Knights of Legend

[Excidium]

I guess that some games are obscure for a reason.

 

[octavius]

So basically, the best combat engine ever?

It has some good stuff, like the fatigue rules and Foresight skill to try anticipating enemy moves. Different races/classes can use any armour, but with factors like weight of the armours and wepons, characters' strength, and fatigue from moving, attacking, defending and casting spells, it makes sense to have Dwarven and strong human fighters in heavy armour, tall and not very strong Kelden warriors in medium armour, archers and scouts in light armour and mages in only clothes. A better system than the arbitrary rules of most other CRPGs, although the end result is not so different in practice.

But the actual combats are slow and tedius, the battle fields of random encounters are featureless with the only tactical element being standing on a tree square to lessen chance of being hit by arrows, and the encounters of mobs of one type of monster were not very exciting.
AFAIK there is no backstabbing or other special combat abilities, and no spells for crowd control or boosting the entire party.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

If the randoms are annoying you (and I never had masses of randoms) then just sheath your weapons and flee.

I warned you about the Goblins in my play example. Bit of a surprise eh? Like Orcs in the Gothic games. Whereabouts did you meet these Goblins? Near Shellernoon by any chance?

I also told you that if finishing the Magic Candle was too hard for you, this will knock you on your arse. Did you listen? Nooooo...

KOL ranks alongside Deathlord as another tough, merciless RPG. Pool of Radiance, for example, is a beginners game in comparison.

Sounds good. Do you know if you have to finish MC 1 to transfer characters? I'll probably finish it later some time anyway, though.

Not sure. I have only played and finished the C64 version of MC1, and then been forced to play from scratch in MC2, but I had no issues doing this.

 

[octavius]

If the randoms are annoying you (and I never had masses of randoms) then just sheath your weapons and flee.

I did that when facing 12 Minotaurs.

I warned you about the Goblins in my play example. Bit of a surprise eh? Like Orcs in the Gothic games. Whereabouts did you meet these Goblins? Near Shellernoon by any chance?

No, near Htron.

I also told you that if finishing the Magic Candle was too hard for you, this will knock you on your arse. Did you listen? Nooooo...

Too hard? Magic Candle was not hard; it just got boring afte in the end. I'm sure you know the difference if you put your mind to it.
KOL is hard though, but I would have been able to beat those 8 goblins, if I could find the last one. I searched the battle field with my three remaining characters, but after an hour I had enough. Too bad there is not even morale rules in this game.

 

[octavius]

Heh, I gave it another try and this time I beat the 8 goblins easily in less than 30 minutes, so obviosuly luck plays a big part in this game. There is one good thing to say about goblins - they don't have much hit points, so my Plainswoman insta killed three of them with her longbow.

Ome of my pet peeves are games that "cheat", ie different rules for monsters than your own characters. In Magic Candle monster can move diagonally, while my own can't. In KOL monsters can choose freely between missiles and melee attacks, while my own guys need to use a round to switch weapons.

Anyone know if it is possible to finish the game without "grinding"? Or will you get enough XP from the quests only?

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Ome of my pet peeves are games that "cheat", ie different rules for monsters than your own characters. In Magic Candle monster can move diagonally, while my own can't. In KOL monsters can choose freely between missiles and melee attacks, while my own guys need to use a round to switch weapons.

The 'moving/attacking diagonally' thing was in many, many old RPG's. It never bothered me.

However, I don't remember the missile/melee business in KOL. Will check it out. That would be silly.

 

[octavius]

It's sad to think of all those games that were planned, but never released. But I'm absolutely overjoyed that the planned add-ons for this game were never released. It really deserved to flop.

I've done 6 quests now and they are all the same. Someone has had an item stolen and someone else in town knows where it is. Then you battle 12 identical monsters on a huge battlefield where you can only move one or, if you run, two squares at a time. There is no way to move the party as a unit, oh no, each fucker has to be moved individually. Combine this with phased combat and you have all your characters bumping into each other when trying to move through corridors. It's impossible to have character 1 move first, then character 2 etc. You thought moving through the Firewine dungeon in Baldur's Gate was tedious and frustrating? It's a dream compared to this game!

The game is not that hard and the combat itself is not so bad, but it is so bloody SLOW to move your characters and track down all the enemies on a big battlefield with no map, and the playing area being so tiny.

I wonder how many actually completed this game? The only blog or Let's Play I found the guy playing it lost patience, hacked the game so that he had one super character and was the able to finish it before he died.

 

[RK47]

It's really Jagged Alliance in medieval times. I kinda dig it but as someone mentioned earlier, it needs a more...varied approach per combat and I think TOEE and Realms of Arkania did it better.

You won't survive long in this game...the amount of shit it can throw at you, and no save game out of town is probably a killer for me. And I don't really dig endless combat, anyway. Never finished and probably never.

 

[Baron]

I had the original of Knights of Legend, and Space Rogue. Remember both games fondly, particularly the Space Rogue. Origin meant goodness. Fights in KOL did go for ages, and I always remember my dwarf. He didn't do the big damage, but he was always the last standing when everyone else in the party was down from injury or fatigue. He crippled everyone he came across, ornery little prick.

Game really punished you for wearing platemail before you were worthy of it. Also loved the game's excellent pixel art program to edit/create your own char portraits, I spent hours ensuring everyone had horned helmets instead of wings. It seemed important at the time.

I always meant to return to play KOL again, and Mines of Titan. But I was always afraid that I'd completely fucking detest them both now. Some old school badass RPG.

