A Tale of Two Kingdoms

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.

Loved this game. Is actually much better designed than most of the classic adventure games. Puzzles mostly make sense and are not too abstract. Clearly made with a love of classic Sierra games in mind.

This is a tribute and throwback to the classic adventure games of last century. Unlike Heroine's Quest it is not also an 'affectionate parody' of the genre or the mythology it's based on. I bought it partly because I liked those games and it is fun to play that way again. I also bought it in part because I really enjoyed the free Heroine's Quest but I don't want to join yet more online services just to donate money. While I enjoyed those old games, I wasn't very good at them and I played this using the walkthrough for the original edition of this game. It worked quite well but for some reason the developers took it down. At any rate, I didn't get the full effect of wandering around wondering what to do. The basis of these old-style adventure games was moving around and picking up or at least looking at anything more pixellated than the painted backgrounds. Then you would apply the various items to the puzzles you encountered and seeing what worked ... if you survived. This game doesn't have the hidden dangers the King's Quest series was infamous for. You can usually see danger coming. However, it can usually also see you, so you are barred from saving until you survive. You should save after anything important or that you just don't want to do again. I quite enjoy this game. The Two Kingdoms of the title are the mortal kingdom of Theylinn and the Faerie Realm that co-exists with it. Theylinn has requested aid from your group to help against an army of goblins. Then Theylinn's king is assassinated and you are blamed. While the goblins and humans prepare for war, you investigate the murder and seek out the Faeries to resolve things diplomatically. I enjoy the theme of seeking peace. I love elves so I quite enjoyed dealing with the faeries and seeing their realm (although they rather exasperate the character you play). The game looks and sounds beautiful. The voice acting is quite good. The first chapter especially wouldn't have such diplomatic tension or sarcastic humour if just left to the writing. The main thing I didn't like was the cutscene mechanic. If you look in the Achievements you will see that there are 20 to try and witness. Their purpose is partly to give you clues to the murder and partly to show that other characters are trying to affect the situation, even if only you advance the plot. However, getting the cutscenes is a combination of finding the right trigger and then, often, waiting for the cutscene to run by repeatedly entering and leaving a scene. If you didn't know they were a specific thing to look for you could easily miss about a third of them. For that matter, you can easily lose some potential later actions by simply solving puzzles 'too early', in chapter 4 rather than chapter 5, although you are more likely to lose story-only cutscenes. I would recommend this. It might be a little random by modern standards, but it is more than just nostalgic fun.

Outstanding! Crystal Shard - this was more than well worth the wait. I hope I get to wait, yet another time, for a new release from your studio in the future! This game really does kicka*s and superbly dethrones simular games in the genre. Sierra should take notice and Activision should be sending the game developers an advance on their next project.

The game has many redeeming qualities, but it replicates early adventure games in a bad way. The good: - Writing. It's exceptional. If you yearn for literature-grade texts of Legend and Sierra games, ATTK will definitely scratch your itch. - Graphics and voice acting. Top-notch. It's a true delight to admire the art. The bad: - Game design. You have to wander a huge world, constantly backtracking, dying and losing items. For me, it kills all the enjoyment. This is not a contemporary pleasing AGS adventure. It's a grind: long, tedious and often unpleasant work. Be ready for it.

