Pendragon Rising

I really wanted to enjoy this game because i'm a huge fan of the arthurian legend, but sadly i did not. I played a couple of these text adventures over the last months an this one turned out to be the weakest of them. pros: - decent story - good atmosphere if you have enough imagination cons: - very limited romance options - illusion of choice too obvious - very few stats - stat changes volatile / incomprehensible Who should buy this game? only big fans of king arthur

Story was mediocre at best and the "romance" options were terrible, either be gay, date your half brother/sister or your aunt/uncle. Constantly being told you're essentially useless and nobody wants you, even though you've gathered lot's of allies and are supposedly adored, isn't great storytelling in my opinion.

“Pendragon Rising” initially presents an intriguing premise for a text-driven RPG, but its execution is fundamentally undermined by a volatile and opaque stat system. While the genre thrives on consequence, the mechanics here frequently feel arbitrary rather than earned, leading to a gameplay experience defined by frustration rather than strategy. The primary issue lies in the game’s lack of transparency regarding character progression. Player choices routinely result in massive, irreversible stat shifts with no prior warning or narrative justification. It is common to see a substantial portion of one attribute stripped away in favor of another based on a single dialogue choice. Because the game fails to communicate these trade-offs in advance, character development becomes a matter of guesswork rather than intentional role-playing. This leads to a jarring dissonance between the narrative and the mechanics. A character established as a fearsome, experienced warrior can effectively "lose" their combat proficiency after a single decision, becoming incompetent at the very skills they must have honed over many years. When a character ends up mediocre at everything due to obscured systems and a lack of feedback, the game ceases to be a functional RPG and instead becomes an exercise in trial and error. Even after multiple restarts, I found that the system consistently punished experimentation. In a narrative-heavy game where your investment into the character is crucial, there has to be a very good reason why your core stats are substantially changed, but “Pendragon Rising” offers no such justification. The game is technically functional, which prevents a 0/10 rating, but its structural flaws actively strip away player agency to the point that it becomes unplayable as a serious RPG. (1/10)

The stat system in this one is just terrible.

I didn't like the gender decision if my character and all warriors are men or women. It seems like a really weird and illogical choice. I can hardly believe in such world.

It's a choose your own adventure book, like many others from this publisher. I enjoyed this one. I liked the setting, I liked the low magic, grimdark take on the Arthurian legend that felt historical. The choices were all non-obvious and interesting, and the story was satisfying with enough twists and turns that I'll likely play it again some time to see what other paths I could have taken. Recommended if you like this sort of thing.

Interesting and capably written, but it ends far too quickly, choices don't seem particularly meaningful, and the conclusion is deeply unsatsifying. Would consider revising this review if a sequel came out to resolve some of these issues.

I wanted to like this game, because I've played a fair number of text based games I enjoy from this company, but the stat system got too frustrating and quite honestly just take me out of the immersion. There's simply no clarity to what each action will lead to and at times make me feel like I am being punished for the choices I make. Face all my opponents singlehandedly and take them out? Does nothing for my close combat stats. Responding to an event with a shred of humility gives me a huge penalty to my warrior abilities. Okay? I guess the warrior stat is affected by more than just combat then. That's actually pretty creative. Few scenes later, make the smart decisions and plan ahead for an attack, rally my warriors and lead the charge. Somehow decreases my warrior abilities. Why? Because I had to charge off on my own apparently. The fact that I asked one of my battlesworn friends to assist me somehow made me worse of a fighter. There's no consistency to what actions affect which stats in which way. And the thing is that I don't have a problem with ability decreases in these games because they usually mean that another ability will get an increase. Which is the case here too for 3/6 of them. On the others, you get an increase or a decrease and no increasing one does not mean increasing the other, at least not consistently. With the cons out of the way, I suppose it's only fair I move onto the pros. In truth, the stat system has me extremely frustrated and the main reason for that is because it takes away the immersion and enjoyment of a story I actually enjoyed. I might have rolled my eyes on a few scenes, but ultimately I found the concept intriguing. It's a rendition that tries to appeal to chronological accuracy of the saxon invasion of Briton while at the same time keeping some of the mythology and mystery that make the Arthurian legends so fascinating. At times you must rely on the advanced medicinal knowledge of scholars trained in Rome while at other times you must rely on the native druids and their knowledge of the land. At times you must approach a mystery from a rational perspective, while at others that which seems like superstition is actually the better option. I really enjoy that, especially because most games (text-based or high budget) I've come across just do one or the other. Embarrass the silly priests with the wonders of science or silence the unbelievers with displays of magic. This game doesn't go for either direction and plays on the setting that both could have value. As I mentioned earlier, there are some moments where I rolled my eyes, mostly due to events that were no doubt meant to be shocking feeling predictable and clichéd, but I enjoyed the writing overall. I liked the pacing and the characters and I could immerse myself in their internal struggles. But the stat system just feels broken and prevents me from completing the game.