Knights of the Round - Arcade

Sounds Arthurian, is actually boring.

There's not much to say about Knights of the Round in all fairness, as there's little in the game that makes it stand out. Perhaps I could go into detail about the setting of the game. Where in we see a pre-round table Arthur, fighting against local kings and established rulers to try and unite the country under one solidified rules, as according to Arthurian legend. (Where the hell the ancient Japanese warlord comes into this, I won't begin to guess). Taking the idea of Arthur, having reft the sword from the stone, moves on to make good the prophecy that he would one day become king. So we're not talking about Mordred or such.

Pick your poison.

Knights of the Round, wherein you choose your knight of legend (assuming your knight of legend is Arthur, Percival and Lancealot) and proceed to "civilise" the country by "selectively euthanising" opposing dignitaries. Though, on the surface, the game seems rather shallow and lacklustre, seemingly taking the idea that the combat needn't be complicated or awkward for someone to be able to play the game and enjoy it. However what initially comes across is a rather dull game with characters that bring little of value to the play style, the slow combat and the run-of-the-mill fighting system involving moving, hitting and jumping.

Jump attack, quite effective.

However, that's an initial perception. Knights of the Round actually has a little more depth than that, as it uses a secondary attack system depending upon which direction is pressed at the same time as an attack, allowing for air-moves, parrying and stronger attacks with slower start up times. There's an attempt here to further the bland "hammer the button until the enemies die or we run out of cash" approach but for the practicality behind it, you might as well just hammer that damn button instead.

Jump attack, good damage on bosses

The enemies and levels in Knights of the Round are rather similar across the game. Too steeped in the folklore and setting, the enemies are serfs, knights, other knights, more knights, some jesters and "magicians" and the bosses are usually MORE KNIGHTS or at least kings in armour. The one real deviation from all of this is the Automaton which just feels incredibly out of place despite being the solely amusing thing to turn up in the game and becomes a welcome battle rather than annoying like most of the others.

Jump attack, great for saving other knights

Knights of the Round hasn't got any real weapons to pick up. It does have food, chests (which can be bashed apart to get different rewards), instant level-ups, magical attacks and summons for horses. The levelling system improves your characters stats with each increase and at specifically significant levels, shows graphical enhancments of weapons and armour for your chosen characters. Though the actual levelling mechanic is a false economy because as you get stronger, so do the enemies you'll be facing and the bosses seem to increase at a suitable level along with yourself.

Jump attack, good for crowd control

The music within Knights of the Round is fairly standard and doesn't really push any boundaries, sound effects however have shown a larger variation with noises and sounds of enemies dying in multiple voices, rather than hearing the same noises over and over regardless of the differences in sizes of enemies. That said the clangs and ricochets of weapons on armour shows there's been some significant level of attention paid to detail for the sampling at least.

Jump attack, a good way to celebrate

The problem really with Knights of the Round is that it's been done, even by Capcom, earlier and better. As a result it leaves players with an odd feeling of playing something that should have come out 2-3 years earlier and doesn't seem to match up with other games that have been released at the same time.

Super Mario Land (GB)

Begs the question, why is there an option idea at all here?

My last review on the Gameboy for this month, especially as it's partly in the start of the next month but so what, my choice and I'm doing this game. Super Mario Land, the very first game in the series on the Gameboy. It's not quite what some might expect, that much should be made very clear.

Bonus rounds do tend to try and throw lives at you, not that you really need them

If anything this game is something different from the other Mario games I might find on the NES and such. The in game physics are slightly different, the flower-power-up is very different in that it bounces off at all angles and isn't affected by gravity, it can also pick up coins if it hits them which makes for a wonderful help on the special room where it's FILLED from top to bottom of the screen with about 230+ coins (2 bonus lives at least) there's a change in the idea of the flag at the end of the level where taking the lower exit gives you no rewards while taking the higher exit will get you a bonus round of "get some lives or a power up". Which is great unless you get the flower and already have it, then the game makes a noise at you.

Not sure who has the bigger moustache here...

The actual game play seems the same on paper. You play as Mario and run, jump and sometimes shoot your way through enemies as you progress to the right and play through various lands and worlds (4 worlds) in order to rescue Princess Daisy (not Peach), where you'll encounter some familiar enemies and some very different enemies ranging from the Goombas and Koopas (which explode now) to rocks that run, giant spiders, sea dragons, dead Chinese spirits, robots and some guy in a spaceship. Each world has a rather unique boss (i.e. it's NOT just King Koopa throwing fireballs) Where you can also attack the boss or hit the blow-it-up button (except on last boss) and kill them that way.

Now.. How are you supposed to work out THIS secret unless you were suicidal?

Every 100 coins is an extra life and the game seems to throw them at you, lives available as hearts (mushroom graphics were difficult to differentiate between back then apparently) and coins and power ups are fairly plentiful. Dying isn't much of a punishment as the checkpoints are very regular although perhaps a little TOO regular in which you may restart far sooner than you realise. Often missing a power up you recently had collected and were expecting again...

A quick change in gameplay and now it's a scrolling shooter!

The running and jumping is a little erratic in places, the movement of Mario as he runs across the ground is fine, as it is when he jumps, it's when he falls from running or from jumping that the gravity of the situation gets a little awkward. Yes that was a very bad pun and I don't care. However, back to the point, jumping up onto platforms and running straight after can result in unexpected movement and speed leading you to go running straight back off again and plummeting to your untimely death, or worse, missing the bonus areas. 

Secrets AHOY!

 

In some cases with the game, how you move before and after bouncing off an enemy can be a game of roulette in trying to ascertain just what the hell is going on and leave you crashing into an enemy rather than killing it. The collision detection with some enemies bounding boxes doesn't quite match the sprites and some enemies move a lot faster than one might expect, causing some real issues with working out just how accurate you really need to be.

Top floor: Bonus level! Bottom floor: Next level...

That said, it's a fun game, steadily paced and rarely will there be a moment where you're in a rush, letting you take your time aside from two particular levels where the game play changes up and you're either in a submarine or in a plane and you'll be flying through the infamous... AUTOSCROLLING levels and shooting down enemies and blocks that are obstructing your path. It makes for a welcome change in pace and there's been enough forethought in the process to make sure the first few moments in the level are fairly enemy-clear to give players a chance to adapt and learn from the new control method.

Only if you're small will you get this one, and betting get big before you leave.

The music is fairly catchy too, except on the dungeon levels while the over world levels are far more upbeat and memorable, to the point where you could easily hum along to the music in fairly short order. It's not quite as famous and popular as the NES Mario music but little is from video games at least, except for perhaps Tetris music. The background beep and noises add little the game in truth other than to provide an audio feedback to events happening within the game, given the original screen of the Gameboy it's likely more useful than it is today with clearer screens.

WHOO! Goomba! It's almost a trademark!

It's fun, I don't deny that at all, it's flawed too but it's still a good solid game and an odd but poignant entry in Nintendo's library of titles. Not like it really needs it given the huge fucking cash cows it has grazing on the front lawn and as soon as the company looks like it'll go into distress it'll just pump out another 100 or so Pokémon and encourage people to buy a new game to catch more of them. I give it a few years before Spunkemon, the evolved Jizzmon, is "released" on the public and I really lost the plot on this one.