Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood

Game release date: 1991 year
Game status: Released

Sierra was very famous in their early years for adventure games starting with King's Quest in 1984. By the time this game was released in 1991 their game engine had grown to a user friendly point and click one with great music and graphics. In conquest of the longbow you play the part of Robin Hood as he survives with his band of outlawed men in Sherwood forest. At first it follows the regular story of Robin Hood but later also includes more fantasy oriented subplots which add a nice tough to a well known story.

The story starts out slowly with Robin waking up in his cave and meeting his men in the morning after which you can get some information from them and maybe go for a bit of practice shooting his trusty bow. The nice thing is that in the options apart from the usual sound and speed settings there is also an arcade setting which when set to low you will not need to do any of the mini games yourself, they are fun to do once but you will need to complete them if you are to get on with the game. After your practice it's on to the lookout spot to wait for some interesting people to come across the road trough the forest, like the nasty sheriff's men. If you've completed a set number of objectives then the day will end when you walk out of the screen and you will automatically go back to your camp. The objectives will increase over time but at a good pace to get you into the game.

Things quickly turn when Robin has a dream of maid Marian and soon afterwards meets her in person which draw Robin into a plan to free king Richard who was seen being captured in the introduction. You will have to find a way to catch a large amount of gold for ransom but during the process many events will happen from freeing prisoners from the castle to capturing a wood sprite who might one day save your life. Of course in keeping with the Robin Hood story you also get to shoot in the archery competition and a number of other mini games if you choose to play them. In Sierra tradition there are also plenty of things to do that are not needed to complete the game but will give you points so you can go for the maximum in the game.

The engine was quite advanced at this point and the graphics are of excellent quality with most of them being hand painted and digitized. The sound also offers a lot of different possibilities and the general midi offers excellent music scores. The point and click interface isn't much different from previous Sierra adventure with only a few icons depicting actions like talk, move and use and it should be easy to pick up for anyone. The game is very cinematic as it shows conversations and cut scenes differently from the normal game which is a nice touch. There are also plenty of places to visit not only inside the forest but in town and later on you will get more travel possibilities as well.

This is probably one of the best Sierra adventures made and I rank it right alongside the Gabriel Knight series. Yes there are the usual bugs and dead ends but they are far less common than other Sierra games and the pace of the game is good enough to keep you interested throughout the entire game. What more can I say, if you haven't played this game yet then I suggest you do so now and for those that have play it again, it's worth it!

Game genre: Adventures
Platform/System: MS-DOS Games, Amiga Games