A Tale of Two Kingdoms

BottomLine at the Top: A charming Quest for Glory clone that is exceptionally light on the RPG elements and heavy on choices and general point and clickery. Intro: This game was developed by Crystal Shard, the same ppl who made the excellent Heroine's Quest (also here on Steam and amazing available for free!). I grew up playing the Q4G series so seeing a title that emulated that style was an insta-buy for me. ------------------------------------- Pros ------------------------------------- -Excellent retro-Sierra Online style. I think it is on par with Q4G 3 or Kings Quest 5-6. Low resolution style mostly works except for some sprite scaling to display depth on certain scenes (the main towns front wall and the entry to the castle for instance were nicely designed but the sprite density looked a little off as the character and NPCs would sometimes travel around the screen.) -Atmospheric/epic soundtrack. Between this and the very nice background design there are a few times where this feels like a really cozy game. Fans of "hygge" style gameplay will approve! -Professional sounding voice acting and voice recording -Decent writing, dialogue is good, and story is simple but comprehensive. -50 save slots, probably good for most people. Also has a basic autosave feature when a new chapter starts. -Like the quest for glory series this game has multiple endings and outcomes depending on your timing and choices. -I liked the little peg strategy minigame. Simple but was a fun addition def played a few extra rounds. -Has steam achievements and steam overlay functionality for ease of taking screenshots. I am not a big achievement guy, but I am sure it will be appreciated by some. ------------------------------------- Meh. ------------------------------------- -No character progression or attributes. This is a big differentiator compared to Q4G. This makes the game a “purer” P&C title so would probably attract those that are not into that aspect. I liked the RPG elements of Quest for Glory, so this was slightly disappointing. That being said its lack of this feature simply makes the game more akin to the Kings Quest series than Q4G, there are worse things for a P&C to be accused of! -On a similar note, to the lack of character progression, there is no battle of any kind in this game. Again, this is not an RPG P&C but a "standard" adventure P&C. -The crowd algorithm that has NPCs moving around was kind of funny. Like it does give a sense of immersion, but why are so many rich looking townsfolk inspecting an empty horse stall??? -Built in notepad in game for taking, well, notes. Don't see this often and its nice they added but I never ended up using it. -Intro poem on startup goes by too quickly to read. -Lots of going back and forth. Now this is keeping in style with Q4G type titles, but those also had quick travel options or map if I remember correctly (it has been a while!). It would have been nice to at least have a double click on screen fast travel to instantaneously go to the next room/scene. -A few proofreading errors with spoken dialogue not totally matching with the written dialogue. Only a few minor examples so it goes in the meh section. -Multiple endings and outcomes. Why is this in Pros and Meh? Well, I do appreciate the extra effort involved in having this option and it is in keeping with the Q4G aesthetic. Being able to choose different paths gives a better sense of in game immersion and makes the overall experience come alive more. That being said, for reasons Ill mention later, its tedious to go back and go thru all those different paths if you wished to do so. I personally would prefer a game focus more on having a very solid core story/experience/one primary path versus relying on having multiple paths to help justify a higher price. I cannot really fault it for doing this though as I do not want to penalize the developers here for ADDING more features! I am not a completionist and will not be going back to see all the different paths. -As a follow up for the last point, it was slightly frustrating completing the game with a Wisdom and Honor score of 98% and 98%. This game has complex choices and many opportunities to miss something. Getting to 100% will necessitate a walkthrough or many additional hours of game play depending on how masochistic you are. -Features my arch nemesis in P&C games, the dreaded music puzzle! I am terrible at these. This one was relatively simple thanks to smartphone being able to take video lol. ------------------------------------- Cons ------------------------------------- -Right clicking can cancel entire cutscenes of dialogue. Did not realize this until it happened a few times and I had to go replay to find out what ppl were talking about. -Hitting F1 to open menu help ends up playing random dialogue for some reason. -Ending cutscene movie did not display for me. Played some epic music so I bet something cool happened, but it is frustrating to have to go to YouTube after playing for 9 hours to see the final scene. -50 save slots. Why is this in Pros and Cons? Well, I for one like to save, a lot. And in a game like this with multiple endings it would really simplify going back and seeing alternative endings. I am sure that if I were more conservative with my saving, I could probably get away with 50. But, and this is a gripe I have with a lot of modern P&C games, why do I have to only have 50? I should be able to have infinite saves!!! Even the Tex Murphy series which came out over two decades ago got this right. Without this option it can be tedious to go back and play thru all the various endings. Even though I would likely have not gone and play all the endings anyway, this restrictive save system only provided another barrier to me doing so. I believe in this case it is a limitation of games made with Adventure Game Studio, but I wish AGS would figure out a way to give the option to developers to have infinite saves. Final Thoughts: I have tried to shift away from giving too much commentary on a games value. Ultimately if you enjoyed the game and could afford it, it is your choice. At about 10 hours of game play for me, the asking price of $12 puts this game above my previous ideal $/hr. ratio that I found ideal between $.5 to $1 per hour. I believe I picked this one up on sale, so I think I am much closer to the lower end of that ratio. The similarly styled (and damn good) Q4G clone, Quest for Infamy, is regularly at $9.99. I would like to have seen this title at something closer to that number as I feel it would be more accurate in overall value, at least in my opinion. However, as I also played the very excellent Heroine Quest from Crystal Shard, which I still cannot believe is completely FREE here on Steam, I would have had no problem picking this up for full price considering the huge amount of fun I got out of that title. Overall, this was a lovely fantasy P&C and I recommend it to all P&C afficionados!!! :) [hr][/hr] [b][u][i]For more point & click goodness, check out our P&C fan Steam group, The Coalition of Point & Clickers!:[/i][/u][/b] [list][*] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/CPANDC] Coalition of Point & Clickers Main Page [/url][*][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34690626/] Coalition of Point & Clickers Curator [/url][/list] 👑 [b][u][i]Powered by HoI 4 Deu Curators group in German / English[/i][/u][/b] 👑⠀⠀⠀[list][*][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/30388691/] Follow Main group [/url][*][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40282064/] Follow Second group [/url][/list]

