The Hand of Merlin

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The Hand of Merlin

by Aethyna Jun 20, 2022 | 1 Votes | 22 Played | 0 Reviews

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Genres:

Strategy

Graphics:

3D

Labels:

Turn Based , Magic , Monsters , Roguelike/roguelite , Medieval Age

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Versus Evil Set during the Middle Ages, The Hand of Merlin is a tactical, turn-based strategy game, featuring roguelite and gamebook elements. In this game, you control a band of heroes chosen to be the “Hand of Merlin”, to be his conduit in this world to bring the artifact, the Holy Grail, from Camelot to Jerusalem to save the world from the Cataclysm’s abominations. Will you be able to do it? Play Now Similar Games Played Post a Review

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

Set during the Middle Ages, The Hand of Merlin is a tactical, turn-based strategy game, featuring roguelite and gamebook elements. In this game, you control a band of heroes chosen to be the “Hand of Merlin”, to be his conduit in this world to bring the artifact, the Holy Grail, from Camelot to Jerusalem to save the world from the Cataclysm’s abominations. Will you be able to do it?

Plotline

In the universe, there’s a being called the Cataclysm that has an insatiable hunger, consuming world after world in its wake. Its minions, the abominations, have also been gashing away at the Veil since the start of time, opening up little tears in the fabrics of reality, allowing them entry into various worlds.

One such world is Earth.

Many say that the Cataclysm cannot be stopped until it has consumed everything there is in existence, but Merlin has hope… hope that it can finally be stopped.

He gathered his power to reach out to a champion to defend the worlds from the Cataclysm, a “King Arthur” so to speak. At a hefty cost, he has also created an artifact, a “Grail”, that would mend the tear in the Veil – to Earth, this artifact is better known as the Holy Grail.

With everything in place, Merlin was unfortunately betrayed by his own powerful ally, Morgana. She tricked and trapped him, putting him in a deep sleep while the years passed.

Weakened, Merlin awoke to find the world gradually becoming overrun by the Cataclysm, indicating that King Arthur has failed. With only hope as his motivation, he reaches out to a handful of heroes telling them to travel to Camelot, retrieve the Holy Grail and bring it to Jerusalem.

Thankfully, your band of 3 chosen heroes heeded his call and set off on a journey to save the world from the Cataclysm while there’s still a chance. Will you be able to defeat the Cataclysm’s abominations in your world?

Gameplay

To start, you’ll need to first choose a difficulty level. There are 5 available with the Story mode being the easiest of the lot and Hard Mode+ being the hardest. There’s also an Endless mode if you fancy seeing how long you can last in combat. Now, the game is designed to offer a challenge to its players, so unless you’re very well-versed in turn-based RPG, you might want to check out the easier difficulties first, just so you can get an idea of the gameplay, specifically the combat.

Next, you’ll need to assemble your warband of heroes. You get to choose one of each “hero class” – a warrior, a ranger, and a mystic. There are several choices for each class, but besides the default characters, you’ll have to unlock the rest by completing certain achievements. You can even upgrade a specific character by fulfilling its upgrade criteria, such as surviving the fight in Jerusalem on Normal mode or harder.

You’ll start your journey in Camelot where you’ll be entrusted with the Holy Grail by none other than King Gawain, the ruler of Camelot. It is then you’ll be asked to choose which path to take as you make your way to Corbenic, and eventually all the way to Jerusalem. The tutorial here is sufficient to get you acquainted with the game, whether it is to level up your heroes in your warband or, during your first skirmish, how to use spells and relics, items that you can equip – only 1 each though! – to your heroes.

That being said, if you’re familiar with roguelites and turn-based strategy games, you should be able to hop right in! For instance, before making any move on the map, you’ll want to first explore the nodes available, and choose the best possible path so you could survive to face whatever monsters at the end.

Besides the regular nodes, some nodes, like the Heroic ones, have a higher likelihood of you encountering enemies that you’ll have to fight, while others offer a brief respite to the journeying, allowing you to spend some of your hard-earned coins on upgrades at the blacksmith or to buy more provisions for the road ahead.

There are also nodes that are both landmarks and arcane nodes, such as the Stonehenge, that offers you the chance to unlock new Guardians, namely Atlantes and Oberon. Guardians, like Merlin, are entities who provide you with additional powerful spells that costs mana instead of action points from afar, such as the ability to teleport a character to a target position, or to restore a certain amount of health. Mana, on the other hand, is earned by defeating abominations.

This is actually a part of the roguelike element of the game, as you might want do multiple runs just to unlock all of the characters available, along with the Guardians, and also to check out landmarks which would provide you with unique encounters and hence, stories to experience.

Note as well that every move you make on the map will consume 1 Food and that you’ll do well to make sure your warband is well nourished. If not, they will end up with a stats penalty which may prove fatal during some of the more challenging fights.

