Alaloth: Champions of the Four Kingdoms is an isometric action-RPG, with its roots stretching to the beloved RPG classics such as Diablo, Baldur’s Gate, and Pillars of Eternity.
The game combines a classic isometric RPG and Souls-like style battles, where one mistake can kill and ruin a very, very long playthrough. And there is plenty to explore, which, in turn, means a lot of time and opportunities to test your skills and emerge victorious – or perish. The world consists of a very large number of arenas of impressive sizes, full-blown cities and mini-locations filled with stories to explore.
Alaloth: Champions of The Four Kingdoms is the work of the Italian studio Gamera Interactive from Padua. This studio is relatively new, founded in 2017, but the staff is quite experienced. The studio’s works mostly include a number of smaller indie games in a variety of genres and different visual styles. This in itself, of course, inspires respect, since the team is not afraid of experiments.
The first game was the 2D platformer Unit 4, and the following also include: graphic novel Midnight Caravan, IT company simulator Go to IT. In addition, the studio was actively engaged in publishing various indie projects. But in 2018, wanting something more, the studio took on a larger project. This is how work on Alaloth: Champions of The Four Kingdom began.
The development process itself was progressing– but not very quickly. It is also noteworthy that Chris Avellone himself had a hand in creating the game world of Alaloth. His work consisted of developing the game mythology, working on the lore and consulting Gamera’s scriptwriters. In fact, Avellone was doing roughly the same thing that George Martin did during the development of Elden Ring.
The game’s plot and the lore itself were skillfully written together with Christopher Frederic Avellone, a famous game designer and screenwriter known for such classics as Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment. Which shows immediately, the game’s lore is quite extensive, filled with details and interesting nuances, but… We’ll return to the “but” a bit later.
The events of the game take place in a fantasy world of Plamen, in which the god Alaloth managed to betray everyone and orchestrate the War of the Gods. There are 4 great races that inhabit the world: humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs. The humans live in the blessed kingdom of Ederhest. Elves inhabit the forests of the Republic of Laristira. Dwarves claim the vastness of Karak-Khon. And finally the orcs are surviving in the wastelands of Baga.
Each of the four kingdoms of the game is divided between dozens of noble houses, which are also revealed in the lore articles. The world of the 4 great states was split, it was flooded with dragons, goblins, undead, elementals and other unwanted creatures. During the war, some of the Gods were killed, some were weakened and split. Alaloth himself sent a Great Storm to the world – which began to rage in the
center of the continent – in the Fifth Kingdom, where he settled, extending his shadow over the world.
The world, previously filled with respect and trust, was split, turning into a state of strife and mistrust. Alaloth began to teach his followers the dark arts, increasingly splitting apart the 4 races of the world. The world lost all former alliances, the kingdoms suffered from the invasions of monsters and the loss of their Gods. And so – we enter this world – the Hero of one of the Great Houses, the champion – wanting to return his God and ultimately defeat Alaloth.
As it is in many RPGs, the beginning of the game allows us to create our Champion – our Avatar in the world of Plamen. You are free to choose one of 4 races, each with its own features, abilities and starting location, you are free to choose a Starting God – to receive personal bonuses.
The starting line of quests is the same, but the side quests that you can take in the first city are different based on your previous choices. Then you have to choose a fighting style. There are four options to choose from: a heavy two-handed weapon; a one-handed weapon and a shield; two one-handed weapons in each hand; and a polearm. In fact, this only affects what kind of weapon the character will be armed with at the start. And you will not even get any bonuses to the possession of the chosen weapon, so you can immediately run to the blacksmith and choose something better.
At the beginning, you choose how you want to play: solo, where there is no need to rush as you will be the only Champion capable of capturing arenas; or competitive, where the Champions of other Great Houses will appear on the map, also trying to restore their Gods and Defeat Alaloth.
You can focus on exploring the many beautiful places in the game, made in a visual style close to classic cRPGs, such as the original Baldur’s Gate. You are given the opportunity to help NPCs solve their problems and actively participate in the plot of the four kingdoms.
Not only that, but you can also play in the Diablo style, focusing exclusively on clearing the Combat Zones. These zones are real dungeons of the game, where you will collect trophies and improve your character, increasing your characteristics. You can also learn perks and various skills, ranging from skills with weapons of all types to elemental spells.
However, playing Alaloth like you would Diablo may not be the best decision, as you risk missing out on a lot of the story and world-building. Although it can be quite enjoyable, thanks to the combat system, which borrows elements from the Souls series.
The combat system of Alaloth: Champions of the Four Kingdoms is one of the game’s most striking features, although it can also be a bit of a drag depending on your playstyle. Gamera Interactive has successfully adopted the mechanics that make Souls-style combat unique, such as stamina management, positioning, weight, and precision.
However, the developers have faced the same problems as many other non-FromSoftware titles. It is clear from the first visit to the Warzones that the combat system doesn’t really lend itself to solo combat. Soulslike mechanics are primarily designed for duels or fights with small groups of enemies, rather than the horde encounters that are common in the game. This forces players to quickly master crowd control skills or enlist allies. The game’s combat design often forces players to use hit-and-run tactics, which becomes tedious over time.