A Tale of Two Kingdoms is an indie adventure game created by Crystal Shard, the same studio that created the more commonly known Heroin's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok. The player takes the role of Maeldun Whiteblade, who is framed for the death of Theylinn's monarch, King Vortigern. With the help of his friends Branwyn and Taliesin the Bard, Maeldun has to stop a horde of invading goblins, clear his name, discover the true culprit, and gain the trust of the faeries of Thierna Na Oge. This game originally came out in July 2007. I remember playing it in 2009, and my anti-virus program thought the game was malware. The version on Steam is a remastered version - all of the characters are now fully-voiced (which makes it a lot easier to understand the pronunciations of some names), and some characters have received visual upgrades to their portraits. Additionally, the game now has a playable prologue that explains the story setting, rather than a big info dump serving as an opening narration. Perhaps the strongest point of the game is that there is no way to screw yourself out of winning (*cough* King's Quest 5 *cough*). While you CAN miss items and events that will lock you out from achieving the best ending, or a 100% rating, you can still complete the game. Furthermore, some puzzles can be completed through different methods or different items; the only downside to the latter is that, again, certain solutions will preclude you from getting the best outcome. The points system is divided into 2 categories: Wisdom and Honor. Solving puzzles will award you wisdom, while performing "noble" acts, such as helping out an NPC, will grant honor. Similar to how Heroine's Quest draws its motifs from Norse mythology, A Tale of Two Kingdoms draws inspiration from Irish/Celtic mythology. The game world is vast; you can explore the majority of it at your own leisure, and run across many NPCs. A particular favorite of mine was the city of Carbonak; you see many game characters, guards and townsfolk strolling around its streets, entering buildings and going about their business. This is a stark contrast to so many games where cities either appear vacant, or are saturated with NPCs that just sit around all day and do nothing. It's little touches like this that give the game its charm. Puzzles can vary from simple to complex, but a notable feature is that Maeldun can ask NPCs to "do" something for him. When this option is selected, the NPC in question can describe surroundings, or can let Maeldun borrow an item, assuming they trust him enough to do so. While this game has many positives, it does have a few (if only minor) negatives. For starters, I didn't feel much empathy or emotion for Maeldun. He doesn't have much personality outside of asking a lot of questions, and his emotions are very rarely laid bare for anyone to see. Despite the fact that he's been falsely accused for regicide, it doesn't seem to faze him - he's pretty relaxed throughout the game's story. I didn't particularly "get" his supposed-lover, Branwyn, since she has about as much emotion as a cactus; she usually only talks about fighting the goblins and wanting to kick the crap out of Geraint, the captain of the late king's guard. Secondly, there are a few frustrating puzzles that are arbitrary if anything. For example (think of this hint as a freebie), an item that you need as a "good luck charm" is a horseshoe. To get it, you have to go to Carbonak, go into the stables, physically move Maeldun into the stall on the right, and then click on said empty stall to pick up the horseshoe. There is no way of actually seeing the item in question, and the only time you might actually hear about it is if you go to the smithy and overhear the stable-boy telling the blacksmith that his horse kicked one of his shoes. Of course, this conversation only happens in chapter 3, and it doesn't fully explain the horseshoe's significance. Another vexing puzzle regards a wounded pigeon. This pigeon can show up in one of four screens, but if it spawns near the beach leading to Carbonak's gates, you will have difficulty finding it, since its gray feathers blend in with the rocks on the road. Despite the above issues, A Tale of Two Kingdoms is one of the best adventure games I've played. Crystal Shard clearly knows what players want in an adventure game and what they don't. When they created the original game, they made it through their own toil and were not being paid a single cent. Players can easily see the amount of passion and soul the studio put into creating the game. I'm glad to see that indie developers can still stick out in a world that is saturated with AAA garbage, and I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys the adventure genre.

