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Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom Review

by Steve Wysowski March 8th 2008 12:24 PM CST1 Comments

Often, it is a great thing when a series decides to go in a different direction. Other times, it can wind up being a travesty. Unfortunately, Blue Side has decided to spiral down its Kingdom Under Fire franchise down towards the latter, with its latest addition, Circle of Doom. COD sadly brings a once strategy based collection of games to an incredibly dull button-mashing experience. Circle of Doom is easily one stinker to rule them all.

As stated before, the Kingdom Under Fire franchise has been for the most part, heavily rooted in deep RPG and strategy-based elements. This has been received with a mostly positive response from critics and gamers alike, but sales never really took off, therefore a change to the series' gameplay has been deemed necessary. However, Circle of Doom clearly isn't that change you'd expect to lift a franchise, and evidence of this is apparent from the beginning of the game.

The controls are rather basic, and really don't vary all that much between each of the characters you control. The enemies that come at you follow the foosteps that most idotic button-mashers do: A) they only attack once at a time and B) they're complete morons. You slam on one or two buttons and before you know it, your enemy is dead. While there are some nice variations in the enemy design, there is none in their intellgience. Each one is just as stupid as the last, usually lining up single file, throwing in a few punches or stabs, and then dieing like pawns.

Probably to please Kingdom Under Fire purists, the game's developers decided to drop a few RPG elements into the game. Most of it comes in the form of the three mystical "idols" (Death, Greed and Love) that you enocounter while following your straightfowards paths. Once you reach each an idol, you are allowed to save your game and then you're given the added luxury of powering up your weapons through synthesizing them. This means there are no hit points or any form of an experience-based system to boost your weapons individually, and the system in place is lackluster at best.

Another wasted idea is this concept of this "dream world", which is used primarily as the the game's form of communication. Instead of giving us an Elder Scrolls-esque dialogue tree, we're instead forced to deal with testing out our responses in an alternate dimension until the right response is given. Now read that sentence over, and try to tell me that what you just read doesn't sound completely idiotic. Why not just give us the right dialogue to push the game ahead, or how about just a standard cut-scene? Or am I just asking for too much out of a game?

You're also given some magical spells to relieve some of the pain that the uninspired button-mashing induces. However, the truth is, the magic in the game isn't that great of a painkiller. It isn't any less satisfying to knock out an enemy with a spell than it is to button-mash it to oblivion.

The game's technical aspects are basically on-par throughout. Standard effects and animations make up most of the game's graphical showcase, with nothing blowing you away or detracting you. The audio however is a bit of a suprise, with the game's great soundtrack easily standing out from the rest of the game. The game decided to offer up a great online co-op mode that works perfectly for what it is trying to accomplish, but I'd doubt anyone would enjoy this game enough to want to experience it again with a friend. It is sad to see, cause it seems like such a waste of a few very good online features.

But that's what Circle of Doom's entire package winds up being: a waste. It was a waste of the publisher's investment, a waste of the developer's time, and in the end, it would be a waste of the money in your pocket. The big question is why did the guys at Blue Side believe it was a good idea to take their series in such a wrong direction? Maybe next time they'll get it right, but Circle of Doom makes it hard for me to believe they ever will.