Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood is a 2002 Real-Time Strategy Stealth-Based Game based on the classic story of Robin Hood.
It was developed by the German studio Spellbound, who created Desperados before. Like Desperados (which was released the year prior), it utilizes a 2.5D engine with quick action queuing and the ability to see enemy vision cones.
Provides Examples Of:
- Acrofatic: Friar Tuck can run pretty fast and become as nimble in combat as any other character despite his physique. He does, however, complain how exhausting fighting is.
- Action Girl: Maid Marian. The last major character to join, and a major asset. She heals, has a bow with a 12 arrow quiver, can revive unconscious people, listens to detect the identity of shrouded units, and packs a deadly sword to boot.
- Anachronism Stew: Will Scarlet carries a slingshot around. Rather than the medieval sling that's swung around to throw a projectile, it's a modern Y-shaped slingshot.
- Annoying Arrows: Both played straight and averted. Enemy arrows (and enemy crossbow bolts, to a lesser extent) deal fairly low damage, and are only dangerous because archers can fire them fairly rapidly. Your arrows, on the other hand, are a lot more powerful, often killing unshielded enemies in just one or two shots. However, enemies carrying shields can block arrows, and each individual character can only carry about twelve arrows each. As for the knights and paladins, your arrows completely bounce off of their armour.
- Aristocrats Are Evil:
- The game's major villains are a prince, the famous sheriff, two nobles stated to be the prince's right and left hand men (at least in the region), respectively, and a rather brutal knight. Also, enemy knights are shown to be contemptuous of the regular soldiers and just as brutal as their underlings, while the mounted ones are not above killing unconscious opponents. Averted with Richard the Lionheart, Sir Godwin, Lord Ranulph and Robin himself (he is of noble family).
- The better dressed and groomed civilians will often report any sightings of the player characters, while poor civilians will praise them, sometimes misdirect guards if they come looking for them and offer valuable information. The allied civilians are clad in varieties of green, a grace not given in the company's sister game (see above).
- Artificial Brilliance: Guards will run extensive searches throughout every open area, call for backup, and report to their superiors. They'll also wake up and untie incapacitated enemies and seek civilian assistance, to say nothing of interrogating beggars in case one is fake. Blue and orange guards tend to rush into battle, while red guards are more cautious and will seek backup.
- Artificial Stupidity: On the other hand, black guards will remain at their post even if they see a fight in progress, until the fight has ended, and will not pursue the player far.
- Bald of Evil: The enemy officers. The good ones have short red hair.
- Bee-Bee Gun: Or rather a bee grenade - Friar Tuck can throw beehives as weapons. They do no harm but will distract multiple enemies in an area.
- Big Good: Richard the Lionheart, and an arguable case with Lord Ranulph and Sir Godwin.
- Black Knight: Literally. Also, Sir Scathlock has elements of this.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: The swordsmen mooks will say "Take from the rich..." to justify robbing their knocked-out comrades when they take their money.
- Call-Back: Near the end of the opening cutscene, Robin fires an arrow into the air, promising that Richard the Lionheart would be restored as King of England before it fell. In the closing cutscene it indeed does hit the ground, ironically quite near King Richard and his returning party.
- Cowardly Boss: Guy of Gisbourne, who has two red pikemen Elite Mooks with him you have to fight before taking him on.
- This is after his running away from you during the taking of Lincoln and sending Parker to unleash the castle garrison on you.
- Dance Party Ending: If you catch all the artifacts (such as the Crown, the Sigil and others), there's a bonus ending cutscene featuring the main band dancing, some villagers, a turntable and two boom-boxes (with what looks like a 90's dance tune playing), and what looks like a bunch of enemy troops looking like they're gonna crash the party, but end up joining the party instead.
- Demoted to Extra: The Miller's Son, a prominent character in the Robin Hood ballads, only appears as a generic archer Merry who can die permanently like any other.
- Dirty Coward: The Sheriff of Nottingham, who runs away from Robin after ambushing him in a competition in Nottingham and relies on his guards to finish Robin off
- Elite Mooks: The red soldiers, and also the black ones later on, if they are not to be considered minibosses. Also the foot knights and mounted paladins of any colour, especially on hard. Fortunately black paladins are never seen in-game, but the same can't be said for the knights. Black knights are effectively bosses in their own right.
- Epic Flail: Will Scarlett's weapon of choice. Also the paladin weapon of choice. Take cover!
- Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- In the taking of Lincoln, even if you kill Parker with an arrow prior to speaking to Gisbourne and watching him give Parker the command to summon the garrison, the garrison will still come down on you.
- When first meeting (not recruiting) Lady Marian, one of the primary objectives is setting up a façade that will permit Robin and her to meet. This means knocking out Friar Tuck and hiding in the confessional, not forgetting to move the unconscious monk elsewhere so she doesn't see him and get alerted. Only problem is, you could leave a bunch of dead soldiers and your other "goons", "thugs", or whatever the town thinks you are standing in front of the door and everywhere else and she'll just walk right past them without batting an eye. Yes, she will walk into the church stepping over a bunch of dead guys and past a big oaf with a club suspiciously blocking the doorway into the next room, and past Stuteley, who feels like cosplaying as Friar Tuck at the altar today. What?
- Notably averted in the pacifist run mission. The game legitimately explains that it would be next to impossible to convince Sir Ranulph to join you if you got into his quarters by butchering his army.
