Arthur’s Knights : Tales of The
Chivalry and Secrets of Merlin
Cyro/Wanadoo
W98
Keyboard/Mouse – 3rd Person
I’m combining both games into one review because as far as I'm concerned
they are one long game. The Secrets of Merlin starts exactly where Tales of
the Chivalry leaves off and movement, gameplay etc is identical in both
(except Secrets of Merlin has a map feature).
Story –
Master Foulque is a story teller and he has written a tale of Bradwen a
knight in King Arthur’s court. Actually Master Foulque has written two
stories about Bradwen – one about Bradwen the Celtic Knight and the other
about Bradwen the Christian Knight. Your first assignment is to choose which
story you want to hear first – Celtic Knight is the red book, Christian
knight is the white book.
You are then transported to the Kingdom of the Atrebates as Bradwen the
illegitimate son of Cadfanan, the king of the Atrebates. Your half brother
Morganor is heir to the throne. Your relationship with Morganor is strained
at best. Okay to be perfectly honest, Morganor hates the very sight of you.
Which is understandable. I mean you are tall, dark, handsome and built like
a Greek god and Morganor is........well, Morganor isn’t. As soon as you
arrive home from your battle with the Saxons Morganor informs you that the
king is ill and you have to go find a cure for what ails him. And so begins
your quest – first to find a cure for your sick father and then to
ultimately find your destiny. Along the way you visit The Forests of Arden,
Avalon, Magovenium, and Camelot. You meet ogres, Saxons, fairies, unicorns,
dragons, knights, kings, Merlin and the very devil himself.
Gameplay –
Arrow keys move Bradwen around and are very simple to use. The mouse brings
up the conversation tree, the inventory and the save/load option. You use
the spacebar to initiate action – i.e. start a conversation or perform a
function like open doors, hand something to someone, pick something up etc.
There is also a book that fills in as you play so you can read the story as
you go. The only thing is, if you don’t do things in the exact order the
developers of the game did, you will miss lines in the story. It doesn’t
stop you from progressing with the game – it just becomes a obsession to
figure out what the missing lines are and how you can get them into the
story book.
You can make Bradwen and his horse move faster by holding down the Shift key
at the same time as the arrow key. As a matter of fact I loved to get
Bradwen running then lift my finger off the shift key and watch him come to
a screeching halt - I kept hoping he'd fall on his fanny but he never did.
Graphics and Sound
Absolutely superb. While in the forest you hear and see birds chirping,
bears growling, wolves howling, fairies laughing, and fish jumping out of
the water. I honestly felt like I was in a forest or by a stream, or on a
rocky tower listening to the wind blow.
Cons –
There are some – getting Bradwen positioned correctly in order to open a
door or talk to someone was a pain until you got used to where he needed to
stand. I got plenty tired of the shoulder shrug let me tell you. I know some
people had problems with events not triggering for some reason or another.
The only time that happened to me was when I would forget to scroll to the
end of the conversation tree and make sure I had talked to everyone about
everything. And sometimes the trudging back and forth got to me but most
games I’ve played you trudge back and forth.
In Conclusion
I knew after about 10 minutes I was going to love the game. That’s all the
time it took to draw me in, wrap it’s arms around me and hook me. It has
everything I had been looking for a great story and characters I actually
cared about (in fact I got so involved with them I had to quit playing
because something happened to two of the characters) And as far as the
endings ----both games have terrific endings that actually end the game.
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