Gorgeous graphics and interesting music ruined by atrocious gameplay and enemy AI / attack design. The game starts simple enough, but several bosses have unstoppable, unblockable attacks AND instant counters that you can't evade. Most of the normal enemies are easy to deal with, but the bosses are just designed to eat through your quarters. I think I continued like 40 times across the playthrough.

I'm never touching this game again.

16th game cleared in 2024 (Capcom Beat'Em Up Collection.) Time to clear: About 1.5 hours. A single achievement for clearing it. I can't even make a closing joke about this horrible game. Bleh.

Lo completé en PSP, en el juego Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded, una compilación de juegos clásicos de Capcom en el que viene incluido su versión Arcade.
Knights of the Round es un Hack & Slash clásico (beat 'em up de armas blancas) basado en el Rey Arturo que utiliza toda la fórmula ya vista en el género y, sin ofrecer nada especial, lo hace todo perfecto. Tiene una ambientación medieval, con diseños tipo anime, recuerda un poco al The King Of Dragons (también de Capcom e incluido en esta colección) pero visualmente y con un sistema de control mas parecidos a Final Fight, aunque mas rápido y con unas animaciones mas fluidas. Tendremos a tres personajes para elegir, el Rey Arturo (equilibrado) Lancelot (rápido) y Perceval (lento y fuerte). Como es habitual, nos moveremos por un plano 2D atacando continuamente a hordas de enemigos y afrontando ciertos peligros y con un jefe al final de cada nivel. Podremos montar a caballo a veces para ser superiores en combate y mas rápidos al desplazarnos, y funciona muy bien. Algunos enemigos (y jefes) podrán ir en monturas también. Una característica simple pero interesante, es que nuestro personaje irá mejorando en arma y armadura conforme vayamos avanzando, haciéndonos mas fuertes y resistentes.
En conclusión, Knights of the Round, siendo un poco corto y sin ser un juego difícil, es un hijo digno del gran Golden Axe, divertido, rápido, con buena música, bonito a los ojos y muy bueno. Lo recomiendo.

In terms of aesthetics, this game is very similar to Capcom's previous beat'em up, The King of Dragons.
They both do different things with that aesthetic, but there's a bit of a blend with both games.
Regardless, this one isn't bad, but with it not having as many environments to go through as The King of Dragons, nor as many characters to play around with, it feels lesser.

However, there are two things that I appreciate about this game. For one, the level-up system is done differently here than in The King of Dragons, as it's 100% reliant on the score you have, and it encourages you to get all of the treasure chests in the stages, since that score is converted into experience points.
The other thing that I really appreciate is the soundtrack. It's actually genuinely good, and sometimes even reminds me of older Castlevania games' soundtracks at some points.

Overall, while I prefer The King of Dragons over Knights of the Round, this is an alright beat'em up from Capcom.

Played this quite a bit when I was a kid and definitely had fun. Knights of the Round was one of a whole slew of beat-em-ups crowding the arcades in the early 90s, and with such plentiful (though not always high-quality) competition, it would need some kind of gimmick to set it apart.

That gimmick was not the point-based level-up system (which seems more cosmetic than anything else) - it was the inclusion of a parry in an otherwise very small moveset. It added some depth by allowing the player to gain a brief window of invincibility and counterattacking opportunity once they got the timing of enemy attacks down. In later levels, mastery of positioning and parrying is essential to survival. I only wish blocking had its own button tied to it; activating it with attack+direction made it unreliable to pull off and also rather unintuitive. (I suspect that a fair few of the reviewers here that criticise the barebones combat may not have discovered the parry at all)

While blocking is a cool mechanic that the game does build around pretty well, I can't give Knights a high score because it doesn't quite nail two things that beat-em-ups live and die on. The first is game feel - it simply feels too sluggish and stiff compared to the best brawlers of the era. But the second one is a bit harder to quantify: I call it the sense of "oh, cool!" It's not just the presentation and spectacle but also the little details that make you raise your eyebrows, smile inwardly, and continue to play and have fun with a genre that has the simplest gameplay loop ever. Beyond the amusing idea of being able to 'ration' health drops by attacking them (you swing your sword at a salad and suddenly it turns into four smaller plates, LOL), the game as a whole feels rather stodgy - playable but joyless.

