Over 90 heroes and still counting!
King's Raid is a free-to-play side-scrolling RPG mobile game, developed by the South Korean indie company Vespa, with the worldwide launch occurring in February 16th, 2017.
King's Raid sees the player assemble a team of up to four unique characters, each with unique attacks, abilities, and an assigned class, and sending them on a mission in which they travel left-to-right, stopping at regular intervals to engage in combat with AI controlled enemies.
The player does not directly control who the characters target, rather they have access to each of the three character's active abilities, limited in their use by a mana and cooldown system. The player can also tell the game to automatically play itself, if they don't particularly need to care about optimal skill use on a mission.
What differentiates it from other gacha games is that the unique heroes obtained in the game are just that - the model of character acquisition is more akin to that of a MOBA like League of Legends, where you simply purchase a character outright (or recruit them from the in-game inn), and once you own a hero, you own them forever, and all character powering up is done via in-game content. Every hero has four abilities, one passive, three active. Each hero can be equipped with a massive variety of weapons, armors and accessories, with each hero also possessing a 'unique weapon' and several 'unique treasures' that when equipped grants them additional bonuses, typically synergistic with their other skills. (Gear acquisition, meanwhile, can be from a gacha mechanic, but it's not the only source of gear, and for armor isn't even the best source.)
Aside from completing story missions, other game modes include the PVP arena and the Co-operative raids against Dragons and World Bosses.
In 2019, Vespa did a collaboration with Dream Catcher for the album Raid of Dream for cross-promotional purposes.
An anime adaptation has been announced for this game, set to premiere in the 2020 Fall season, and featuring the original Japanese voice actors reprising their roles. Here is the first teaser
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The anime series, titled King's Raid: Ishi o Tsugu Mono-tachi* premiered in October 2, 2020. The series features an original storyline.
King's Raid provides examples of:
- Allegedly Free Game: The game goes rather back and forth with this:
- On the one hand, the game provides a really surprising amount of free "ruby" currency each week, especially for folks in a guild that can reasonably get some Guild Raid clears each week.note And that doesn't count the surprising amount of rubies you can get with each story chapter release, especially if you can clear Hell Mode, and doesn't count the generous secondary currency allotments you get from things like Guild Raid rewards, which allow you to get a bunch of nifty progression items. There are even systems in place to ensure that getting Unique Weapons and Unique Treasures of your choice isn't impossible.
- However, the game still follows some Korean F2P design trends, such as rather limiting your inventory to start and making you either spend rubies or real money to expand it (with the RMT option being better "value"), and making parts of the character level grind very lengthy... and of course, the longer-duration EXP boosters, which stack with everything else, are only available for real money and not rubies. This can result in feeling like the player gets nickel-and-dime'd, especially early on.
- Character gear goes further back and forth with it. The gacha, especially during UWeapon or UTreasure rate up events, is one of the better overall sources of those items... but for armor and accessories, trying to get everything you need from the gacha would be an exercise in insanity. You are much, much better off actually playing the game and doing things like Dragon Raids or Guild Raids to get high-quality armor. It can sometimes take a long time to get a perfectly-sub-statted piece of armor for any given character, but for just gearing people out with armor, the free option is by far the superior choice.
- Of note is that every single one of the characters that are granted for free is top-tier in some way, some examples being Clause being considered a staple tank against at least one of the world bosses and Cain considered god-tier in PvP.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Demons bent on destroying humanity and every other non-demonic life form, corrupt humans who believe that Despotism Justifies the Means, as well as relatively isolated, smaller factions of non-human and other non-demonic creatures all compete for the mantle of the Big Bad.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Arch, Chase, Crow, Ezekiel, Theo... The list goes on.
- The Chosen One: Each time the threat of the demons looms, the Holy Sword Aea chooses a new wielder to save the world. This time around, it's our hero, Kasel, who wonders if he's up to the task. The story also leans heavily on the idea that being the ''chosen one'' is not even remotely a good thing; the sword itself is more than it seems, and is drawing Kasel toward what seems to be a bloody destiny and is a source of consistent hardship for him.
