Reviews for The Rise of a KING

[Nondo]

The sequel is finally here!

Man, it's been awhile since your first game came out, but WOW, what an improvement.

I was actually hoping for the 1st game to have the RPG element that you displayed here, but at least you made that possible here.

First off, I'd like to address a problem I'm currently confronting in the game. (To all the people who are reading my review, I'd suggest not reading any further if you don't want to be spoiled of the storyline):

The problem I'm having is that during the mission that Felkon gave me to kill the witch, when I confronted the witch and told her I was not going to kill her, I went over to save the princess at the castle, and took off her necklace. After that, Felkon found me and kill the princess and everyone else in the world. So my question is, what in the world do I do now? I visited all the caves, went to every single town TWICE, and visited every room of the stormguard keep and felkon's keep, but I have no idea what to do. Is that it? Like I'm stuck? There's nothing to do and it's technically Game Over? If this is the matter at hand, then I'd like to ask you why you did not give us a message/warning telling us that that was the end of the game and that we chose the wrong path to complete the game? Instead, I had to waste 20 maybe 30 minutes tracing my steps to all the previous places I've been, whilst slewing so many enemies. -_- That would probably be my biggest complaint.

Suggestions:
I've definitely taken a liking to the various shops/items/spells that you've allowed us to buy and use. However, like one of the reviewers said, it was very easy to obtain the greatest items/spells/weapons after the 2nd mission was over. My suggestion for this would be to not only dish out more weapons/spells for us to buy, but also make different places sell different things. For instance, Stormguard could sell the default/normal steel weapons/armor, whilst other locations, based on where they are situated, could sell various armor/weapons that would suit the environment that they are contained around. For instance, I noticed from Storm Peaks to Peak's Watch area, there were several Ice Trolls and Flying electric monsters, so the blacksmith there would only sell armor and spells that would deal best against the particular monsters in that area. However, there is a problem with this suggestion of mine which can be fixed with the next suggestion I'm about to give. That suggestion is:

I don't think I can put it more simply than this, but you HAVE TO MAKE THIS GAME HARDER! I'm sure you've gotten several reviews by now stating this problem, and this problem was also affecting the first game you made. I'm not sure why you never took the time to make the game harder. Believe me, I love the game for what it's worth, and it's great storyline, but the problem is is that there is no.... how should I put this... gaming-value to this game. As many have already addressed, by simply holding down the directional button and holding down the A button or mashing the A button, you can just waltz onto any foe you want to, and slay them within 1 to 3 seconds. You have to make them harder or else the first suggestion that I made earlier won't have much use, but don't fix this problem JUST for that suggestion, just make it harder for the sake of playing a good game, not to say this game wasn't good.

Overall, this was definitely a heavy improvement/adjustment to your previous game, and it was definitely worth the wait, but the problems that were lingering from the first game are now affecting this game as well. Other than that, an author's comment would be very nice concerning the problem I'm currently facing about just walking around with nothing to do but kill monsters. I certainly hope that's not the end of it all, and that I just took a wrong turn in the storyline.

- Nondo

SeethingSwarm responds:

Check the roof of Stormguard Castle. There you will find what you're looking for. This confused many people when it first came out on ArmoGames, and I have to apologize for this, not telling you what to do or where to go in the game. I guess I thought it would be obvious and that there wasnt too many places to look, but I was wrong, and again, sorry.

With this game, and I've said this before, I tried MANY new things. I'll quote myself from a response to the previous review,"This was the first game for me with a shop system, a money system, a conversation-tree system, a pause button, a save option and the ability to switch armors, spells, swords etc. All this was the first time I've done any of those. Now that I've got them all under my belt, I can try to improve on them all as well as on gameplay. Oh yeah, and with the enemies, damn, I have always struggled to make proper enemies, and I try to improve every time off course. Hopefully next time I'll make some decent ones :)"

I wanted to make it so that every shop had different items. It does take a hell of a lot of time to do a shop, (for me, because it's my first time) and time was playing against me all the time, so I decided against it for now. I just wanted to make things "work" with this game, if you know what I mean. I hope you dont think I'm making excuses. I take responsibility for all the shortcoming in this game and try to improve every time with every game. I just stated some reasons so that people can better understand why this game is not better than it is. Long story short, I'm still a noob at game-making :)

Thanks for the great review!

[bb2090]

nice work.

the story was really great.

SeethingSwarm responds:

Thanks :)

[ManaUser]

Well done!

Good:
Good graphics. (For this kind of game)
Combat was pretty slick.
Cool spell animations.
Well written dialog.
Though confusing at first, the 2D travel system with exits was well done.
Overall polished feel.

Could be better:
Walking, especially in castles, kinda took a long time.
Store system is a little clunky, especially for buying several potions.
It would be nice if you could sell (or at least discard) inferior weapons/armor.
It would be more interesting if not every smith/wizard had every item/spell.
Spells could be differentiated a little more, beside which monster are resistant.
It was over just when I was really getting in to it. :)

P.S. I think it's great (or a little obsessive :p ) that you read and responded to all these reviews.

SeethingSwarm responds:

Thanks, glad you liked :)

This was the first time for me to do many things in this game. The shop system was one of them, and I am just glad it works properly. I would have loved to make shops with different items at different locations, but with all the new things I had learned for this game, everything just took so long! But this game taught me a lot and most of these things will be much easier and faster in future games.

The reason why I read every review is mainly because I dont get thousands of reviews, and it's still possible to do that. Reading reviews helps me a lot with finding out what I did wrong, what people liked and if there are any glitches etc. I also think its nice for people to have their reviews answered so that they know it did not go unnoticed. It's really not that much effort to take a few seconds out for every review, unless there's thousands upon thousands of reviews like with Dad n Me or with Brackenwood movies....

[ryu112]

You did it!

After playing The Rise of a Knight, I knew there would be more. And I was not dissapointed in the least. Although I agree that the distances are a little too long, it gives a feeling of distance, But perhaps you could speed up the Knight as an alternative. I also think you could have worked on the graphics for the princess and inaminate NPC's.

Also, I'd think you could do alot more with the story, I mean, I'm not expexcting movie epic. But you could do so much more with it, Felkon's background, the Witch, hell even the Knight.

All in all, I love it, for what it is, a RoTK sequel, but as an RPG, it feels hallow and empty. If your doing more in the series, I'd suggest trying some more depth.

SeethingSwarm responds:

Thank you :)

There's so much more I could have done, but on the other hand, I really couldnt. I have already put too much time into this game, and damn, did this take a hell of a lot of time! It is not meant to be a full-on rpg, just a hack 'n slash game with some rpg elements in it to make it a bit more deeper, and it went even deeper and more complicated than I first intended.

I did learn a lot from making this game and from everybody's reviews and comments and I strive to improve everytime. Let's hope I succeed in future projects :)

Thanks for the review!

[ParadoxPanda]

kinda confusing..

well this is a great game to play but i have a few complaints....maybe W should the health pot and E the mana pot because in the heat of battle you might forget and press the wrong button because the health pot icon is on the right(this had me dying quite a few times and having to start over).....second its kind of confusing sometimes about where you need to go......and third the enemies attack to fast so you pretty much just end up slashing your way trough