Alright, I give up.

Caduceus

Shared on Tue, 05/06/2008 - 09:23
I got Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom about a month ago.  Now, I have a lot of stuff going on, so I haven't plowed through it like I should.  It is kind of like God of War and Diablo.  That may sound like a winning combination, and it should have been one.

Overall, the game was fair.  The textures were good and I like the transparency of the combinations - meaning that you can see the combo in the bottom corner of the screen as you stack your slow and fast attacks.  Nothing irritates me more than "how the @$(% did I just do that attack?  Not only that, you can go to the menu screen and see a list of combos, similar to God of War.

Loot, well...., it is alright.  There are five slots - helmet, shoulders, chest, legs and boots.  There is a bit of randomization from drops from monsters but bosses will drop the same stuff.  You can break down the stuff you don't want for "essence" which is the only form of currency in the game.  Essence can be spent at periodic automatic save points (that's right, can't drop and save if the kettle's running) for health or mana, equipment or augmentations for your weapon.  There doesn't seem to be enough variety within the character classes and the appearance of the armor only varies slightly.

Your weapon has four slots, though each gem/rune you find or purchase will only fit in 2 of the slots.  The round gems typically have an environmental attack - cold/heat/poison - while hexagonal gems will augment your attack/defense stats.  Runes will allow you see things on the minimap - chests, enemies, etc.  Though about 2/3 of the way through you get a rune that changes your weapon into a scythe which is pretty neat.

The story is okay, I suppose.  A mad king corrupted by demonic powers.  No great shakes here.  I was amused by the Library guardian dialogue.  The "romance" which suddenly appeared in one cut scene was ridiculous, I played as a warrior and didn't bother to go back as the female scout to see if that changes, but I assume that it does.  You can also play as a male wizard.

I don't like the jump mechanic and it seems to get the character caught fairly often in the "jump upwards" phase, but frozen in midair when trapped by obstacles.  It just looks kind of stupid.

Camera angles - 90% of the time you have control of the camera.  You can move it around and see, helpful especially when you're going through a doorway in a dungeon that blocks your view.  During certain boss battles, notably the spider queen and the final boss battle, you can't.  This is really irritating.

The final boss battle inspired my title.  After more than two hours of trying to beat King Hraskar, I have given up.  I don't have a problem with difficult battles.  I don't have a problem with the AI taking cheap shots.  I don't have a problem with bad camera angles.  I don't have a problem with a pit your character falls into in the middle of the final arena that you can't get out of again except by dying.  I have a problem with all of these things happening at the same time.

I recommend against wasting your time with this one because the end is so frustratingly bad.


Comments

J-Cat's picture
Submitted by J-Cat on Tue, 05/06/2008 - 11:44
ouch... I hate frustrating fights like that. I remember playing God of War... now, realise that there are 2 things that I am incapable of doing. Oh wait, I also can't spell... make it threee. Spelling Button mashing platforming. GoW: I had to get my husband to beat the first boss cause I can't button mash. Then there is a platforming section: fall of a balance beam and you die. Of course there are spinning blades too... Anyway in GoW if you die int he same area a certain number of times (3 or 5 I think) a screen pops up and asks you if you want to change to a lower difficulty. So in the platforming section I got this page 3 or 4 times. Maddening part: switching difficulty does nothing to help the platforming part. Almost threw my controller through the TV...

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