As I come to the end of year 4 of GOTBP, I've come to realize that some genres are less conducive to innovation than others.
I feel like RPGs, first person shooters and 3D platformers are all genres where innovation is relatively common. Whenever I write about those kinds of games, I always feel like I have a lot to say about each individual game. Other genres, however, just don't seem to have as much innovation from title to title. Whether that's due to lack of opportunity or lack of desire, it just seems to be the case. Of all the genres I've played, it feels like beat 'em ups are always lacking in innovation. I will admit some bias, as it isn't my favorite genre, but I think even fans would admit that a lot of these games start to feel very same-y after a while. However, this can have advantages as well. Sometimes, small innovations in these genres can make games stand out in a big way, which was sort of the case with this week's entry.
Released for the SNES in 1994, Knights of the Round was a port of a 1991 arcade game of the same name. As you have probably surmised, it's a beat 'em up that loosely follows the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It was developed by Capcom, a company that was certainly familiar with these types of games. I don't believe I've ever seen the arcade version in person, but it looks pretty cool. Obviously, the home console port isn't going to come close to it in terms of visuals and presentation. But I have to give Capcom credit here, they got as close as they possibly could. KOTR looks great, with big, detailed sprites for both characters and enemies and well-designed backgrounds. It also sounds good too, though the soundtrack isn't quite up to par with other Capcom games of the era. The controls are solid, they are responsive and the hit detection is mostly fair. You can attack, block, jump and use a super move, though that will cost you a good chunk of health. All in all, it's pretty standard beat 'em up stuff, at least on the surface. However, there are a few small details that make KOTR feel just different enough from its contemporaries.
Of course, there's the medieval setting, which wasn't completely new to the genre but not common within it either. You could choose from one of three characters, Arthur, Percival and Lancelot. Arthur is the baseline character, Percival has high power but is very slow and Lancelot is fast but with weaker attacks. All three are viable and fun to play as and their statistical differences are actually noticeable. Your characters can level up, which wasn't common in games like this at the time. You don't get to allocate stat points or choose moves to learn or anything like that, but it does make your character noticeably stronger. It also causes cosmetic changes, which is a nice touch. I do wish they did more with this, but the fact they even bothered to include a leveling system was novel at the time.
The key gameplay difference is the importance of blocking, which is far more critical here than in most beat 'em ups. Blocking an enemy attack will stun them, allowing you to hit them with a free combo. However, if you hold block too long you will become exhausted, allowing the enemy to get a free hit of their own. Getting this mechanic down is critical, especially when you start fighting bosses. Some of the weaker enemies can just be beaten with button mashing, but you will almost always take hits if you try to button mash against the bird knights (who are actually just regular knights) or any of the jumping enemies. This may feel like a minor thing, but it's a huge differentiator from most games of the genre. It's not that blocking isn't important in other beat 'em ups, it's just not as critically important. It helps that the mechanic is extremely well implemented. Oftentimes, blocking mechanics will require pinpoint timing and lead to more frustration than fun. But that isn't the case here, you have plenty of time to block and the enemy attacks are just easy enough to read without being too easy.
KOTR is also balanced very differently than other beat 'em ups, at least it felt like it to me. Like other titles in the genre, you have a life bar with a set number of continues for when it's drained. Lose all of your continues and its game over. It's the same in theory, but completely different in practice. Your life bar is long, but you also take tons of damage on hit. Even regular enemies can drain your life in about four or five hits and bosses only need to hit you two or three times. In addition to further cementing the whole "blocking is important" thing, it completely changes the way you need to approach the game. It's also very different from other beat 'em ups where you can usually take lots of hits from regular enemies. But KOTR giveth even though it also taketh away. You may die much faster, but you also have many more continues. The game defaults to nine, yes, nine continues. Most games in the genre only give you three continues, if any. It might seem like a small change, but it completely changes the way that you have to play the game. There are times where it is almost worth it to let your character die so you can select another that is better suited to the task at hand.
It's not all positive here. The pacing here is very slow, even for a beat 'em up. Your characters move slow and there are times where it almost feels like this was done on purpose to pad the length of the game, though I know that's not actually the case. KOTR is pretty easy on the whole, I had very little difficulty beating it on normal difficulty, I had one playthrough to get myself acclimated and I beat it on the second try. I'm not very good at beat 'em ups, so that shouldn't happen. The game is short as well, it only has seven levels and one of them is incredibly short. I guess that's pretty standard for the genre, but KOTR felt really short, even when compared to its contemporaries. Finally, I still couldn't shake the feeling that I had played this game before. Capcom at least tried to make KOTR feel different, but it just didn't get there for me. Sometimes that can be a good thing, people gravitate to certain genres for a reason, but this was a little too similar to the rest of the genre.
There really isn't much more to say, Knights of the Round is a really good beat 'em up that is definitely worth playing today. It has a unique setting, great presentation and interesting leveling system coupled with solid gameplay. I would like to give the arcade version a try, it looks really good, but I don't know how much different it would be outside of the graphical updates. I don't think KOTR is perfect by any means and it feels a little too similar to games like Golden Axe or Final Fight, but it's a well-made game that is worth a try, especially for fans of the genre.
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