If you enjoyed the first “Chronicles of King Arthur” match-3 game, you’ll also enjoy this second installment, since it is a direct continuation with the same format and gameplay.
- Aesthetics -
The character designs are gorgeous (I want an otome game with them), and the game boards are crisp with easily distinguishable symbol and obstacle icons.
The same voice talents reprise the roles of the main characters, and they all do a great job (despite the varying pronunciations of “Cerdic”); however the narrator voice now sounds computer generated in an eerie uncanny valley way.
I love the music tracks, I just wish there were more of them. You wind up hearing the same loops over and over, which starts to grate on the ears after a few hours.
They went a little gung ho with the animal sound effects in this installment, which not only play on the upgrade screen but now intrude into the cutscenes and levels. The first cutscene sounds like it takes play at a zoo, and the entirety of chapter five is under attack by seagulls. At least you can manually adjust the sound effects volume from the options menu.
- Story -
The plot loosely follows Arthur’s reign from the founding of the Knights of the Round Table through the defeat of Cerdic and the Saxons, drawing on both mythology and history for inspiration. True to HH’s brand, the narrative is structured to convey specific moral messages, but it isn’t nearly as preachy as “The Chronicles of Jonah and the Whale” or “The Voice from Heaven.”
Additionally, because they make games with kids in mind, any non-kid-friendly content in the source material is either danced around or omitted.
- Game Format -
The game is divided into a total of five chapters, with each chapter having four upgrades to unlock. In order to earn enough resources to buy the upgrades, you will play a series of match-3 boards.
Every upgrade purchase triggers a cutscene, giving you a bit more of the story.
At the start of the game you can choose whether to play the match-3 boards with or without a time limit; however, even on boards where I was struggling, I honestly never had the timer come even close to running out. But for kids, or for adults who might constantly be interrupted by kids, the timer-free playstyle might be less stressful.
For some reason, you can only access the main menu from within a game board, not from the upgrade hub screen.
You should be able to complete the whole thing in about six hours.
- Match-3 Gameplay -
Gameplay follows the traditional style of swapping two adjacent symbols to create chains of three (or more) of a kind, removing them from the board. The openings refill in completely, with new symbols either falling directly down in the same column from the top, or spawning below any obstacles or blockages in the path. Pieces will never fall across holes in the board layout.
To clear a level, you will need to perform some combination of the following: removing a certain number of a specific symbol, removing symbols above marked tile spaces, or dropping magic sphere elements to the bottom of a column.
The main challenge of each board is the layout, with the jagged edges and the positions of immovable blocks and holes limiting what matches you can make. At least two of the board layouts repeat a second time over the course of the game, and some of the boards also feel like they might be recycled from Episode 1. With the sheer number of levels, though, a repeat here or there isn’t a deal breaker to me.
Other obstacles include chains that lock a symbol in place until you break them through matching, and spiders that occasionally invade and start spinning webs that effectively act as new chains. (As an arachnophobe, I can attest that the spiders look like cartoony burdock burrs and are not at all scary.)
As you unlock upgrades, you gain access to tools to help you clear levels faster. These allow you to remove targeted areas of symbols, remove entire rows or columns of symbols, or remove all of one type of symbol. To use them, you will need to fill up a tool meter by making matches. The larger the match, the more energy you are rewarded. Each tool costs a different amount of energy, so earning enough to clear a 7x7 grid takes far longer than earning enough to clear a single square; however, the energy you collect is use-it-or-lose-it each level, and does not carry over to the next board.
There are also wild card symbols that sometimes show up on the board and allow you to pick which symbol you want in that square.
To keep the visuals fresh, each level uses a slightly different mix of symbols from the available options, and each chapter adds a few new symbol designs to the pool.
The level progression is linear, so once you beat a board you cannot go back and replay it.
- Glitches -
On level 5-15 I dropped three magic spheres at once, and the large announcement popup icon got stuck displayed over the center of the board. I could still make matches and finish the level, but for the duration of the glitch I couldn’t see any of the pieces hidden behind it. The problem fixed itself once I got back to the upgrade hub area.
Chapter five strangely also cuts the volume on the magic sphere announcement to almost nothing.
- Conclusion -
If you are looking for traditional match-3 gameplay with kid-friendly Arthurian window dressings, this is a solid title that boasts around 75 challenging boards. The production values are pretty good, and the minor audio issues and small visual glitch mentioned above aren’t detrimental enough to keep me from recommending it.
