| Arthur's Quest: Battle for the Kingdom | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | ValuSoft |
| Publisher(s) | ValuSoft |
| Platform(s) | PC |
| Release date(s) |
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| Genre(s) | Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) |
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Arthur's Quest: Battle for the Kingdom is an adventure computer game developed and published by ValuSoft. It was released in North America on August 22, 2002.
Throughout the game, the player controls King Arthur. The plot of Arthur's Quest begins with an attack on Arthur's town by a large group of angry dark dwarfs.[1] Upon defeating the dwarfs, Arthur finds Merlin who warns that the witch Morgana is to blame for the attack and the monsters throughout the countryside, and Arthur sets out to kill Morgana.[1]
Arthur's Quest is controlled from a first person perspective, and the player uses mostly melee weapons like swords and ranged weapons like bows to fight.[2] There are eleven levels in the game, and the goal of each level is to progress from the beginning of the level to the end.[2] Fighting monsters is mostly optional, and due to Arthur's speed, most fights can easily be avoided.[2] There are no incentives for fighting enemies, as they give no experience or points when they are defeated.[2]
Arthur's Quest: Battle for the Kingdom was released to mostly negative reviews. It was nominated for GameSpot's Worst Game on PC award in 2002 but lost to Demonworld: Dark Armies.[3] Gamers Hell's Andreas Misund stated, "A game that has almost no personality, no gameplay depth, no cool weapons, or even a half-assed multiplayer mode, is not a game I can recommend to anyone."[1] GameSpot's Andrew Park gave the game an abysmal rating and wrote, "... Arthur's Quest is either an action game with an exceedingly poor design or a fast-paced, arcade-style coward simulator."[2] Park felt that the graphics were especially terrible and he noticed the prevalence of palette swapping in the game.[2] Park created a video review superimposing lackluster scenes of the game with himself depressingly shaking his head at its dismal quality, and stated at the end, "Don't play this game".[4]