamps to castles and crypts.
►Carry over ten weapons including swords, axes, fire bombs and even holy hand grenades.
►Magic runes can freeze your enemies, cast fireballs, conjure lightning storms and more.
►Discover secret areas full of useful items, player-enhancing ancient relics, and hidden levels.
►20+ unique enemies: Saxons, spiders and skeletons, to demonic imps, wolves and knights.
►Gruesome combat, stab your opponents in the face, set them on fire, cut off their head or make them explode in a magnificent shower of blood and guts!
 
Last edited by a moderator:

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,156
It certainly looks clunky like Witchaven. Also, sure there are lots of explosions for a fantasy medieval game.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
:necro:

It's... alive?





ALHeader.png

darknessheader.png

In a time before Camelot, magic coursed through the veins of Albion and for generations the people learned to harness this power, and as with all things in nature they understood there was a balance. For a time the people were united in peace, 'til the day the once-righteous king of Albion, Uther Pendragon, cast blame upon magic itself for the death of his queen, and thus decreed magic to be of "The Old Religion", and banishing it's practice and followers from Albion forever...

A darkness now spreads across Albion, the crops are dying and the water is turning foul. The people are plagued with hunger and disease, fewer by the day have the strength to fend off the growing hordes of Saxons invading from the east. It is feared the Saxons are aided by dark magic, by those who were exiled by Uther's blood-lust, Masters of the Old Religion.

Header1.gif

apj.png

Alone, against an army of Saxons, demonic beasts, possessed knights, exiled mages, the undead and worse. Thy journey will take thee 'cross foul and treacherous terrain, from dark forests, forts and swamps, to the frigid wilderness and frozen caverns, to castles, crypts and caves. Along the way lay many hidden secrets full of items, magical runes and powerful ancient relics to aid thee in thy journey.

Header2.gif

mayhemheader.png

Slice the hell out of Saxons / demonic beasts / whatever. Smash them with thy shield, cut off their heads, make them explode in a magnificent shower of blood and guts, or simply give 'em a good old-fashioned fist and/or spiked club to the face. Conjure balls of fire and engulf thy foes in flames, freeze them and shatter their frozen corpses, cast thunderous storms of lightning to strike down any who stand beneath their tormenting clouds, and many more ways to bring thine enemies to ruin.
 

Riskbreaker

Guest
So is the "souls-like" tag on the storepage warranted by anything the devs said or shown, or is this just another example of Steam's userbase being overgenerous with its application?
 

Murk

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Messages
13,459
Every game is the dark souls of its genre; just like how Steam is the dark souls of digital distribution networks; and how words are the dark souls of communication; and how examples are the dark souls of explanation and how 'dark' is the dark souls of the words 'dark' and 'souls'.
 

toughasnails

Guest
They had that demo on their discord for some time an afaik there was even older demo available years ago. I wasn't very impressed with it but at least they managed to make the game feel like it's running on Build engine even though it isn't.
 

udm

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 14, 2008
Messages
2,752
Make the Codex Great Again!
My man Alpha Beta Gamer did a playthrough of the demo. Map design seems intriguing enough, if a bit basic. Combat feels meaty.

 

Riskbreaker

Guest
So this is out today, unless the dev messed something up with the release date. And not as an early access, which is something of a rarity for this genre (tho, this was in development for a while).
Not sure what the price will be.
 

Bad Sector

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 25, 2012
Messages
2,223
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I played the demo yesterday, it is a bona fide 90s-style retro FPS. The Witchaven comparison is unfair to the game as it has much better level design (with a lot of hidden but not obnoxiously cryptic areas with bonus items, etc) and higher quality assets. It is certainly one of the better retro FPS games, at least from a design perspective.

Also i liked the author's sense of humor :-P

3xyuyKL.jpg


One negative issue the game has is that due to the engine it uses (some obscure game maker software) it has very a low framerate around 40fps or so and the weird thing is that these slowdowns exist regardless of GPU or CPU. But at least personally i got used to it quickly. It'd be nice if that was addressed though but it does sound like a technical issue the developer has no control over.
 

Riskbreaker

Guest
The thing is, we don't really have much more to compare this with in terms of 2.5d games with melee focus without going into the RPG territory. So it's either Witchaven or Hexen with a melee character, and Witchaven would feel like a fairer comparison either from playing the demo or from watching the videos.
But yes, the maps are better than Witchaven's, they have more of that sense of place as in the later Build titles rather than being mostly abstract as in Witchaven. The combat is better for sure, thanks God.

And speaking of those 90s touches
0B0CE801EAC9CBD07F51F2660058CB2329633A54
 

toughasnails

Guest
One negative issue the game has is that due to the engine it uses (some obscure game maker software) it has very a low framerate around 40fps or so and the weird thing is that these slowdowns exist regardless of GPU or CPU. But at least personally i got used to it quickly. It'd be nice if that was addressed though but it does sound like a technical issue the developer has no control over.
It also had an issue with the game being zoomed in and all the hud and menu elements being slightly misplaced on certain resolutions... At least it was like that for me in the demo. The launcher lists p much any resolution regardless of aspect ratio by the looks of it but it doesn't look like the dev actually tested some of them.
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
2,476
The thing is, we don't really have much more to compare this with in terms of 2.5d games with melee focus without going into the RPG territory. So it's either Witchaven or Hexen with a melee character, and Witchaven would feel like a fairer comparison either from playing the demo or from watching the videos.
I was thinking and the only one that's actually a reasonable comparison to make (I.E., not a Wolf-clone) is Amulets and Armor, which might just be a RPG anyway. Witchaven, but good gets the point across nicely, and more retro game makers should take that kind of approach. Shitty old game, but good. You could do that with a lot of Capstone's games and come out with something worth playing.
 

Star Citizen

Learned
Joined
Oct 29, 2020
Messages
383
Location
South Africa
I'm fucking digging it. The art design speaks for itself. Melee combat is tense af and surprisingly meaty in all of its simplicity. It's challenging as fuck but in the right ways. Enemies hit hard and are relentless, ammo (including throwables) so far to be used sparingly, weapons break, shields break so you're gonna be hustling between gear often. Yet to see any Doom styled labyrinths but the levels do offer some well hidden secrets and have paths off the main that lead to areas which may hold a puzzle or key but I'm fairly early in so they'll likely get more complex the further I progress. All in all this just feels like an authentic experience. It's a blast to play, it's unpretentious good old fun which so far manages to capture that sense of intrigue I felt playing these games back in the day.
 

Riskbreaker

Guest
The flow of the maps is pretty damn great so far. Never once did I feel "stuck" but at the same time they don't feel railroaded and offer a fair bit of rewarding exploration.
As I said in another thread, this is made by someone with a fair bit of mapping experience for sure.
 

passerby

Arcane
Joined
Nov 16, 2016
Messages
2,788
Every game is the dark souls of its genre; just like how Steam is the dark souls of digital distribution networks; and how words are the dark souls of communication; and how examples are the dark souls of explanation and how 'dark' is the dark souls of the words 'dark' and 'souls'.

I miss the times when everything was Citizen Kane of videogames.
 

Riskbreaker

Guest
So the sprites for the assorted humanoid enemies appear to be based on the photos of costumed actors. Very much in line with how Capstone did it. I imagine some hilarity in the dev asking his friends or relatives to don these garbs.

I'm not sure about this given the resolution but I'm getting the impression that some of the creatures, say the two-headed hounds, are either stop-motion models or the dev tried to have them look is if they were.
In any case, this adds another layer of authenticity that many of these neo-retro games lack.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom