The Chronicles of King Arthur - Episode 1: Excalibur

Review

Legend has it that only a true descendant will be able to pull out the almighty and powerful sword, Excalibur from its secure stone! The individual who will succeed will be crowned the next true king. This rumour has been circulating all over Britannia since King Uther Pendragon was brutally removed from his throne. The small complication here is that he wasn’t married, and certainly didn’t have an heir. Well, that’s what the population believed. It is also said that the wizard Merlin was present at the time of the King’s passing, when the king revealed that he had an illegitimate child who lives somewhere in the kingdom. It is only he who will be able to defeat the false king and restore peace in Britannia.

The Chronicle of King Arthur – Episode 1: Excalibur is a casual match 3 game developed by e-FunSoft Games and Published by HH-Games. In this game, you’ll be playing Arthur, and your goal will be to defeat the false king and his dragon and become the new king.

The game has five chapters with over 70 levels.   There are two main phases in this game. The first one is the map of Britannia which you can scroll to the left or to the right by hovering over the arrows located on the right and left side of your screen. It’s also where the tale will be narrated, and you will need to unlock five small cutscenes per chapter to reach the next point of the story. However, you’ll need to collect a certain number of items to play these cutscenes, which you can do by playing the match 3 levels.

To successfully win a level, you must collect all items displayed above the grid. In the first couple of levels, you can take as long as you want because there is no time limit. As you progress through the game, a time limit will come into play (very lenient by the way). There are six abilities and an energy sphere on the left side of the screen. Each time you match three items, it will send a small amount of energy into the sphere so you can activate one of these abilities. When you match 4, 5 or 6 items, double energy will make its way to the sphere as a bonus.  You’ll need a small amount of energy to activate the axe ability, but it will only destroy one tile, while the barrel of explosives will destroy a large number of tiles but will need a full sphere of energy to activate. 

I like the grid variety, and as you progress throughout the game new items will be introduced, as well as few little obstacles. The first obstacles are tiles with one or two chains. What it means is that you can’t select or move that specific tile unless you break the chain. To do so, that particular tile must be part of a match three to break the chain, and this process must be duplicated twice if the tile has two chains. The other obstacles are these cute spiders that keep popping up on the top of the grid and trying to spiderweb one or more tiles. If they are successful, you’ll need to do a match three or use the axe ability to destroy the web. You can catch these little cuties by matching three items as they walk on one of those three tiles.   

Nice, colourful graphics. The music is ok but can become annoying after a while. We can turn it off, (thank god for that)! Nice cutscenes and fun casual game to play. It will take you around 9 hours to finish the game.