This is far from a bad game... but it appears in this instance my childhood memories were embellished.

Finally moving on to yet another Capcom beat-’em-up after some time (and I mean a PROPER beat-’em-up, not whatever Avengers was supposed to be), we have Knights of the Round, which is essentially Final Fight and Captain Commando, except in a medieval setting, set in the times of King Arthur. I wasn’t expecting too much from this game whenever I decided to check it out, as I thought it was just gonna be another typical beat-’em-up with a medieval setting, and whaddya know, that is pretty much exactly what I got with this game. Sure, it all works as well as it should, and it was fun throughout, but compared to both Final Fight and Captain Commando, it is a step down in quality, and it doesn’t give you anything more then it shows right from the getgo. Then again, it does implement some features that those other games didn’t have, so was a little interesting to experience, but these new features didn’t really go that far, as I will be discussing in a bit.

The story is basically just the tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round (“oh, that’s why they named it that!”), except it has them killing literally every single person that they came across, which I like to imagine was what actually happened in that tale, the graphics are pretty good, of course, but the setting and environments are about what you would expect, while giving nothing more to enjoy from it, the music is great of course, as to be expected from Capcom’s arcade games, the control is pretty much what you would expect from a Capcom beat-’em-up, but the movement is a little slower for my liking, and the gameplay is, again, your typical Capcom beat-’em-up affair, but with some different features in there to make it stand out amongst most others.

The game is a regular 90s 2D side-scrolling beat-’em-up, where you take control as either King Arthur, Perceval, or Lancelot, go from left to right in plenty of stages, taking out many enemies that will try to slay you on your journey, gather treasure, health items, and sometimes horses to help you along the way, and take out plenty of big bosses, ranging from regular knights and kings, to even samurai warriors and a giant robot mech suit at one point… yeah, it isn’t afraid to get weird at points. As you have come to expect at this point, for the most part, it plays things pretty straight forward, but there is nothing wrong with a game that plays it safe, as long as it holds up in quality over time. Because let’s be honest with ourselves, this game is a hell of a lot better then Golden Axe, and you know that to be true.

The most noteworthy change this game makes in comparison to most others in the genre would be with the slight RPG mechanics thrown in. As you play through the game and defeat many enemies, while grabbing every single piece of treasure in sight, you will continue to gain more points, and whenever you gain enough points, you will level up, which will grant the player new armor and weapons several times, as well as increasing their speed and attack in the process. Now, this isn’t the first time that Capcom implemented this feature into one of their beat-’em-ups, as they previously did it with The King of Dragons, which came out a couple months earlier, but even still, it works pretty well with this type of game. That being said, the change in your character’s attributes don’t really shine through at first upon your first couple of level ups, but once you level up more much later down the road, you will start to notice quite the improvement.

I have very few complaints about the game, but I still have complaints regardless. First and foremost, despite being able to control three separate characters, none of them feel unique from each other. In Capcom’s other beat-’em-ups like Final Fight, all the special moves were performed with the same actions, but each of the attacks are distinct for each character, making them feel, well, special. In this game though, all of the character’s moves are basically the exact same, both with the regular attacks and the special attacks, so it makes you wonder why you would even bother playing any of the other characters when you can just stick to one. I mean, unless you think Arthur is an asshole, and Lancelot is just too cool to you.

The other complaint that I would have with this game is that it does get pretty repetitive in terms of the enemies you fight and the environments you travel through. Maybe it is just because I myself am not a huge fan of medieval settings to begin with, but I noticed this much more with this game moreso with the other similar games that I have reviewed previously, as you will be facing many of the same enemies over and over while traveling through very similar environments. Like I mentioned earlier with the bosses though, they at least change things up from time to time, so this isn’t a problem through the whole game, but for a good majority of it.

Overall, while it can be repetitive in the enemy, environment, and move departments, it is, for the most part, still yet another pretty good beat-’em-up from Capcom, although if I were to choose inbetween this and the other ones that I have reviewed so far, I would choose the others every time. That being said, it is still a good game, and I would recommend it for those who just want an hour to kill. Now, if only Golden Axe was as good as this game was, and no, I will not shut up about that.