- Historical In-Joke: Prince John, in the first war council, mentions the individual demanding the ransom being someone called Leopold
. - Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Averted. Shots by anyone generally connect all the time, but may not if the target is running away really fast. Otherwise, a person may run into a building to escape.
- Karma Meter: The percentage of enemy lives spared is listed in player profiles. It affects the number of merrymen recruited after missions, though oddly enough, is unaffected by side missions.
- Kick the Dog: Numerous, especially from the sidequests. Several of them involve rescuing villagers from the stocks. One early sidequest even involves taking down a corpse from the gallows so that a grieving widow can bury her child. Others involve rescuing villagers who are being held hostage by often sadistic Mooks.
- Sir Scathlock is implied to be starving some of his villagers, is reputed for barbaric treatment of his prisoners, and starves Friar Tuck for several days in a metal cage hoisted at a deadly height. His men are described as "animals" by Robin.
- One of the sidequests one can perform involves rescuing the husband of a woman in Leicester from Scathlock's prison in Derby. If one does not perform this quest, the man's corpse appears in a cell when the prison is sieged (If you do this successfully, you see the corpse of a young boy instead).
- Can be played straight by the player if they finish off a downed opponent. Needless to say, it affects the Karma Meter really badly (see above).
- Kick Them While They Are Down: A possible tactic with Scarlett and the pike-wielding merry. It's bad for the Karma Meter, but seems to be a favoured tactic of all NPCs, good or bad.
- Law of Chromatic Superiority: The six kinds of soldiers in game. Blue, yellow, orange, red, black and green, the first five in ascending order of power and the last being the friendly armies of Lord Ranulph and Sir Godwin.
- The Legend of X
- Mercy Rewarded: See Karma Meter.
- Middle-Management Mook: Enemy officers with capes seem to be this
- Minor Major Character: Averted. Every single character (save the guards) present at Prince John's war councils later plays a major role in the story.
- Non-Standard Game Over: While it is impossible to target civilians with weaponry, it is possible to kill them through complicated means - such as when they walk into your line of fire just as you're shooting from the bow. Doing so, however, will result in this.
- Actually managing to kill the tax collector in forest missions (by the aforementioned walking into line of fire or by having him crushed under logs) also results in this.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. There's obviously Will Scarlet and Will Stuteley, but some random merrymen can share first names with the main characters.
- Pacifist Run: Theoretically possible. There are only around a dozen enemies that the player is required to kill to win the game, and sparing enemy lives nets a merryman recruitment bonus.
- One mission, in fact, requires the player not to kill anyone, enforcing the trope. However, merely knocking out enemies is not hard when using blunt weapon-wielding characters and Will's slingshot.
- Plot Armor: During the game you can find Four Leaf Clovers, which can protect your main characters from dying if an enemy deals a killing blow to them. This protection doesn't extend to generic companions: When one of them dies, they stay dead and you can only call for a replacement from Sherwood. Lampshaded when picking up a clover for the first time in the first mission.
- Praetorian Guard: Black soldiers, who only show up very late in the game and are described as Prince John's personal guard.
Oddly enough, though, the non-fightable guards in both of Prince John's war councils are red, not black. - Rank Scales with Asskicking: Played straight with the bosses, officers and knights, due to their combat experience. Averted with Prince John, who is The Unfought.
- Recycled Soundtrack: Like the Head Radio ident in Grand Theft Auto, the mission success fanfare is recycled from, of all things, the music for a Tyne Tees Station Ident.
- Redshirt Army: Subverted. The merrymen start off inexperienced, but can be trained to the same level of competency as the major characters. Also, Lord Ranulph and Sir Godwin's troops are capable of putting up a tough fight.
- Simpleton Voice: The club-wielding Merry.
- Sissy Villain: Prince John has curly locks, wears pink and has a rather effeminate voice. Also, the archers are thin and possess effeminate voices. Though, to be fair, so do the archers in Lord Ranulph and Sir Godwin's armies.
- Sociopathic Hero:
- Will Scarlett, and to a lesser extent the pike-wielding merryman. Both have Blood Knight tendencies and have the ability to kill incapacitated enemies, while Scarlett complains about his shirt being ruined by enemy blood.
- While the manual states that he wears scarlet so his clothing won't be ruined that way.
- Sociopathic Soldier: See Kick the Dog.
- Sorting Algorithm of Evil: See Colour-Coded for Your Convenience. They appear in that order.
- The Smurfette Principle: Maid Marian is the only female playable character, and the only female character in the game period to fight at all.
- Smug Snake: All of the major villains save Sir Scathlock.
- The Big Guy: Aside from Little John, there's also the club-wielding merryman.
- The Man Behind the Man: Prince John to the Sheriff. The Sheriff is terrified of his wrath when the Crown Artefacts (such as the Coronation Spoon or the King's Scepter -and yes, the famous Silver Arrow counts) are stolen.
- Robin and Marian assume Prince John to merely be out of touch with the citizens and ignorant of the Sheriff's brutality. This image is shattered by the first war council in Derby, which shows him to be a usurper.
- The Middle Ages
- The Unfought: Prince John.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon Subverted, in as much as the final level of the game, Nottingham, appears very early and quite frequently in the story, and the site of the game's final battle is even visitable on an earlier level, containing Richard's Sigil.
- Worthy Opponent: Robin Hood generally considers the guards he engages in combat with to be this, remarking that they fought well and sometimes promising to send money to their widows.
