Video Game / Knights Of The Round Annihilation

Knights of the Round Annihilation is a fan made Beat 'em Up created for the OpenBOR engine by Jeremiah Cuff, the founder and developer of Danksmith Games and is the second and final sequel of the Capcom arcade game Knights of the Round.

Ten years after stopping Arlon's chaotic rebellion during the events of Revenge, Arthur continues his benevolent rule over the realm of England with the help of his round table knights. Meanwhile things get complicated when his older half-sister Morgana Le Fay (still seething from Arlon's failed takeover of Tintagel Castle) get a sudden visit from a mysterious sorceress from the Far East named Himiko, who offers to form an alliance with her in exchange to seize control of the holy grail. And with her acceptance, the two started to unleash monsters that began to tear through the realm of Britannia with nightmarish momentum.

Upon hearing the news about the mayhem happening outside the walls of Tintagel Castle, King Arthur orders his round table knights lead the charge to stop his sister and Himiko's rampage within England and prevent the holy grail from falling into their hands. But the heroes will run afoul into twisted circumstances that will forever change the course of the adventure along with their very lives.....

This fan game marks the final chapter of the Knights of the Round trilogy, as the players go through twenty-six stages of two story campaigns that shows the different point of view from both factions, and NPC allies will arrive to aid the heroes during gameplay as well. Twelve new characters are also introduced to get closer to the action in the events of the main plot.

The downloadable link for the game can be found here at ChronoCrash

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This fan game provide examples of:

