The Cruel King and the Great Hero Review: The Dragon and His Granddaughter
– Reviews News
There was once a bitter rivalry between humans and dragons that caused death and destruction for many years. That rivalry is gone now. The one who was once considered the Demon King became friends, to the point that the hero once his enemy before he died asked him to take care of his newborn daughter.
Little Yuu grew up under the powerful wing of the dragon, who continued for years to tell her of the great deeds performed by her real father. These fantastical adventures made her want to get to know the outside world and one day become a brave heroine... just like her father. Her dream is to defeat the Demon King once and for all, unaware that the one who wants to kill is the good giant crow who raised her.
What you have just read is the beginning of a bittersweet story, similar to those our parents told us as children. A fairy tale told through images that really seem to come out of a children's book, with straw-colored pages that follow one another and balloon-shaped dialogues that follow the funny expressions of the protagonists.
Unlike the books, however, The Cruel King and the Great Hero's story also comes with a tender soundtrack that seems to have come out of one of Studio Ghibli's magic rooms. The combination of all these elements is incredibly pleasing to the eye and at least in the very first hours it is able to enchant the hearts of even the most experienced and knowledgeable gamers.
The cruel king and the great hero
- Developer: Nippon Ichi Software
- Publisher: NIS America
- Availability: March 4 – PS4, PS5, Switch
- Version tested: PlayStation 5
The playful construction of this latest work Nippon Ichi, which is based on the most basic foundations of game design in the RPG genre, is not exactly expert and savvy players. If it happened to you a few years ago to play The Lying Princess and The Blind Prince, you will surely remember the atmosphere but also the chronic repetitiveness of the gameplay… a fault also shared by this second chapter of the pseudo -saga.
Yuu's business goes through long journeys through storylines populated by bizarre beings and creatures of all kinds, which come into play like shaped leaves sliding across the pages of the book. Their animations are voluntarily essential but the overall rendering is more than satisfactory. The main plot branch branches off in several directions through side quests that include "acts of kindness" to certain NPCs, about whom you'll gradually discover interesting details that dig deeper into their characterizations.
The adventure is divided into chapters, or rather into days punctuated by a number X of main missions, after which the young protagonist must return to her lair and fall asleep tenderly among the warm scales of her adoptive father.
The different biomes are beautiful to look at but after the twentieth time you pass the same level you really can't take it anymore.
The game world is fully two-dimensional and not fully accessible at first. To unlock certain areas, you will need to reach certain stages of the game, after which you will be free to move as and where you want. Unfortunately, the amount of backtracking and the monotony of the tasks at hand undermines the enjoyment rate from the first hours and the excessive frequency of random fights does the rest.
Faced with more than canonical combat mechanics, with attacks, defenses and techniques of each protagonist linked to their main statistics, the level of difficulty initially quite low tends on more than one occasion (and suddenly) to don't go up a bit. In particular, it is the amount of special attacks used by opponents that is completely unbalanced, especially since they can be used by Yuu and associated with a much lower frequency due to very slow loading of the action points needed. .
This syncopated tendency makes The Cruel King and the Great Hero's benchmark target a bit nebulous, shifting it according to the moments of the youngest to the most "seasoned" role-playing audience.
The lack of Italian localization further blurs the positioning of the game, which actually seems tailor-made to be played by a child with an adult. Just like the Dragon who follows Yuu from behind to help him in all difficult moments (his, for example, is the fire that makes his special attacks so powerful), the more experienced player can support the less experienced in the most difficult times. tough times. Thus everything is rebalanced and the progress of the adventure, although not very short, becomes as pleasant as in its introductory act.
The loot isn't particularly generous and is part of the perfect "basic RPG playbook", perfect for those who want to start tackling this genre.
We really wanted to reward The Cruel King and the Great Hero with a higher score, but unfortunately we're up against the classic all-smoke, no-roast gameplay. The art and narrative components are ten and commendable, enchanting, but not supported by adequate gameplay structure.
The overall good RPG mechanics, though far from original, are immediately repetitive and often unnecessarily unbalanced. At this point, we don't know if there will ever be a third chapter in this fairy tale saga, but if so, we hope the guys at Nippon Ichi will cherish the mistakes of the past.
6/10
SOURCE: Reviews News
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