Hero of the Kingdom

Hero of the Kingdom
by Lonely Troops - December, 2012

Series links: Hero of the Kingdom, Hero of the Kingdom II, Hero of the Kingdom III, Hero of the Kingdom: The Lost Tales 1

Available at:
Big Fish
GameHouse
Steam



You were living a calm, happy life together with your father on a small farm, when one sunny day your life completely changed. Malicious bandits raided your home, burnt it to ashes and your father went missing. A darkness has now fallen over the whole country, and it is up to you to set off on a dangerous journey to places you've yet to explore, overcome your fears and search for your father in the greatest adventure of your life to become the Hero of the Kingdom!

• Fulfill quests
  
• Gather herbs, hunt and fish
  
• Collect sacred artifacts
  

Hero of the Kingdom

Options include separate sliders for sounds, 10 languages to choose from, Full-screen or Windowed, and whether or not to use profiles (that's a new one to me!)

Right away you'll see that you can access the main menu via the top right corner of the screen.  As you progress you'll end up with something in each corner, as follows:

Hints - Bottom right corner
Insta-travel Map - top left
Inventory and health - bottom left

What I really can't figure out is what kind of game this is.   I can't pigeonhole it in a single genre.  It has RPG elements, in that your character learns new skills and abilities as you progress; there are useful items scattered about on every screen, which is reminiscent of a hidden object game; and it's an adventure with strategy elements... What it's NOT is a click-fest.  There's no chaining, and no rush.

As I mentioned above, some items just need to be clicked on, hidden object-style, something I didn't realized until about eight screens into the game.  "I need (x-item), why can't I find someone to buy them from??"  The answer is that you need to gather them yourself.  New abilities will allow you to find new items in your environment, so you'll want to revisit scenes often, and be sure to click on anything that looks unusual!

We lose energy (health) when we do tasks, and this energy can be restored by staying at one of the available camps.  At each camp you'll eat a different type of food before you go to sleep, and this means a varying amount of health restored.  At one point I had over 30 health, so I don't there's a cap on how much health you can have.

Don't be thrown off by how easy everything is early on.  The game is pretty isometric when it first begins, but once you've explored a few screens, you start to have some freedom to choose your own tasks. Will you just chase the main storyline, or will you explore every nook and cranny and do all of the side-quests?  Will you try to get all 38 achievements, or only do what's necessary?  The choice is yours!  Once you finish the game, you CAN go back in to try and get those awards, which is really nice.

Hero of the Kingdom which took me about 8 hours to finish with all of the achievements, and I absolutely enjoyed my time in the game.  Recommended!