Knights, castles, and sword fights—medieval times have been universally fascinating and appealing almost as long as they have been in existence. A Tale of Two Kingdoms by developer Crystal Shard takes medieval gameplay to the hilt (pun intended), from the music to the dialogue to the setting design. A simple explore-and-combat game, it plays like a classic early video game, where you have to click on the different items in each scene and interact with them in a certain sequence in order to progress to the next chapter. This game may be old fashioned, but it is definitely not easy. You must always make use of your surroundings in each scene, and discovering the solution often requires you to think several steps ahead. These combinations of simplicity and complexity, the familiar and the unknown all contribute to A Tale of Two Kingdoms’ solid credentials as a great game. As mentioned before, A Tale of Two Kingdoms challenges you to think ahead and solve problems completely on your own. The mouse does let you toggle between viewing objects and using objects, and so clicking on something to view it will probably reveal interesting information. However, it is up to you to piece together the multiple clues and discover the right way to achieve your objective. For example, one of the earlier challenges was to get past a bored guard in a castle chamber. I clicked on the kitchen on the far side of the room and was told that my character stole a bottle of liquor. From there, I easily guessed that I wanted to spike the guard’s drink in order to make him fall asleep so I could slip by. My go-to thought was to slyly place the bottle in a conspicuous place in the room so the guard could see it, but the game kept telling me that it was not wise to place the alcohol anywhere in the room. After almost a full hour, I finally realized that I needed to open one of the side doors in order to distract him, and then pour the liquor in his cup while he was distracted. As obvious as it seems in retrospect, this actually required a lot of creating thinking outside the box. I would definitely say that this game sharpens your critical thinking skills, which I do not often find with these types of games. The other major aspect that I appreciated about this game was how genuine it was in terms of creating a true medieval ambiance. From the music, which sounded like it was composed centuries ago, to the beautifully detailed backgrounds of battlements and great dining halls, I felt fully immersed in the historical time and location. On the other hand, A Tale of Two Kingdoms also includes incredibly strong female characters, such as Branwyn, who is a fearless fighter and one of the protagonist’s main companions. Of all things, I am glad that gender norms in the game are not exactly the same as the traditional medieval beliefs that prevailed during that time. All in all, a surprisingly stimulating gameplay and impressively authentic game design keep A Tale of Two Kingdoms a relevant and enjoyable game today.

A classic!!

[h1]An Extraordinarily Interesting Adventure[/h1] A Tale of Two Kingdoms, although released in 2007, feels like it was made in the golden age of adventure games. It feels like the King's Quests, Space Quests, Eco Quests. These games were so much better then than they've become in the last 2 decades or so... I don't know what happened. This is one of the [i]good[/i] ones, and it has something special that I don't remember seeing in any other adventure game: There are multiple solutions to several puzzles, and optional "objectives." I've finished the game with a whole lot of items I never found any use to, and without any idea of how to do some things I wanted. Obviously, that led me to a so-so ending... and very curious about how to do everything I couldn't. This stuff must be [i]really[/i] hard to implement. Predicting and preparing (programming-wise) for all possible paths and outcomes certainly took a [b][i]lot[/i][/b] of thought and work. A Tale of Two Kingdoms also [i]doesn't[/i] have that "hold spacebar to show all interactables on screen" crap. I [i]hate[/i] that. For some reason, adventure games' developers these days think it's a good thing to include a cheat in their game. It's so F'ing stupid... ... but that doesn't happen in this one! Very much the opposite -- as in golden-age adventure games, in aToTK not only you [i]cannot[/i] so easily cheat, but you must also actually interact with things to find out what they are. There's none of that "hover the mouse over anything and the game automatically tells you if it's an interactable or not, and what it is" BS -- another dumb-down mechanic I hate. Most adventure games these days are boring, very linear, and you usually find yourself confined to 2 or 3 screens at a time. In aToTK, you're free to roam some 20 of them and, as chapters change, new things happen in these locations. And, it should be noted, often things you could do in the past chapter(s) can no longer be done. You can also die in aToTK. A lot, actually. And there are some timed events, for a change of pace. This is a very good -- and very challenging -- game from start to finish. This is what a [i]true[/i] adventure game should feel and play like.

Ces quelques défauts ne sauront faire oublier le principal: A Tale of Two Kingdoms est un jeu d'une richesse insoupçonnée avec une grande liberté laissée au joueur et un univers coloré et très vivant grâce aux doublages, à la qualité d'écriture et aux animations omniprésentes. Il s'agit d'un indispensable pour les amateurs du genre qui trouveront là un véritable feeling à l'ancienne tout en ayant le confort d'un jeu moderne d'autant que cette version améliorée propose un véritable lifting graphique par rapport à l'original Test en entier ici : https://www.game-focus.com/2017102859978/game-focus/nouvelles/tests-de-jeux-video/a-tale-of-two-kingdoms-pointer-et-cliquer-en-toute-liberte-59978.php

If you grew up with point and click adventure games to the tune of Quest for Glory, Monkey Island, or any of those Sierra and LucasArts classics, this game is definitely for you.