• Actionized Sequel: More so than Revenge, the plot is dead serious and Arthur and his round table knights goes all out to stop both the forces of Morgana, Himiko, and Mordred in order to prevent them from seizing control of the Holy Grail while saving both the country of England and the rest of the world.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Mordred may have turned his back on the round table knights and engaged them in a petty holy war, but it was due to the manipulations of Himiko that warped him into a temperamental warmonger in the first place. However, it's hard to not feel sorry for Mordred when he finds out about the disturbing complications of his entire life and is struck down by his father's hand at the Battle of Camlann.
  • At some extent Laiheres himself, despite him being an opportunistic psychopath, he just wanted to avenge his lord Rhyelis that he served faithfully during the Bedegraine campaign. And the cutscene showing the rebel king dying in his arms is portrayed in a rather tragic light.
• Amazon Brigade: What Lady Ywain, Gong Meimei, and Ayame end up forming during the Battle of Fort Guinnon (Stage 9).
• Anti-Villain: Morgana in the main story, at first she was very hostile towards her brother and his knights, but it becomes clear later on that she has much more benevolent reasons to use the grail. Sadly, Morgana doesn't get that far as she is callously killed by Himiko.
  • The most of the Orkney generals are this, as they genuinely believe that Mordred can bring peace to the realm of England and dedicated to help his cause. Too bad that his obsession to murder his father in cold blood and his constant trusting toward Himiko not only further alienated Mordred from his knights, but one of them ends up leaving his forces entirely.
• Anyone Can Die: Not as severe, but a decent amount of characters are killed through the course of both storylines, Arthur himself is no exception.
• Asshole Victim: The tyrant Rothion in Mordred's storyline when the latter ended his reign of terror over Orkney by cleaving him in half.
• Attack of the Town Festival: The aforementioned first stage of the main story, hence the name Festival Under Attack!!.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: An old chief and his grandson from Stage 10's opening cutscene comes from a village filled with harmless goblins located in the deep forest of Douglas River. They beg Arthur and his knights for their help after the Orkney general Laorides brought his calvary troops to terrorize their brethren. The village goblins later gives Arthur a decorated emblem as a sign of gratitude and allows the round table knights to visit their hometown before departing.
  • A tragic example with Awailot, he was a hunchback who was born without any known family and has spent his whole life horribly ostracized and shunned by the humans who were repulsed by his hideous appearance. But when Awailot was wrongfully thrown in jail for a unknown crime that he never committed, Morgana Le Fay took pity upon him and she encouraged the hunchback to join Mordred's Orkney forces, where the rogue knight along with the other generals warmly treated him as one of their comrades. His death is another reason for causing Leodolin's eventual departure from the kingdom.
• Big Bad: The eastern sorceress Himiko, as she instigated the entire conflict while displaying her own motives to obtain the powers of the holy grail for her sinister purposes.
• Big Damn Heroes: Merlin arrived in time to magically warp the round table knights and Guinevere out of Glastonbury Castle before it was leveled by the huge explosion caused by Himiko's demise.
• Bittersweet Ending: The round table knights have ultimately thwarted both Himiko and Mordred's reign of terror over England, but their king unfortunately loses his life in the aftermath of Camlann. However, the villagers including Guinevere have not forgotten about the heroism that Arthur has brought to protect their realm and has inspired the queen to become the leader of the round table so she can lead a new generation of knights to fulfill her husband's legacy in the long run.
• Black Knight: One exists in the Morgana Le Fay's Rampage storyline as the former's loyal enforcer, as he actively carries out her will to stop Himiko's plans. He is encountered by the round table knights at Liddington Castle (Stage 3).
• Break Them by Talking: Himiko's preferred method of dealing with her victims, Her ruthless explanation to Mordred on how Arthur conceived him is what triggered the former's Face–Heel Turn.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Laiheres not only critically injured the Orkney general Awailot during his rebellion, but he had the gall to chew out Mordred about dragging innocent people in the crossfire of his conquest. The mercenary commander has made it clear that he was NOT buying the traitor's crap for one damn minute.
  Mordred: You're wasting your time thinking I'm going to take a trip down memory lane Laiheres!
• Cavalry Officer: The Orkney general Laorides is this, as he leads the strongest mounted troops in Brittania. Arthur, Lancelot, and Perceval exploit this during the events of stage 10, as the three of them along with Taliesin traps the cavalry general in a unavoidable ambush which led the latter to flee to an old foggy shipyard.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: In Himiko's eyes, nothing matters to her except the holy grail, which is why she did not hesitate to abandon Mordred and the Orkney forces after being fed up with the warlord's repeated failures against the round table knights.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The parasitic vampire who kidnapped Kid Galahad does this to the round table knights guarding Cadbury Castle offscreen while Arthur was away at Avalon.
• Cynical Mentor: The water nymph Nimue has shades of this, as Merlin mentioned that she was stubborn and distrusting towards humans. But she is willing to give her wisdom to people who proves their worth to her.
• Darker and Edgier: There is no excuse that the creator went out of his way to make the story of this fan game extremely grim and somberful as possible, Arthur's half-sister teamed up with a mysterious sorceress to claim the holy grail while trying to turn the country of England into a world of monsters, the round table knights has their home capital burned down by a fellow knight who betrays them after finding out the truth about his origins, the heroes had to put aside their own issues in order to defeat both villains' forces that are on their doorstep, the span of 12 FREAKING characters from both storylines are killed off in a tragic manner, and true to the Arthurian myths, this is the very finale where the Savior of Camelot doesn't make it out of Camlann alive.
• Defeat Equals Friendship: How Mordred gain the respect of the barbarian chief Rhymagus and his service in the fourth level of his storyline.
