They're really aren't enough medieval times button smashing, side-scrolling, fighter games, are there?

Yeah, this is just a Double Dragon-style side-scroller brawler game where you smash that sword button millions of times, but it stuck with me over the years. Perhaps the key location at my local 7-Eleven or the limited play time due to the cost of quarters or maybe just because I read Once and Future King at some point around when this game came out? The graphics are fine, the game play is fine, and the music is fine. The digitized fighting sounds are a bit over the top, but not ridiculous. The translations are sometimes bad, but that doesn't make the game less fun. Not amazing, mind you, but just empty-headed slashing fun.

Sword sword sword sword sword sword sword...

Review from thedonproject.com

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.

I don't know, man. I don't know if its the hazy, distorted childhood memories playing this with my folks'; I don't know if it's the brilliantly medieval aesthetic; I don't know if it's the barebones RPG mechanic -- whatever it is, I've revisited this game more over the years than any other. I finally got my Retroid Pocket 3 setup yesterday after weeks of foaming at the mouth waiting for this juicy little retro-machine to come in the mail, and the first thing I did post-setup was pop on Knights of the Round and spend the next day save-scumming to get myself those equally juicy RetroAchivements. I learned things about this game I didn't even know from those countless replays every 2 to 4 years, like how grossly invaluable the parry mechanic is.

It's simple. It's streamlined. You can lie in bed and save-scum your way to level 14 and the Holy Grail and only eat 2 or 3 hours out of your increasingly invaluable day off. You get to chuckle at yourself playing as Percival imagining Arthur as Arturia while Percival (Shirou) monologues incoherently about how women shouldn't fight or whatever the fuck.

It's fun, it's frustrating, it's cozy, the level mechanic and parry system make it leagues ahead of its peers, and its style downright drips.

P.S. Fuck Bird Man and his blasted range.

(played with maradona)

On the weaker end of Capcom's arcade beatemups for sure. Was surprised I didn't raise it any from when I played the SNES version. The overall setting is a little dull, and enemy and stage variety are pretty low. I guess the bosses have pretty cool designs, though Scorn starts reappearing as a regular enemy as early as stage 3. I did also like the leveling up system, though it doesn't feel much more than aesthetic it's cool to gradually gain more armor and breaks the monotony at least a little.

Very okay. A bit odd that this is in Capcom's bundle and not something like Alien vs Predator or The Punisher. Maybe it has to do with licensing?

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.

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.

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