Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom
Preview
Series takes a turn to action-RPG
by ffanxii4ever
previewed on X360
Since it’s an RPG... (cont.)
You are also able to synthesize your items with other items in order to create new bits of equipment that hopefully are more powerful than what you synthesized together. However, like in many other RPGs, you can fail this synthesis, and the chance of failure increases if the combination is more complex and/or the components are drastically different. You can lower the chance of failure by investing some gold into the synthesis as well.
Upgrading your weaponry intelligently is also highly important, as you are able slot Enhancements into your weapons and thus give them some interesting abilities. An example would be Regnier. One of his weapons that he can use is an axe that he throws like a boomerang. Equip a flight Enhancement, and his axe will hover out longer, hitting more enemies. Another addition would allow it to ricochet off the walls and hit even more enemies. This adds another layer of customization, but it is not without a price: an attack with one of these enhanced weapons costs more SP than a vanilla weapon. Naturally, you can also enchant your armour in a similar manner to provide your characters with more defence for all those encounters.
The More the Merrier
KUF, like most hack-n-slash games, seems like it will offer much more fun with a friend. However, regardless of whether or not you are playing with a buddy, the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. Some examples of this are some of the abilities, such as Weeping, which has tears bursting from your eyes and then hurting your foes, and Timber, in which a wooden golem is summoned. However, this golem does not attack your enemies, it just collapses on them. For when you are playing with friends, the hilarity can be compounded, as you are able to equip cosmetic items that have no purpose other than to distinguish yourself from your friends. These items can be things ranging from a simple baseball cap to a mask and a false nose. Your functional equipment can also be funny, as there is nothing that would prohibit you from equipping a pair of shields and batting your way through the hordes of enemies. The developers are clearly trying to get you to play with a friend for they have created different bosses and different loot depending on whether you are playing solo or with friends. This even affects the stores in the game as they will offer you different items in different play methods.
Circle of Doom definitely seems like it will shape up to be, at the very least, a fun and entertaining game to play with friends, if not an excellent action-RPG on its own. Its visuals are stunning, and with a little bit of luck, the gameplay will keep up. Let us all hope that these expectations hold up when the game is released on January 8 for both the Xbox 360 and PC.