Although I have only made it to Chapter 4 so far, this game reminds me of the old classical games such as the orginal Kings Quest games. Unlike Heroine's Quest, combat is not its focus rather it is more puzzle based and there are often more than one solution to the puzzel. Overall it is not a bad game, and I bought it because I liked Heroine's Quest and decided to support the company through this purchase

I'm going to assume that most people found this game after playing [i]Heroine's Quest[/i]. Compared to [i]Heroine's Quest[/i], [i]A Tale of Two Kingdoms[/i] has more focus on puzzles. There is no actual combat system in this game since the protagonist isn't really a fighter, so you have to use your quick wit to get yourself out of dangerous situations. This may prove challenging as you can find many items within the game and sometimes it takes a while to figure out which item you need to use. Having said that, I think [i]A Tale of Two Kingdoms[/i] is harder than [i]Heroine's Quest[/i], mainly because you often find yourself wondering what to do next. The first 2 chapters are pretty straightforward, but after that the game allows you to explore and that's where things start to get more complicated. You will probably need 15-25 hours to finish your first playthrough. To summarize the story in one sentence: you play as Maeldun Whiteblade, a man who is falsely accused of murdering the king, and you need to prove your innocence whilst saving the kingdom from a goblin attack. [i]A Tale of Two Kingdoms[/i] is based on Celtic mythology and folklore. It has a more compelling story than [i]Heroine's Quest[/i], but doesn't offer you different character classes to choose from. However, the game does offer different routes and endings (including Steam achievements), so it definitely has some replay value. It's really easy to miss some side quests and cutscenes the first time you play the game, too. If you're a completionist, you'll probably need to finish the game a few times to unlock all of the achievements. Another thing to appreciate about this game is that there's usually more than one way to achieve something in the game, which means there are barely any dead ends (if any). Of course, there are cases where it's game over, like when you're caught by an enemy, but it isn't like you'll need to go through all of your older saves and backtrack to a specific point in the game. The only exception is when you want the 'best' ending or if you want to get a maximum wisdom and honour score. I'm not going to say that one game is better than the other, because it depends on your preferences. If you like puzzles, but didn't like the combat in [i]Heroine's Quest[/i], this game may be more to your liking. Both games combine exploration and puzzles with pixel graphics (and nostalgia, if you've played similar adventure games from years ago). All in all, I can definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes the classic puzzle adventure games.

It's a nice game, but suffers from two issues: * There are some critical items and actions can be missed, then you'll reach dead-ends. After some discussion, this doesn't seem to be a major issue, but just something to keep in mind. Happened to me several times, and was frustrating * A lot of things are just too easily miss-able, which is just a shame. It doesn't relate to the game being either 'hard' or 'easy'. Some items are just easy to miss, and missing them prevents you from getting the good endings, which feels just arbitrary. If you do choose to buy this game, keep in mind you might hit a dead-end or two, so save often. The combination of easy-to-miss items, and their effect on the ending, was disappointing for me. Pros: * Decent voice acting * Graphics were somewhat improved * Decent story

Great stuff. Insane amount of non-linearity and optional content that ties into the "main quest" without the dead-ends that old Sierra games were infamous for, no matter how much you screw up. Has a few moments of weird logic or pixel hunting, but nothing that would really spoil it on the whole. I'd also recommend pressganging a friend to run a parallel playthrough so that you may compare your approaches to puzzles and discuss your collective failures to progress.

If you're having troubles running this game in full screen mode, you can try the Fullscreen F11 http://www.kapitanpazur.piasta.pl/dl/fullscreen_f11.zip program. Just run it and press F11 in game to play in full screen. I'm not into AGS (Adventure Game Studio) engine development, but not being able to play the game in full screen mode in 2017, and the fact that controllers are not supported, plus the not very intuitive menus, shows how bad AGS ages. While Heroine's Quest has more charming graphics and memorable music, so far this one has more involving story and lacks battles (which I like). Judging by the lack of reviews though, I don't believe this has many sales and people these days don't have much time for this kind of games. This saddens me because authors have put a lot of effort into making this excellent game which deserves more. I love every type of quest games that looks like this and I really appreciate what the team behind this game made. I haven't played such quest from a really long time and this review is probably pointless to you because if you're reading this, you're most probably already playing this gem.