- Played Straight with Lucias, who is directly chosen by Lua to be a Hope Bringer. It said that any place he visits becomes blessed.
- Maria is a saint who fought alongside Kyle a century prior but eventually gave in to the darkness.
- Church Militant: Several playable characters are affiliated and/or members of the Church of Lua. Unlike most examples, the Church of Lua is surprisingly benevolent and seemingly refrains from any Corrupt Church cliches.
- Crown of Power: Played with the Abyssal Crown artifact, which increases, by a percentage, the Attack stat of the character who has the highest attack 30 seconds into a fight, thus making it an item worn by supports to give another character power.
- Curse: Being freed from one of these is the main goal for certain characters.
- Oddy is under the effect of a curse that has transformed him into a Redpur.
- Miruru was fearsome pirate until a curse caused her to physically and mentally regress into a child.
- Shamilla takes this up to eleven by having 30 million curses in her body, though notably she actually weaponizes them against her enemies.
- Equipment Upgrade: A core part of the game; while getting new and improved loot is important, it's just as important to upgrade that equipment to it's max potential.
- Fanservice: The series is very much equal-opportunity regarding this. Most of the girls are fairly attractive, while the summer costumes of the guys provide with a decent amount of Female Gaze.
- Evil Chancellor: Prime Minister El Moriham of Orvelia is leading the plot of the Decadent Court to overthrow princess Scarlet, the last surviving descendant of king Kyle. Too bad for him that There Is Another - Kasel.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Dwarfs, harpies, dragons, zombies, angels, various demons, deities, manticores, vampires, etc. are all present in the setting.
- Female Gaze: Most of the male characters are handsome, well-built hunks. Exaggerated with the summer outfits, which quickly became a staple in Fan Art.
- Mitra's clothes regularly display at least a part of his wide chest.
- Chase is so muscular that most of his outfits look almost like they were painted on him.
- Neraxis takes Mr. Fanservice to a whole new level with most of his body being bare.
- Lucikiel is virtually identical to his son Ezekiel, except that he is a at least twice as big and more muscular than Ezekiel, while his torso is fully exposed.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: The main story crew who you start out with forms a pretty classic one, with Frey as the Phlegmatic, Kasel as the Sanguine, Cleo as the (extremely) Choleric, and Roi as the Melancholic. This gets upended a bit as things go on, though, since Kasel isn't as much of a Sanguine as he seems (and Aea is not helping), Frey isn't quite as Phlegmatic as she tries to make her exterior out to be (and as the stresses of the journey add up) and Roi does start to come out of his shell somewhat.
- Freemium: The game is fundamentally free to play, with stamina and gold being handed out in generous amounts. Even the premium currency, Rubies, are handed out frequently enough that players can grind for all of the content, with real money only being used to obtain certain items much faster.
- Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: The Empire is certainly on the right track towards this, given that Chase is the very first result of their project and is already devastatingly powerful.
- He Cleans Up Nicely: The wedding outfits for the guys make them look very, very fancy.
- Incest Subtext: Many characters in the setting are siblings, half-siblings or Not Blood Siblings and often have moments that fall in this category. Of course, the 4-komas milk it for all its worth.
- Neraxis acts towards Laias in a Flirty Stepsiblings manner, much to Lilia's note chagrin.
- Dimael and Seria have a strong fixation towards their respective sisters (Epigael and Erze). It got to the point that they share their new years resolution that simply lists 'Sister' in one of the 4-komas, all while shaking hands with Comically Serious faces and not uttering a word.
- Frey is romantically interested in Kasel who is practically her stepbrother, as they've grown up in the same orphanage. Clause who likewise grow up in the same orphanage as the former two is quite (over)protective of Kasel, to the point that he cursed Lua - a goddess otherwise universally respected among the heroes - because of the heavy burden she placed on Kasel. He was even willing to leave his position at the drop of a hat and join Kasel's team, if Kasel ever asked for it.
- Informed Equipment: Played straight with most pieces of gear: not matter what type of armor you equip, your character won't change appearance. The exception is with a character's personal Named Weapons, their "Unique Weapon", each of which can be seen wielded by the character. Though, this can be toggled on or off.