As you may have guessed by now, in this game, not every regular node will push you into combat, which is awesome since not many games understand that it doesn’t have to be non-stop action as you travel from node to node. In fact, fights are fairly rare as long as you stick to the safer routes. What you’ll encounter the most are actually “Encounters”. These are basically text-based details of events that happened which may or may not lead into combat but oftentimes, will require you to make a decision.

Some encounters may have a dice-roll element that may allow you to, for instance, ambush some unwary enemies, or perform some feat of strength, intimidation, stealth, etc to get something to go your way. In a way, it’s very similar to what you’d experience if you read a gamebook, really, so expect to read a lot in this game!

Naturally, your decisions have consequences. It’s usually immediate, but sometimes, a decision can come and bite you in the rear further down the road, so it’s wise to really consider your options and situation, and then act accordingly.

The nodes also change over time. You see, the corruption from the Cataclysm will sometimes infect a node. You’ll then be given a timer as to how long it’ll take before the node is completely corrupted. If that happens and you venture into that node, you’ll no longer be facing regular human enemies if combat is required. Instead, you’ll likely have to battle the abominations that the Cataclysm has spawned. Abominations are tougher foes with unique and powerful abilities. Personally, I’d go out of my way to avoid fighting them, as much as possible at least.

There are quests that you can pick up along your journey as well. Due to being randomly placed on a node, sometimes, you might need to go out of your way just to grab or complete one. Personally, the quest rewards are pretty good and can come in many forms, be it coins, food or relics. I’d recommend going for it if it’s possible.

I’d also like to point out that you can actually rank up and upgrade your characters during an encounter simply by switching over to the Warband tab. Here, you can also pick new skills, out of the three random ones presented, for your characters (up to 4, max), or upgrade existing skills once you have a full roster of skills. However, note that you’ll need to have enough Renown to do so, and to earn Renown, you’ll need to help the locals with whatever that they need, be it food, coins, or a helping hand in getting rid of some pecky abominations or bandits.

Now, in terms of combat, this is where the Hand of Merlin really shines, I think! The game is very tactical in nature, for instance, covers are very important in this game and to go without one will be a pretty risky move to take. Plus, the covers are destructible and there’s one tank-like abomination that’s designed to do just that, thanks to its Trample ability.

The AI here are very well-designed too as they will target the most vulnerable member of the team 9 times out of 10. The last point is reserved for situations where the most vulnerable is too far away, and that there’s easier prey nearby. They know how to use their abilities to their best advantage so it’s crucial that you know your characters and their skills well enough as well.

Each character only has 2 action points per turn by default. Considering that almost every skill has a cooldown, you’ll likely be able to only attack once and move once in a turn. Needless to say, the order of your actions depends on your strategy and the situation on the battlefield. However, there are characters that have a passive ability that allows them to circumvent this by having all skill cooldowns reduced whenever a kill is made, essentially allowing you to attack twice in a turn. There’s even an active ability (ranger-specific) that allows them to attack any enemy that moves within their line of sight during the enemy’s turn.

The combat aspect of the game is very strategic despite not having features like flanking or terrain advantage. As a fan of turn-based strategy games, I can honestly say that each fight is challenging enough without feeling like the odds is stacked against me, and this is the factor that makes me want to return to the game, again and again.

However, as fun as the game is, it does have some flaws. The main critique of the game that I have is that the tutorial didn’t mention how to gain mana. Instead, I had to learn it by playing an entire run before I’ve noticed that I’m gaining mana after every abomination fight. This is something that the game really needs to include in its tutorial since in later runs, mana and spells will really come in handy since you should have gained at least 1 essence that will allow you to unlock a new active spell in the Merlin’s core.

I’d also like to see the range of abilities that my enemies have just so I can try to anticipate what kind of attacks I’ll see in the fight. For instance, I was pretty shocked the first time I saw a Wyvern just leaped over my defenses like it’s nothing. Considering that it can already Levitate, I never expect it to jump too.

Graphics/ Sound

The graphics here are fantastic! They look dreary enough, to convey the dire situation of a world embroiled in war and other domestic troubles, alongside being invaded by abominations from another plane. The artists who did the abomination art and 3D assets should definitely be given a raise. The abominations look gruesome and will be able to strike terror in anyone unfortunate enough to see it in person.

The music here works great in the background and isn’t distracting in the least. Personally, I really like the combat music. I feel that it greatly enhancing the mood and atmosphere of every fight, lending it some urgency even though… you know… it’s a turn-based game so technically, you have all the time in the world to decide and make your move.

Conclusion

The Hand of Merlin is definitely one game you’ll want on your radar if you’re a fan of any story-driven turn-based RPGs with some roguelike elements. Solid gameplay and atmosphere aside, the game is so infused with so much Arthurian legend that every run you take allows you to explore more and more of the story. The variety of skills and abilities, as well as the choice in which paths to take, allows you to craft each run to your liking and fitting each character to your playstyle. The Steam sale is coming up, so if you fancy checking out the Hand of Merlin yourself, this is your chance!