 

[MisterStone]

Hey bros, I have not played KOL (I wasn't a spoiled little fuck when I was little, so I only got one or two Origin games for Christmas- I think that year I blew my choice on Times of Lore which was rather weaksauce TBH) but it sounds to me that if you bros like this kind of combat system, you might like the indie RPG Natuk. It has a fairly well-designed combat system (aimed shots that can even be instantly deadly, backstabbing, fatigue, etc. etc.) and the various encounters actually make full use of it rather well. Also it has a lot of random loot with all kinds of fun ego weapons and armor, which is always fun.

THe only thing I did not like about it so much was that it seemed to turn into a spell-caster fest towards the end- haste everyone, drop super nuky-ball on the enemies over and over, etc. Still, pretty good game for someone hankering for a 'medieval JA'.

 

[octavius]

Funny how half the time my low level characers meet monsters that make them freeze in terror in the area. No matter how my my guys' Balance stat is they are frozen in terror like 90% of the time. But even if they are frozen in terror, they still use the same amount of stamina as if they had followed their orders.
It's like the designers of this game went out of their way to make things as annoying as possible for the player...so at least something has improved since 1989, although today's trend of making games accessible to every illiterate retard is hardly an

Oh well, at least combats are faster once you get some decent skill levels, and buying fast mounts allow you to avoid most of the random encounters.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Funny how half the time my low level characers meet monsters that make them freeze in terror in the area. No matter how my my guys' Balance stat is they are frozen in terror like 90% of the time. But even if they are frozen in terror, they still use the same amount of stamina as if they had followed their orders.

This doesn't happen on the C64 version. Your characters can freeze in terror when against a mythical monster, but only in melee. And the stamina business does not happen.

Another somewhat botched PC version.

 

[octavius]

The freezing happens about 9 out of 10 times with melee and missile attacks, but not with movement.

Heh, just encountered some Skeletons that actually die from exhaustion when walking around in heavy armour in their cave.
Did that happen in the C64 version?

BTW, even with all the questionable design decisions, the tedium, slowness and frustration of this game, for some morbid reason I still find it weirdly addictive.

 

[RK47]

I do recall why i dropped this game is because there's no trainer for advanced weapon skills like Greatsword etc. The developers were planning to include an expansion pack to introduce the trainers, but never followed through. Once I realize that, I decided not to invest too much time into it. Because advancement really meant nothing if I can't spell skill points.

 

[octavius]

This game is really something. I don't know if it's because I'm using the save state version of DosBox or not, but when reloading I always trigger the same random encounters and meet the same enemies at The Arena.
As I've said before this game seems to go out of its way to annoy and punish the player, so I thought I'd see what happened if my character at The Arena forgot to wear the Courage Cloak. Wearing it she met a Hobgoblin. When she forgot to don it, she of course met a Cyclops. And reloading again and donning the Courage Cloak our little friend the Hobgoblin was back,
Just fucking amazing...

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Heh, just encountered some Skeletons that actually die from exhaustion when walking around in heavy armour in their cave.
Did that happen in the C64 version?

I cannot recall this, though it sounds hilarious.

This game is really something. I don't know if it's because I'm using the save state version of DosBox or not, but when reloading I always trigger the same random encounters and meet the same enemies at The Arena.
As I've said before this game seems to go out of its way to annoy and punish the player, so I thought I'd see what happened if my character at The Arena forgot to wear the Courage Cloak. Wearing it she met a Hobgoblin. When she forgot to don it, she of course met a Cyclops. And reloading again and donning the Courage Cloak our little friend the Hobgoblin was back,
Just fucking amazing...

Never had this. I had all sorts of monsters popping up in the Arena, regardless of whether the coat was donned.

I do recall why i dropped this game is because there's no trainer for advanced weapon skills like Greatsword etc.

There are a few weapons that have this problem, but I never ran across it. The Truth Sword uses the Great sword skill...I think. But that sword is so powerful skill doesn't matter a great deal.

Scimitar has the best trainers, followed by Elf bows. Maces are quite good, especially when you get the 'Binderak' Maces. Warhammers too (a personal favourite). Halberds I like because of the quick thrust attack, and the two magic Halberds you can get, though there are heavier two handers. Anything from 30 skill up is fairly good. The magic Great Axe is also ok.

The worst weapons for trainers...from memory...are Long spears and War mauls. The rest should at least be able to be trained to 30 skill.

Of course...this may all be different in the PC version.

 

[octavius]

On October 15th in the year 1100 we finally freed Seggallion:

The game disappointed and annoyed to the very last. Not even for the last quest did we get an interesting encounter - only a bunch of Cyclops. No Pildar, no enemy spell casters, not once a mix of enemies.
Probably the most boring encounter design in the history of CRPGs, but at least it's possible to ride away from most random encounters.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Well done.

Cyclops? Wasn't there a whole heap of Sledges in a maze? Or am I getting my battles mixed up...it has been a while.

Pildar was the 'Dark Lord' and was going to make more entries into the next campaigns, four or so of which were planned. Even people that enjoy the game (myself included) feel the things missing without these campaigns. I might have to track down Todd Mitchel Porter and see if he can tell me the story of what happened to his plans at Origin. 1988/89 seems to see a lot of the old Origin guard vanishing, along with their game lines.

I agree with your criticisms regarding encounter design. I still enjoyed the encounters though. It is a shame that more could not have been done with such a promising game overlay and battle system.

 

[villain of the story]

So basically, the best combat engine ever?

Best combat model in CRPGs, implemented in the worst way possible. Kinds of cancels out the good.