  • The cutscenes shown in between the entire sixth level of the same story has Leodolin and Elsamue convince the rebel kings Andregal, Laiburn, and Laorides to join the Orkney forces upon besting them.
• Didn't Think This Through: Sorry Mordred, but you should've known better than to pull a faulty battle strategy to invade Cadbury Castle while ignoring the fact the round table knights was going to eventually turn your tactics over on its head, leading this setback to cause a whole host of problems for your forces later on.
• Doomed Hometown: The fourth stage takes place in the capital of Tintagel Castle that fell victim to the massive fire attack orchestrated by Mordred following his betrayal. This chaotic situation causes Arthur and the round table knights to escape alongside the evacuated villagers, and the story eventually gets darker.
• Downer Ending: Somewhat averted in the main storyline, Arthur Pendragon's death has left the round table knights devastated, but they were able to live on in his memory and help Queen Guinevere lead his kingdom to a peaceful age.
  • Played straight in the Mordred's Road of Havoc storyline, where the latter and his forces do not get a happy ending. The cutscenes show that the surviving Orkney generals end up going their separate ways after losing at Camlann.
• Elemental Powers: The playable round table knights and the generals from Mordred's Orkney forces are able to perform a special move or magic attack corresponding with the element they're associated with:
  • An Ice Person: Sir Tristan during his release attack.
  • Blow You Away: Mordred Pendragon, he also utilizes some degree of electricity in his specials.
  • Casting a Shadow: Sir Tristan Lyones, Vortigern Limewick, and Laiheres Clurezen
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Sir Perceval Li Galois and the giant monk Sir Xiahou
  • Gravity Master: Elsamue Fairgrave
  • Green Thumb: Sir Taliesin Hevres
  • Making a Splash: Sir Ywain Pendragon and the water nymph Nimue, though in the former's case, her attacks does freeze enemies.
  • Playing with Fire: King Arthur Pendragon and Orkney general Accalon Swanvale
  • Poisonous Person: Awailot Grimshell
  • Shock and Awe: Sir Lancelot Du Lac, Leodolin Kilreach, Sir Bedivere, and Himiko in her night dragon form.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Orkney general Leodolin Kilreach in Mordred's storyline, at first he originally aimed to help the latter bring peace to England. But his unwillingness to aid Mordred in his vicious methods is what caused the both of them to butt heads with each other several times during the story. His liege's later actions during the Storm Heart Campaign left a bad taste in Leodolin's mouth to the point that he refused to participate at Camlann and went back to his hometown of Southern Liddington.
  • While Morgana initially opposes Arthur Pendragon, she is very displeased to find out that Himiko nearly endangered her half-brother and the round table knights by setting the capital of Tintagel Castle aflame and later kidnapped Kid Galahad so his father can surrender the holy grail. This led the eastern sorceress to be agitated by Morgana's constant interference before she ultimately decides that the enchantress has to go.
• Face–Heel Turn: Mordred does this to the round table knights at the end of stage 4, thanks a lot Himiko.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: Subverted, The second fight against Himiko in her night dragon form takes place in a galactic looking backdrop, but she is ultimately slain by Arthur when the former had the round table knights on the ropes, leaving Mordred Pendragon as the Final Boss.
• Functional Magic: Himiko utilizes her attack spells this way, which is manifested from elemental kanji symbols.
• Gender Flip: In the Arthurian myths, Sir Ywain was a man who born the son of King Urien and Morgan Le Fay. Here, the knight himself is portrayed as a Lady of War (Jeanne from World Heroes) who combines her incredible swordplay skills with water-based abilities and aids King Arthur Pendragon to protect their realm and the holy grail against their magic powered elder half-sister.
• Genius Bruiser: The Orkney general Agravaines (Xu Huang from Knights of Valour) in both storylines, he may present himself as a not-so-bright knight who tends to make one bad decision after another, but Agravaines is shown to be a very capable tactician as he able to fortify the defenses of Agned fortress and unleashed a series of ambushes towards the approaching round table knights, which serves as the synopsis of stage 11.
• Heroic BSoD: The opening cutscene of Stage 5 shows that King Arthur spent a majority of three months offscreen in this state after being heartbroken by Mordred's treachery. The homeless villagers traveling with the round table knights lampshades this when they start losing their faith in him, prompting Gong Meimei to rightfully put them in their place.
  Villager #3: Easy for you to say, our king hasn't uttered a single word ever since we escaped from the capital of Tintagel. What is going on in his head?!!
  Villager #4: It's like he has given up all hope of protecting the land of England and his people! What kind of a king are you?!!
  Gong Meimei: ENOUGH!! Now you guys should realize by now that our king and queen are doing the best they can to rally our spirits together so we can get out of this predicament!! So i suggest you villagers should start working with each other and stop this foolishness you hear me?!!
• Heroic Sacrifice: Calling Awailot a hero is stretching it, but during the ninth level of Mordred's storyline, the hunchback gave Laiheres' forces one hell of a hard time with his poisonous abilities offscreen. Unfortunately, the traitor violently overpowers Awailot and he dies as a result, leaving the Orkney generals including Leodolin heartbroken.
  • In the cutscene shown in the main story's final boss battle, Mordred proved to be too much of a nightmare for the round table knights with his formidable sword skills. King Arthur Pendragon, who was critically wounded by Himiko's night dragon form at this point, charges at his son with all of his strength and they both stab each other with their respective weapons, at the cost of their lives.
• He Knows Too Much: Morgana's attempts to stop Himiko's vile activities is what led the sorceress to personally murder her.
• It's Personal: How the entire premise of stage 7 came to be, as Lancelot heads out with Gong Meimei and Garland to the ruins of Solbury Hill to rescue his son who was abducted by a parasitic vampire.
• Inescapable Ambush: What Arthur, Lancelot, and Perceval manage to trap the Cavalry General Laorides with in the forest area of Douglas River (Stage 10).