This game belongs among the Sierra classics. Exceptional quality. Difficult puzzles! Multiple endings that increase gameplay replay value. The game is open enough so that if you play through without digging in, you can finish--but you might result in an ending that is not as satisfactory. Crystal Shard rewards the players that want to find everything and push the limits of what you initially think is possible. When I first played an earlier version of this game years ago, I was impressed with the depth of this game. You can dig and dig and find more and more stuff. This is much like Heroine's Quest--an INCREDIBLE game made by the same developer. Anyway-- to enjoy to its fullest potential. Play. Take your time. Don't try to rush through, but explore and try to find the best solutions for the puzzles. If you love King's Quest, or any of the classic adventure games, I highly recommend Tale of Two Kingdoms.

(Follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42150626-Jarl%27s-Game-Treasury/]my curator[/url] for more reviews like this) Excellent adventure game in the style of classic Sierra titles, both in the good and the bad parts. If there was to be a new King's Quest game, I would want it to be something like this. It really understands what made the old KQ games tick, and while it also inherits some of their issues, it learned its lessons and doesn't have any hard walking dead situations - only situations that prevent you from getting the best ending. I first played this many years ago, back in 2008, when it was a freeware game released on the AGS homepage. This is an enhanced edition that completely reworked all the graphics, added full voice acting, and additional content like a playable intro scene where the original only had a text scroll. The new graphics are gorgeous, classic 256 color pixel paintings just like you know from early 90s adventure games. It really is one of the best-looking adventure games of recent times. The scenes are colorful and detailed, with many animated elements like flowing rivers, fluttering flags, and plenty of animals moving across the screen in the forest areas. Every single screen in this game is a feast for the eyes. The gameplay is as classic as the graphics. Pick up items, talk to NPCs, encounter problems, figure out how to solve them with the items you collected. If you ever played a point & click adventure you know what it's like. One feature that took me a while to figure out is that you can ask NPCs to do something for you, which also lets you look at their inventory and ask to borrow an item from them, which took me a while to figure out. For a long time I had no idea how to get into a toolshed in the village, until I asked the druid to do something for me and noticed a key in his inventory. That this option exists should perhaps have been communicated better, because I'm not aware of any other adventure games that have this feature. The game world is pretty open and lets you explore pretty much everywhere as soon as the prologue is over. Most screens hold something of interest, and many will have you come back at different points in the game. Sometimes, depending on which chapter you're in, a cutscene might play out that gives you new information, or an event happens that gives you a small puzzle to solve. This makes the world feel dynamic and makes the story feel like it's progressing around you as you solve the game's puzzles. The downside to the large open world is that there's plenty of backtracking, which can take a while especially later on, even if you know what you have to do, because there's plenty of screens to cross. Also, like classic King's Quest games, there are plenty of missable things and if you want to get the best ending you probably have to play through the game multiple times, as a lot of the ending permutations depend on optional side quests you have to complete before certain points in the game. Luckily, unlike classic King's Quest games, none of the missable items and side quests are necessary to get an ending. Whatever you do, you WILL be able to get AN ending. And in addition to the final ending where you save the kingdom (which has different outcomes based on which side quests you solved), there are several alternate endings you can choose before the grand finale. This gives the game a lot of replayability for an adventure game, especially considering that many situations can be solved in different ways. The story is a classic fantasy tale with clear Celtic mythology influences, like faeries and druids. You play as Maeldun Whiteblade, who once led a successful rebellion against the tyrant king Vortigern. This Vortigern now invites you in friendship, because he needs your help against an invading goblin army. But then, a mysterious assassin murders King Vortigern, and you find yourself framed for the murder! After escaping from jail, you have to find out who really killed the king, and solve the goblin problem as well. The story is solid and competently told, with charming characters and a wonderful fairytale tone. There is some humor in the game, but overall the writing takes itself seriously and doesn't indulge itself in stupid meta-jokes, which is very refreshing. It's a genuine tale of fantasy told by people with love for the genre. Overall, this is one of the best contemporary point & click adventures out there and absolutely worth buying. It has a lot of charm, an open world with tons of optional puzzles that lead to multiple endings, and a wonderful vibe that will enchant you from beginning to end. There are some frustrations like excessive backtracking and missable items, but the missable items and side quests help to contribute to the replayability and there are no walking dead situations, so it's not a big issue. Thoroughly recommended.

