Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom

KuF: Circle of Doom Review on February 05, 2008

Prologue -- A Hack n' Slash-RPG game for the Xbox 360. Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom is the third installment in the Kingdom Under Fire series. But for a hack n' slash game, how does it fare up?

Story -- Well unlike the Era of the Three Kingdoms in Dynasty Warriors or the Age of Conan, Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom isn't very story driven, and it's seemingly impossible to even know what's going on unless you've played the previous Kingdom Under Fire games for the original Xbox. From what I can tell (No I haven't played the other KuF games) there was a war which took place, obviously someone lost, and a powerful Nation is on the brink of destruction. Like I said, you haven't played the other KuF Games, don't bother with the story.

Characters -- There are 6 Main characters in the game, one of which has to be unlocked by finishing the game as Celine. Each character has a unique fighting style and weaponry to engage in combat with.

Gameplay -- An interesting concept towards the fighting mechanics, is that every character is given two equipable
weapons at a time, which can make use for some very interesting combos. The only thing about this hack and slash gameplay is, it's cool at first, but as you're progressing through the game, it grows old...very quickly.
Sure, swapping weapons and making odd combinations may slightly add to replay value, but trust me, even after going through all the characters you realize, it's the same thing with a different coating. The weapons are customizable, able to increase their Power and SP consumption, and even having the option of adding custom attributes and abilities to weapons, this game has some depth to it.
The main thing that kills this game, is the overly repetitive combat style. Also, boss battles. I can tell you, there's not much of a challenge here, the only boss that puts up a fight is the 3rd and 4th one.
Also, 4-Player Coop over Xbox Live.

Graphics -- The graphics...2 Pros, 1 Con. The graphics, even on a standard television are really bright and polished. The draw distance on this game is pretty far for a game of this caliber. Unfortunately that's where the con sets in. The Draw Distance is perhaps too far for this game. If you have too many graphical entities on your screen at one time, you'll get frame-rate lag to no end. The only way of fixing that problem is...what else? Look at the walls and floors. Even normal hit sparks from a blocked attack or simple magic can slow the game down.

Overall -- This game is hit or miss, some may like it, others will not, some will get bored of it like I did, others will not. While I did enjoy it while I had it, the gameplay just grew old real fast. The music's good, the graphics are good minus the frame-rate problem, the gameplay is mediocre, which may turn some people off the minute they play this, and there's almost no story to behold here unless you're a Kingdom Under Fire veteran. Overall 3/5