• Karmic Death: Himiko, after every catastrophic event that she has put the round table knights and the Orkney generals through in both storylines, her attempt to destroy the world with the grail's power backfires when Arthur ultimately impaled her night dragon form's heart with Excalibur.
• Lost Woods: The second stage of the main story has Arthur lead his knights to combat the exotic barbarians at Caledonian Forest.
• Musical Assassin: A heroic example, Sir Taliesin uses both a harp and a fancy-looking trident to cast a smorgasbord of nature-based spells to combat his foes. But he's a firm supporter of the round table knights and use any strategy necessary to stop Mordred's rampage within England.
• Odd Friendship: Both Leodolin and Awailot in Mordred's storyline, while Himiko handpicked them to serve the Orkney Kingdom, the cutscenes for stage 6 shows that two have formed a close bond with each other as they tore through many of the eleven rebel kings' soldiers. This makes their sworn friendship all the more tragic when Awailot himself is killed trying to stop Laiheres' attempted revolt within Orkney Castle.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Himiko's true goal after claiming the holy grail, she plans to absorb it's powers to turn into an unstoppable night dragon and turn the world into an lifeless wasteland.
• Pet the Dog: Despite being on opposite sides of the round table knights, both Morgana Le Fay and her son Mordred are not without their moments of kindness in both storylines:
  • The enchantress rescued Agravaines by teleporting him out of the dungeon that was submerged in flames when the fire attack happened at Tintagel Castle.
  • During the Bedegraine campaign, Mordred spared one of the rebel kings Andregal and recruited him after he gave the latter a promise to protect his people.
  • After the boss fight in stage 11, Morgana arrives to warn the round table knights that the Orkney forces was about to capture Guinevere, prompting Arthur to rescue her at Mt. Badon.
  • Post liberation of Orkney, Morgana went out of her way to reunite Accalon with his little sister Awalinda after they were separated from each other for the past ten years.
• Promoted to Playable: Both Accalon and Vortigern, in Revenge they were fought together in the Calamity Within Camelot storyline as a pair of Dual Boss. The Mordred's Road of Havoc storyline here has them as full fledged playable characters with fleshed out personalities and a variety of unique special moves.
• Recycled Soundtrack: Just like in Revenge, the soundtracks of Dynasty Warriors and Crisis Core were used in this fan game, along with the wide variety of music tracks from Threads of Fate, Legend of Mana, Final Fantasy Tactics, Dungeon Fighter Online, Final Fantasy XIII, Sengoku Basara, Phantasy Star Online 2, and even Hyrule Warriors thrown in the mix.
• Related in the Adaptation: Sir Ywain is portrayed as both King Arthur and Morgana Le Fay's younger half-sister in this fan game instead the latter's biological son in the actual myths.
• Remember the New Guy?: The fan game has a few of examples of this:
  • It was not explained that Gong Meimei had parents in Revenge, even after it's stated that she's the granddaughter of the hermit trained who trained Lancelot in the original arcade game's backstory. The main story here gets a little more confusing as Gong Meitian is introduced in last quarter of the game and doesn't reveal herself as Meimei's mother until after stage 9 ends.
  • Accalon didn't mention that he had a sister in the Muramasa's Revengeance storyline after he and Vortigern were enlisted in the Silver Emperor's rebel forces. Justified as she was under the protection of Morgana Le Fay during his time serving as a rebel general and Mordred's story campaign has both siblings reunited with each other.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Stage 5 take place in Caldwell Plateau when the king has to fight his way through the monsters while navigating the now homeless villagers through the mountains to reach Cadbury Castle.
• The Starscream: Laiheres pulls this in Mordred's storyline as he staged a revolt at Orkney to avenge his lord who was slained at the Bedegraine campaign, despite him nearly gutting Awailot, he does not succeed in his takeover.
• Storming the Castle: All over the place in this fan game, especially the second to last stage in the main storyline when Arthur and the round table knights travel to Glastonbury Castle at Avalon to confront Morgana and rescue Guinevere.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Ok Agravaines, we somewhat understand that you invited a newcomer to join Mordred's forces. But did you bother to stop and think that the said newcomer was a untrustworthy psychopath who was literally biding his time to avenge the dead rebel warlord he used to serve by launching a coup d'état on your liege's home kingdom, which got one of your comrades killed?
• Villain Ball: Really Himiko? Did you honesty think it was a good idea by sending a vicious vampire to kidnap Kid Galahad, who happens to be the son of a round table knight and has a close sibling relationship with an Asian woman who is basically older than him, just so King Arthur and his knights can surrender the holy grail to Mordred? Yeah, why don't you go back to the cutscene before the end boss and explain how well that went for you?
• Villain Episode: The second storyline Mordred's Road of Havoc is this as it shows the mercenary commander's point-of-view after turning against the round table knights and marks the beginning of his conquest. Ironically, the main story's fourth stage where he started the fire attack is his third level.
• We Can Rule Together: Accalon and Vortigern tries to use Garland's history with Mordred in a attempt to sway him to join the Orkney forces. However Garland, who has long washed his hands of being Arlon's lackey, flat-out tells them to fuck off.
  Accalon: You was sworn comrades with our liege during your mercenary days, would it be wise if you came back to join us? Let's relive our glory days as brothers-in-arms, what do you say Garland?
  Garland: That's not going to happen Accalon, I've changed my ways unlike you guys and I would rather protect my king, his wife that you fools kidnapped, and the innocent peasants than continue to terrorize the world with people like you.
• We Used to Be Friends: Garland certainly feels this way towards his former brother-in-arms Mordred after he let Himiko's venomous words seduce him into going down the wrong path. This resolves him into repaying his debt to Arthur by helping him take down his son at Camlann.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Himiko pulls this on Morgana in the second-to-last level of the main storyline before killing her to obtain the holy grail and absorb it's powers.
  Himiko: I never imagined that you would be too soft to take control of the holy grail, but your role here is over Morgana.

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