- Longest Pregnancy Ever: The Hero Kasel is the illegitimate son of Kyle, the king of Orvelia, and his lover Arlette, except he was conceived about a century before the start of the plot; After freezing Arlette for a long time, Pavel later teleported Kasel who was still inside Arlette's womb outside. All of this resulted in Kasel becoming another threat to the ambitions of the nobles who are already trying to kill Scarlet, the crown princess of Orvelia and the only other surviving descendant of king Kyle.
- Mark of the Supernatural: A person on whose body the stigmata appears is blessed by the goddess Lua. Lucias is one of those few chosen saints.
- Morality Kitchen Sink: While the overall main conflict can be summed up as demons versus everyone else, the motivations of various characters are only loosely related, if not outright independent of it.
- Named Weapons: Each character has a "Unique Weapon" with it's own appearance and power, all of which notably boost a character's power fairly significantly. Some of the names are completely made up, though several contain references to Greek mythology.
- Only One Name: The entire cast have only one name revealed. It took a long time for just one of the characters to have their full name revealed.
- Orphanage of Love: Kasel, Clause and Frey grew up in one. The headmaster of said orphanage was Ricardo.
- Party of Representatives: The collectable characters are gathered from all across the world, ranging from standard humans to dwarves, elves, demons, and Beast Men.
- Real Men Hate Sugar: Averted. Ezekiel and Crow enjoy sweets without any Mangst.
- Really 700 Years Old: Several characters are centuries old, yet look like adolescents.
- Rivals Team Up: It's quite possible to put heroes that fight each other in the story mode on the same team.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Can be said that It Runs in the Family for the royalty of Orvelia, as king Kyle and his descendant Scarlet are shown to be very willing to fight on the front-lines if necessary. Kasel who is Kyle's illegitimate son technically counts too, even if his childhood wasn't exactly a lavish one.
- Self-Deprecation: The 4-komas often poke fun with the lore and/or backstories or have the featured characters' flaws Played for Laughs.
- Sidequest Sidestory: Several characters have these, accessible from the World Tree if you own them. You unlock more of the story as you ascend the character; more stories are added as time goes on. All of them are completely optional but do unlock new costumes for the characters in question as well as some Memory Fragments for gaining Unique Treasures.note
- Stripperific: Present even among the male characters.
- Threads of Fate: Yuria is a famous Fashion Designer who can sense a client's individual Thread of Fate and use it as inspiration to design their clothing, and attacks people with thread and a sewing needle, so her attacks are appropriately themed on destiny, stars, and divination. Her Circle of Fate skill can give opponents the Threading Destiny status effect to reduce their attack and speed for 10 seconds, and give extra damage to non-heroes.
- Token Evil Teammate: The player can induce this, by putting three 'good' characters on a team with, say, Epis or Viska, who are literal demons. Epis subverts it somewhat (she was actually an ally of the legendary king who sided against Angmund), but folks like Viska or Morrah are unrepentant demon monsters. At first appearance, at least.
- Token Good Teammate: Inverse of the above - filling a team with 'bad' characters and one good character.
- Victory Pose: All surviving members of a team will perform a short one on the results screen, which also displays any EXP they gained. They'll still do this, even if other members of the team died during the mission and are currently laying dead next to them, creating a bit of unintentional Black Comedy.
- Video Game Tutorial: Has a short one that introduces the combat controls, and most of the first and second area is spent introducing mechanics and functions to gain either stronger characters or resources to the player.
- World of Badass: Every named character can pull off impressive feats of fighting prowess in the right circumstances.
- World of Buxom: Most female characters are quite shapely and fairly attractive, and falling in between many archetypes of beauty, and a lot of bounciness. There are very few exceptions (Jane, Luna, Nia...), and even then they have their own charms.
- World of Muscle Men: The majority of male characters are ripped, as evidenced by their summer outfits. Their physiques can range anywhere from lean, yet well-built (Dimael, Theo, Zafir etc.), well above average (Clause, Crow, Gladi etc.), to nigh-bodybuilder (Chase, Gau, Ricardo etc.). Exceptions exist, but are very rare (Leo, Oddy, Pavel).
