King Arthur II: The Role-Playing Wargame

 PC
User Score
6.5

Mixed or average reviews- based on 97 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 39 out of 97
  2. Mixed: 35 out of 97
  3. Negative: 23 out of 97

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  1. Gene
    Feb 5, 2012
    4
    If you want a fantasy Total War game do not buy this. The combat is anemic and simply not fun. Most of the nuance that made TW great is completely missing, No morale, routs, or fatigue. In stead you get anemic battles of attrition and "puzzle maps" where you have to slog your way through capture point to capture point. This is a puzzle based RTS with a turn based campaign map. I foundIf you want a fantasy Total War game do not buy this. The combat is anemic and simply not fun. Most of the nuance that made TW great is completely missing, No morale, routs, or fatigue. In stead you get anemic battles of attrition and "puzzle maps" where you have to slog your way through capture point to capture point. This is a puzzle based RTS with a turn based campaign map. I found myself auto-skipping most combats, but once in a while the game finds some lame story based battle that I can't skip. The game thinks I need to see this, I beg to differ. The campaign is sort of fun, but considering that I got this game with the intention of doing the battles, I just don't see the rest of the package being worth the money.… Expand
  2. steklok
    Feb 5, 2012
    3
    This game should not appear on the PC and the shame that platform. Horrible graphics on a console that disgusted look. Physical models of the environment is simply unfinished pritivnye cubes rastavlennye not handy. It can not be compared with games from Bethesda even close. In general, even the demo is not fully have the strength to go through to the end, just picked up and removed.
  3. Keldun
    Jan 29, 2012
    4
    Ka1 was a great game unfortunately this sequel is very disappointing. Neocore took that great game and dumbed it down. They have removed most of the management and upgrade parts of the ka1 game.
    The game is also not well optimized, I have a 6 core intel cpu + gtx 580 yet the frame rate is just acceptable, I wonder how many fps will someone get with a system barely meeting the syst req for    Ka1 was a great game unfortunately this sequel is very disappointing. Neocore took that great game and dumbed it down. They have removed most of the management and upgrade parts of the ka1 game.
    The game is also not well optimized, I have a 6 core intel cpu + gtx 580 yet the frame rate is just acceptable, I wonder how many fps will someone get with a system barely meeting the syst req for this game.    … Expand
  4. fastica
    Jun 13, 2012
    0
    In my system (Core2Duo 4Ghz, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD4870) the game is unplayable (about 2 FPS on the battle phase) even on low settings. While my PC is not high-end, I can play Total War Shogun on Medium/High settings at 25-30 FPS. I knew the game was buggy and poorly optimized at release, that's why I bought it 5 months after released. Sadly, after several patches the game is still unplayable.
  5. NovusReviews
    Sep 21, 2013
    4
    Think of Total war with deeper RPG elements and magic. That's what you get with King Arthur series. It all sounds fantastic especially if you're fan of strategy and RPG Games, but have Neocore and Paradox Interactive succeeded in creating a great unique niche sequel? Not quite I must say, but there are still many elements you can enjoy within the game.

    In King Arthur II: The    Think of Total war with deeper RPG elements and magic. That's what you get with King Arthur series. It all sounds fantastic especially if you're fan of strategy and RPG Games, but have Neocore and Paradox Interactive succeeded in creating a great unique niche sequel? Not quite I must say, but there are still many elements you can enjoy within the game.

    In King Arthur II: The Role-Playing Wargame, your goal is to unite Britain through military supremacy or diplomacy. You have your grand campaign map to face and conquer multiple factions in various regions, while completing missions and battling enemy armies. Now, when you battle enemy armies you have a choice to enter a 3D battles, where it becomes really interesting. You get to strategically place and pit your units against your enemies and battle it out in the field. Throughout the game, you will make choices that will influence the development of the story and characters.

    I was a strong fan of the first game. In short, it was a great balance between the strategy and RPG elements but with King Arthur II, Paradox Interactive have pushed more towards RPG side of things. Now, that does not sound that bad but they’ve also made the game more linear and they have definitely oversimplified many strategic elements from the first game to be more appealing to broader audience. I understand why they’ve made this decision, which I hope will definitely will attract more players like they’ve intended, but this decision in many ways is a double edge sword.

    Unfortunately, in many ways, it is a quite a letdown to players returning to the franchise, as it ultimately feel limited and contained. For example, the only way to earn income is through missions and battles. There are no tax system, even though you own regions through conquest. The RPG element tech tree focuses on military only, as there is no economy management. Regions feel constrained as you are limited to areas tied to story elements and AI is generally neutral, never aggressive, which removes the depth of layering effect it had from the first game.