Game #260

fine beat'n up, great graphics as expected from an Capcom game in the 90s but that's about it concerning the whole package, combat has some stuff going with the heavy attacks and parrying and it feels satisfying slashing through enemies most of the time but the level variety, repetitive enemies and general repetition are lame and almost brings this title down pretty quickly.

definitely one of the weaker titles I played from Capcom's Arcade games but it's still short enough to afford an quick play.

É até divertido mas os contras são maiores que os prós.

O jogo tem protagonistas super rasos, até meio genéricos pra falar a verdade (se os protagonistas são genéricos, todo o resto do jogo é o mais genérico possível).

A jogabilidade até convence, mas não inova em absolutamente nada. Fora que os protagonistas tem praticamente apenas 1 golpe, o que torna o jogo super repetitivo.

Tudo isso + uma IA desbalanceada e um sistema de "level up" totalmente genérico e indiferente consegue fazer qualquer "Beat n' Up" se tornar chato e maçante.

Another bit of nostalgia that I'm unsure if it hadn't aged well or maybe my thoughts were always the same on the matter. I was quite fond of playing this over the years but my most recent playthrough reminded me I didn't really play it for the gameplay as I might other beat 'em ups but simply to see the sights: levelling up, the enemies, the bosses, the stages, etc. I like it as it's quite a fun little romp but there's rarely any feeling to immediately revisit it rather to move onto the next thing and that might be a common refrain with these sort of games nowadays.

High fantasy arcade beat ‘em was calling my name. This is beautiful, with subtle details including chopping big food to spread the wealth of health pickups. Being able to knock back projectiles is a nice touch. The level up system is a neat twist on seeing enemies grow in power by new color alts, so you increase power and get new outfits , but you don’t feel more power because of the enemies growing so quickly . With a minimal boost, it doesn’t feel like you get access to more, maybe an additional move would have made progression feel great. I couldn’t nail the block system but that’s just on me, part of me thinks given the swarming of enemies that a specific parry button rather than attack plus back would have been more effective since you are being swarmed. The Masamune boss is insane, that was truly remarkable. The other bosses were just fine, I was hoping there would be more here to remember . This was nice but not memorable .

Os Cavaleiros da Tavola Redonda!
Mais um ótimo Beat em Up medieval da CAPCOM, dessa vez com a tema do Rei Arthur e seus cavaleiros. O game em sí é bem bonito, com sprites muito bem feitos, uma boa trilha sonora que combina perfeitamente com o jogo e fases com uma duração adequada diria eu(nem muito curtas nem muito longas) pra um Beat em Up. Novamente a CAPCOM aposta suas fichas em um sistema de level atrelado aos personagens que vão evoluindo e modificando o seu visual da mesma maneira que ela fez em The King Of Dragons(que na minha opinião ainda é melhor que esse, mesmo esse tendo saido depois), nesse jogo parece que a CAPCOM aprendeu a parar de reutilizar o mesmo personagem só com uma cor diferente como chefão de fase com exceção de um unico personagem que se repete(pq é o mesmo chefão que escapou da primeira vez que você enfrenta ele). Uma critica que tenho a fazer a esse jogo é sua dificuldade um tanto acima da média pra jogos desse tipo e um pouco artificial talvez por assim dizer, a uma boa variedade de inimigos mas esses mesmos se repetem a exaustão no jogo e sinceramente o visual do fundo/cenario poderia ser um pouco melhor trabalhado(o do The King of Dragons é bem mais bonito....e como disse ele é anterior a esse jogo). Enfim, um ótimo Beat em Up, mas que na minha opinião fica pra tras se comparado aos outros dois que a CAPCOM lançou anteriormente, enquanto Captain Commando esbanja carisma e personalidade de um desenho dos anos 80 e The King of Dragons passa toda a atmosfera de um RPG de mesa, Knights of the round se contenta em ser o basico Beat em Up medieval, bonitinho, com algumas idéias legais mas nunca se sobresaindo a frente dos seus irmãos.