A Tale of Two Kingdoms is a fun point & click adventure game by the same developer that gave us Heroine's Quest. This game is very similar to classic Sierra adventure games like King's Quest 5 or 6, Quest for glory 3 or 4. It also, really reminds me, at times, of The Legend of Kyrandia series. Visually it's very similar to those games. If you've played their other title, Heroine's Quest, the visual style is about the same. The user interface most closely resembles King's Quest games with icons like look, walk, touch, talk, and your active inventory item. Those icons can be accessed from a drop down menu at the top or by right clicking. It has a very nostalgic feel, if you enjoyed playing P&C adventures in the 90's. It doesn't feel quite as polished as Sierra's games, and isn't s good as Heroine's Quest, but its close. Visually, I found the games art to be beautiful. The retro style pixel graphics may not appeal to everyone, but I found the hand painted backgrounds to be beautiful, and the character portraits we're nicely done, with some of them looking quite stunning. The sprites all look visually distinct, even the random wandering townspeople. The only issue is occasionally something doesn't seem 100% scaled correctly, like a skull on the ground that seems abnormally large compared to the sprites heads, or a few scenes involving distance and perspective. Most of it however is very nicely done. While Crystal Shard's other game, Heroine Quest, was largely based off the style of Sierra's Quest for Glory series, this is more similar in play to King's Quest. This doesn't have any RPG elements. It's purely Point & Click Adventure with some light puzzles/mini-games. Most of the game revolves around the typical fetch quest/inventory puzzles. Most of which are logical and relatively easy to do. There is a mini-game that features twice in the game that's a triangular version of an Othello/Reversi style game. There's a music puzzle that's not that hard. There's a non-requisite logic style dialogue game you can play with your bard friend to help narrow your list of suspects. There are also a few dialogues that are almost a puzzle in that you need to select the right option to initiate certain actions. There are also wrong options which can end your game. There are also several quick action moments where you need to use an item or moving to the right spot quickly. While most puzzles and quests are pretty logical and easy there is one test from the Pooka which is a riddle and you may not know the answer to it and another test from the Pooka when entering Thierna na Oge that can prove difficult. While you can fail, you can restart the test and keep trying till you get it right. That's probably the hardest part of the game. This game does have a built in hint system but it's really basic, just telling you what you should be trying to do in general like get back into town and talk to people, but not specific hints as to how you might do that or where you might find something. It also does not include (as far as I could tell) any sort of hotspot highlight option. Some people find that really annoying especially in "newer" games, but honestly, the rest of the game is just pretty well designed so that it doesn't really bother you. The story is interesting and the dialogues are pretty well written. The voice overs make the more difficult Irish spellings a little easier to understand... though some things, like 'Thierna Na Oge' don't seem like their being said right. While I overall enjoyed the more expansive story there were often long dialogues and cut-scenes that were either not skipable or only skipable one line at a time. There are different endings and optional side quests in this game so while those longer scenes and dialogues aren't so bad the first time around when you're taking it all in they are a bit tedious on additional playthroughs. This game has 34 achievements which is a pretty good amount compared to most point & click adventure games. You will not be able to get all the achievements in one playthrough unless you utilized a lot of strategic saving but even then some path branches require doing something early on as well as later in the game so you may have to replay from a much ealrier spot to get them as opposed to just a few different choices at the end. The endings aren't all that significantly different and the long cut scenes and dialogues that can't be quickly skipped may make achieving 100% too much of a chore for some. A fair amount of the achievements are story unlocked so if you just play through one time even without an achievement guide you'll probably pick up half of them. Overall, I found this game really enjoyable, if you like fantasy and medieval/renaissance settings you'll probably enjoy this. You get to encounter Faeries/Unseelie, Goblins, a Giant, a Barghest, a Druid, Sorcerers and a talking scarecrow! If point & click adventures are what you like, and you enjoyed Sierra classics form the 90s, Heroine's Quest, or other similar games, chances are you'll enjoy this too. If you want to unlock all the achievements it can be a time consuming game. I had to trudge back and forth to locations many times to trigger all the cutscenes and complete all the side quests making for about 11 hours for a full playthrough with as many achievements as you could get in one playthrough. Then about 8-10 hours to unlock the other endings and challenging achievements. If you play through, exploring well and trying to do everything it probably comes out close to about $1/hr of gameplay, which I think is a pretty good deal considering how enjoyable I found the game. There's some replay value in the different endings and optional side quests, but I would recommend spacing out additional playthroughs by at least a few months, so that it feels more enjoyable and fresh.