    With that said, there are definitely improvements in the game as well. For instance, voiceover is a great addition to the missions. Voice acting is generally great and it definitely adds to the emersion of the game. There are more unit, magic and artifact varieties within the game and you also have the ability to craft your own artifact to match your hero and play style. Lastly, graphic has been improved dramatically, especially when looking at the campaign map, it is simply gorgeous.

    When King Arthur II: The Role-Playing Wargame came out, I could not recommend it to anyone since it had too many bugs and glitches that seriously hindered the playability of the game. There were too many reports of screen tearing, stability issues and freezes and frankly, I wasn’t sure if Neocore or Paradox Interactive had the ability to resolve and patch these issues. I am happy to report that they’ve been working hard to fix these bugs but I would still recommend people to wait it out a little more for the price drop and more fixes. Until then, I highly recommend everyone to try their first King Arthur: The Role-Playing Wargame a try while waiting for the sequel to be more stable.    … Expand
  6. Marcballer
    Jul 13, 2012
    0
    Shortly put, if you're a fan of the Total War series, avoid this game. It will be a major disappointment at every level. And NOT necesarily because it's a bad game! I am a 13+ year veteran of the entire Total War series and was primed for a level of play that this game simply wasn't able to deliver. Although it has some neat features I sadly found myself constantly saying "they shouldShortly put, if you're a fan of the Total War series, avoid this game. It will be a major disappointment at every level. And NOT necesarily because it's a bad game! I am a 13+ year veteran of the entire Total War series and was primed for a level of play that this game simply wasn't able to deliver. Although it has some neat features I sadly found myself constantly saying "they should have done X, Y, and Z like Total War". I would reccomend this game to people who are new(ish) to straegy games, but then to then move up to the TW series. But if you're a TW vet like me, you'll want to try other games. I found Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis III to be much more rewarding, and complex. As long as you're not hooked on the real time battles.… Expand
  7. darkcerb
    Nov 1, 2012
    2
    The first king arthur was a clever turn based strategy game meets rpg elements which successfully mimicked total wars open world nature which nurtured the wonderful natural storys you develop with your generals.

    This game throws that away in favor of a heavily linear experience with dumbed down management. In short it trys to tell you a story some people love having there hand held    The first king arthur was a clever turn based strategy game meets rpg elements which successfully mimicked total wars open world nature which nurtured the wonderful natural storys you develop with your generals.

    This game throws that away in favor of a heavily linear experience with dumbed down management. In short it trys to tell you a story some people love having there hand held forcefully through a story so for them this might be a plus, for me the simplified mechanics (in an already rather simple strategy game) and the extremely linear story made for a very disappointing experience.    … Expand
  8. Nichtswisser
    Feb 15, 2013
    2
    What a mess. When a game makes you feel seasick, you know something is wrong. How the game manages that? Simple, in battles you have a crappy camera that barely shows anything so you have to constantly adjust it to see at least a little of what is going on. Worse yet, the game also has horrible camera controls and no less horrible performance that makes everything seem sluggish and slow toWhat a mess. When a game makes you feel seasick, you know something is wrong. How the game manages that? Simple, in battles you have a crappy camera that barely shows anything so you have to constantly adjust it to see at least a little of what is going on. Worse yet, the game also has horrible camera controls and no less horrible performance that makes everything seem sluggish and slow to respond even with highend hardware. So you end up constantly moving a sluggishly reacting crappy camera around that moves strangely and is hard to control.... I really started to feel a little sick after a few battles and haven't played since. The game also suffers from crashes and some of the longest loading times I've ever seen. Best stay clear of it and should the scenario interest you, try the first King Arthur game which is much better. That game, even thought not perfect, I actually enjoyed playing.… Expand

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
66

Mixed or average reviews - based on 39 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 39
  2. Mixed: 28 out of 39
  3. Negative: 2 out of 39
  1. PC PowerPlay
    Apr 5, 2012
    60
    An intriguing idea that the franchise is yet to live up to. [Apr 2012, p.64]
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  2. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Mar 22, 2012
    70
    A nice mix of strategy and RPG starts slowly and suffers from linearity but it has its charm and lasts for hours. [March 2012]
  3. PC Gamer
    Mar 21, 2012
    77
    It's light on the strategy, but an intriguing dark fantasy tale and RPG elements lift King Arthur II above the average. [May 2012, p.76]
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