However, when fighting one or more enemies, the combat system shows its strengths. It offers a parry system and special moves for each weapon type that feel weighty and powerful. Players will need to find a balance between attack and defense in order to survive in the Combat Zone.
Unfortunately, the combat mechanics do not get enough time to fulfill their full potential. Even without taking into account that enemy groups are too large for Soulslike-style combat due to the current balance of the game, some builds, such as dual-wielding strength weapons, prove so effective that there is no point in experimenting with other options, except for the sake of variety.
Some skills are also significantly more useful than others, mainly due to the long champion cooldown and short cooldown after taking damage from enemies, which further limits the effectiveness of some builds. The developers are aware of the problem and already working on balancing mob stats and other aspects of the combat system.
In addition to the combat system, which remains fairly stable and will likely be further developed, Alaloth: Champions of the Four Kingdoms offers a variety of interesting gameplay mechanics. For example, character progression does not rely on experience points, as in most RPGs.
A champion levels up after completing a Combat Zone. Each level up, the player can either increase one of the primary stats, invest heritage points into masteries or talents, or learn weapon skills and elemental spells, depending on their current level.
Champions can reach a maximum level of 20, which is a clear reference to Dungeons & Dragons. The number of points for stats, heritage, and talents is limited, so players will have to make decisions when creating a character. Fortunately, changing character stats is fairly easy, and there is no need to create a new character to test different builds, unless you want to try a different race. The choice of passive and active skills is very diverse, which allows you to flexibly customize your Build.
Movement is implemented in a very original way. Cities, interesting locations and dungeons have a varied design and contain simple puzzles so that players do not get bored. Exploration of cities is carried out in the classic top-down format. However, traveling across the continent requires players to move the champion along a vast map, which depicts roads, rivers, lakes, forests, mountains and other natural elements that affect the speed of movement. For example, on roads the path may be longer, but the speed of movement will be higher, and the probability of encountering enemies is lower. At the same time, traveling through forests can save time, but there is a higher risk, which can slow down progress in the fight against Alaloth.
In case of defeat, the champion returns to the nearest sanctuary, and the durability of all items decreases, and the collected artifacts are distributed among the nearest dungeons, which forces the player to go through them again, even if they have already been cleared.
And the movement itself involves in-game time – when leaving the location, you will see how the time of day flows. A lot will depend on this time, for example, the frequency of the enemy appearances is higher at night. Some NPCs in cities will be available only at a certain time, the same can be said about certain merchants. And in a competitive game you will see Champions of other Houses moving around the game world on their own journey.
In terms of items, the game offers a variety of loot, classified by rarity levels. The crafting system allows the Champion to create various things – from food to potions and equipment. Depending on the chosen play style – Solo or Competitive – equipment and loot will have different rarity levels.
And now to the “BUT” I was talking about earlier. Quests. Having a HUGE LORE base, we have meager quests… Kill 5 skeletons, Kill the Golem, Kill 5 wolves, Kill the Toad Boss, Kill the Warlock and Bring me… 5 pig heads, 2 frost flowers, 5 warts from the dragon’s ass. (The last one is a joke).
Quests are the weakest side of the game, there are no really interesting, well-thought-out quest chains leading to something big and valuable, almost all quests in the first half of the game are simply boring.
There are more interesting ones where you can investigate a murder, find a way to lift the curse from an orc, get access to the arena for fights, a couple of quests to collect books that add to the game lore, and a couple of quests to collect dark relics with a nice reward, but there are few of them. One nice thing – even the boring quests to kill spiders or goblins are presented colorfully and interestingly.
With such a well-developed lore and backstory, it would be possible to make something way more interesting. For example, make it so that your choice of the Great House influenced something within the game, be it relationships between NPCs or maybe even some tasks.
Involve more of the game’s background and rich history, add the wars of the houses – make quests for reconciliation, hunting for the Generals of Alaloth’s troops – get close and kill them, destroying their plans in a complex chain of quests.
It makes me even more sad that the lore of the game is really, really juicy. Each House, each Kingdom, chiefs, heroes, Champions – everything is worked out in many rich details. For example, when entering the city – you get a small description of the city and its history. You can also run into storytellers – adding to the history of the world for you. But the game itself uses it very sparingly, which is a pity.
The game looks amazing, each location is quite charming. There are no zones that stand out from the setting and cause you to wonder if you’ve ended up in a different world.
If you are in a swamp, then you will feel the whole atmosphere of this location, the Dark City of Orcs – overwhelms with power. All settlements of people, elves, dwarves and orcs look atmospheric and in their own way – and almost every location has its own music. Sometimes pleasant, Sometimes enchanting, and occasionally just background. I still listen to some of the compositions with pleasure.
The world in the game is really vast and filled with many details. There are many cities and unique locations belonging to different races; their stories, heroes and opponents, myths and legends; wars, disasters and other significant events; factions and guilds; various monsters and unusual creatures; biographies of other “champions” who compete with the main character.
