King of Dragon Pass

The Good
If you like strategy, strategy and management is what you’ll find here. As leader of a barbarian clan in a rich and detailed fantasy setting, take care about all military, economic, diplomatic and magical affairs to take your people to prosperity and later to supremacy, struggling for power with other clans. Detailed are the models, too: make policies about your crops and herds, explore, send diplomatic and trading missions, build shrines to get favor from the gods… But that makes KoDP more interesting is its RPG elements: you don’t play as the supreme leader of the clan, but as the entire ring of nobles who rule it. Each one has his/her unique abilities, religions and personalities, and of them depend success or failure in certain situations. You only have the information the clan ring may know; you’re not omniscient like in other strategy titles (although the final decisions are up to you), and that gives the game a particular flavor.

But the RPG feeling comes with the random events. Very often, certain situations arise and need you to make some decision: enigmatic strangers, internal affairs, monsters… literally hundreds of different events can happen, and better enough, making the correct choice depends on the current situation of the clan, on certain abilities possessed by your noble ring, and on luck, so the answer that worked once may not work when circumstances have changed, and the answer that seemed wrong once may be the best later. Also, you will be facing those events when exploring or sending emissaries to another clans, so choose well the leader of the expedition. RPG elements are found too in the way to victory, as you’ll have to complete some magical quests (presented in the above form) to become king or queen.

Each event, each answer to an event and each action you take have consequences. For example, ordering to build a stake perimeter for defense needs some of your people, who then cannot take care of the crops as efficiently as if they hadn’t to work in the defenses. Also, people assigned to craft trade goods aren’t in the same physical shape as hunters, so they are worse in battle. All those and many other examples are signs of a true designing work, a work than won’t be noticed when looking at the graphics, but that is much more important in a good strategic simulation.

The background is very detailed, as you can read online documents about your barbarian culture (called “Orlanthi”) and the mythical stories about your gods (these being very important in order to succeed in magical quests). The graphics are beautiful to see, and combined with the music create a very well drawn atmosphere.

The Bad
I do not consider the following bad. However, it can make the game much less appealing to many gamers: there aren’t any animations. All information and events are displayed in static screens, so you’re not going to see animations of any type. Battles are a matter of making choices about tactical formations and magic: there is no action. I say again: I do NOT consider that bad, but I’m sure it will discourage more than a gamer from getting this title. That doesn’t mean the game is not visually attractive, as I said: “paintings” are true works of art.

Sometimes, making choices in the “events” (and in battles) can become frustrating, as you don’t know exactly what failed (¿Poor ability? ¿Chance?). However, this is truer on magical quests. If you follow the myth associated with the quest, certain choices seem to work always, but others do not. Again, I cannot be sure about this. Perhaps is a personal appreciation, but… who knows? I think the game lacks more information on what affected success or failure of a decision; showing die rolls and chances, for example, even if it hurts somehow the atmosphere.

I miss also some multiplayer option.

The Bottom Line
Overall, KoDP is more a strategy-RPG hybrid than a strategy game, and they knew how to mix them well.

I’m not an Action fan (apart from Shoot’em ups, especially Japanese :)). 3D FPS (and RTS which are really action titles in disguise) that dominate the market today bore me. So, these lines are written from that point of view. I say: if you’re the type who prefers any of the above or the type who gets frightened at the sight of the simplest statistic table, stay as far as you can from this title.

However, strategy gamers who do not care about outstanding animations and appreciate the work that is behind the screen are advised not to miss this gem. A bluish gem, indeed. A piece of art of which there aren’t many these days.