Conquests of the Longbow (Amiga NTSC) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
58Conquests of the Longbow was created by Sierra-Online and published by them in 1992. It uses the King's Quest game engine, with fancy new graphics, as we spend a week in the life of Robin Hood. This was a request review, and I hope you all enjoy it.
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Production Notes:
Captured: 3rd Oct 2021
Narrated: 11th April 2022
Edited: 3rd Oct 2021 - 25th May 2022
At some point during the Autumn of 2021, it became apparent that the games I had recorded for the Medieval Banquet series weren't enough. Johnny Smoesau suggested a Robin Hood game. This is the first Sierra adventure featured in the Playguides, even though all of them probably could do with a guide of their own.
After watching the longplay, it took a number of tries to get anywhere. On one try, it took 5 or 10 mins to find the lookout point by the road, as it isn't obvious where it is. I walked the length of Watling Street trying to find it, and cut this out of the final video. I didn't use any saves or savestates, so one mistake lead to a restart. By the end, I was tired of having to restart the game, but finally I managed to get a clean run, which is in the video, with some of the other runs inserted as additional clips. I guess if you play this in pure arcade mode, you get to do a lot more shooting and less puzzle solving, but the longplay was playing in this adventure mode, and I didn't want to stray from that footage in case I got lost.
A lot of intensive work went on regarding the narration to remove clicks and corrupted words; and by this stage I was also using a new software tool which I bought in order to help me remove most of the issues; although it takes away the high tones of my voice so it makes the narration sound pretty nasal (speaking through my nose).
Lots more work to add clips and captions to this one, sometimes a lot of exploring and downloading images just for one caption or perhaps two seconds on the screen, including a bit where I nod to the camera. There was so much text on the screen that it was hard to place things into the footage without being distracting. For example, the scan of the back of the game box was thrown into the cave section at the end of the video, as I couldn't find a less intrusive place to put it. Similarly, images from some of the Robin Hood books were thrown into the swamp section - although it didnt feel right at add a caption, like: "Notice that none of these characters are wearing a hood!". This is because Robin is a French name, and nobody was called Robin in those days. Hud is Celtic for "magical one", so the name has nothing to do with hoods. People wore hats in those days, and you can't wear a hood over the hats they wore. In French, Robin de Bois means Robin of the Wood.
The voices used in the narration were unplanned. At one point I start talking like a black African guy, which by the end sounds more like an Arab. The French accept was taken from the Monty Python movie.
Danscore:
The Kings Quest, Space Quest and Police Quest games are legendary for pioneering the adventure scene, with arcade segments mixed with puzzle solving. I could never get in to a single one of them without looking at a walkthu, and this game was no different. At the start, it feels like the player has a whole world to explore, and this can feel a bit overwhelming, as wandering around reveals nothing which could further the story. That is until, or unless, you can find the lookout point, which is one of those things which is critical to know about. There are no hints, and even though you are surrounded by Merry Men, you can't just ask one of them to help, or at least not that I have found. The enemy encounters are fun, but the time critical parts are no fun, and can lead to frustration if you stop the wrong guy by mistake. There are a lot of frustrations in the game, and while some things are obvious, most are not, such as the Nine Men's Morris game - which, even if you read the manual, won't be a push over unless you know the game or cheat in some way. It's this sort of thing which forces the player to look up the solution, and this means playing the game feels more like a relief that things are working, rather than the joy of working something out for yourself. Having said that, perhaps veterans of these games will find more on offer. The game does get more interesting as it goes on, and the archery contest on day 6 has some great graphics and gameplay. But on day 7 you must know the route through the maze to save the girl, and this is also no fun at all. So a mixed bag. Some great music, animations and touches make this wonderful to look at, so I'd give this a 7 out of 10, as a good game but spoiled by a few crazy situations.