Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood

Robin Hood : The Legend of Sherwood is an action/adventure/fantasy/historical/real time strategy/role playing game developed by the German studio Spellbound. Like Spellbound's earlier creation, Desperados, it utilizes a 2.5D engine with quick action queuing and the ability to see enemy vision cones. It presents the classic tale of Robin Hood in videogame format, though it is by no means the first game to do so.


 * Action Girl: Maid Marian. The last major character gotten in game, and a major asset. She heals, has a bow with a 12 arrow quiver, can revive unconscious people, can listen to detect the identity of shrouded units, and packs a deadly sword to boot.
 * An Axe to Grind: Sir Scathlock's weapon of choice.
 * Annoying Arrows: Arrows inflict 10 damage (out of an average of 100 hit points) while crossbow bolts inflict 20. See Goddamned Bats.
 * That describes enemy arrows. Your arrows are much more powerful.
 * Anti-Villain: Longchamps has shades of this.
 * Aristocrats Are Evil: The games major villains are a prince, a sheriff, two nobles of unspecified rank and a knight. Also, enemy knights are shown to be contemptous 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 Lion Heart, 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.
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: Played straight with the bosses, officers and knights, and averted with Prince John, who is The Unfought.
 * Badass Moustache: Little John
 * Bald of Evil: The enemy officers. The good ones have short red hair.
 * Big Good: Richard the Lion Heart, and an arguable Big Good Diumvirate in Lord Ranulph and Sir Godwin.
 * Black Knight: Literally. Also, Sir Scathlock has elements of this.
 * Blond Guys Are Evil: Played straight with Prince John and averted with Will Scarlett.
 * Call Back: Near the end of the opening cutscene, Robin fires an arrow into the air, promising that Richard the Lion Heart would be restored as King of England before it fell. In the closing cutscene
 * Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The six kinds of soldiers in game. Blue, yellow, orange, red, black and green, the first four in ascending order of power and the last being the friendly armies of Lord Ranulph and Sir Godwin.
 * Cowardly Boss: Guy of Gisbourne, who has two red pikemen Elite Mooks with him you have to fight before taking him on.
 * Crowning Moment of Funny: What happens in the mission "A Wedding and a Funeral" after raising Richard's standard above York as a distraction.
 * Demonic Spiders: The knights, who are exceedingly hard to knock out or even kill, deal massive damage and knockback with their swords, and prefer to move in after you're weakened by their subordinates. Taken Up to Eleven with mounted knights, which knocks you out with unblockable attacks and then finish you off. Thankfully the latter is only encountered during side missions and the final mision, meaning that killing them won't do anything to your merry men recruitment rate
 * Dirty Coward: The Sheriff of Nottingham, who
 * Duel Boss: All of them.
 * Elite Mooks: The red soldiers. Also, knights of any colour, mounted or not.
 * Epic Flail: Will Scarlett's weapon of choice.
 * Five-Bad Band
 * The Big Bad: Prince John
 * The Dragon: The Sheriff of Nottingham
 * The Brute: Sir Scathlock
 * The Smug Snake: Guy of Gisbourne
 * The Sixth Ranger / Canon Immigrant: Guillame de Longchamps
 * Five-Man Band:
 * The Hero: Robin Hood
 * The Lancer: Will Scarlett
 * The Big Guy: Little John
 * The Chick / The Medic: Maid Marian
 * Badass Preacher / Cool Old Guy: Friar Tuck
 * The Sixth Ranger / Ascended Extra: Stuteley
 * Goddamned Bats: Archers and crossbowmen. Once they get going, they can fire accurately every second and run away and hide behind melee units when their group is attacked. A skilled player will tend to take them out first.
 * Heroic Sociopath: 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.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: The enemy officers bear an odd resemblance, in conduct, personality, voice and appearance, to Kobus of District 9.
 * 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 hard with enemy archers.
 * It's Probably Nothing: Averted. Guards will run extensive searches throughout every open area, call for backup, alert their superiors, wake up and untie sleeping enemies and seek civilian assistance. Blue and orange guards tend to rush into battle, while red guards are more cautious and will seek backup, while 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.
 * 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).
 * 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 Lord Ranulph and Sir Godwin's troops. It is, naturally, also used by enemies, particularily against non-named characters, and particularily by mounted knights.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * Praetorian Guard: lack 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.
 * 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.
 * 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 Soldier: See Kick the Dog.
 * Sorting Algorithm of Evil: See Color-Coded for Your Convenience. They appear in that order.
 * 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 valuable in-game artifacts (such as the Coronation Spoon or the King's Scepter) are stolen, and Robin and Marian assume him 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,, 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.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: Despite the cartoony graphics and the fantasy setting, there are some fairly dark themes such as military brutality, child murder, public executions, grieving widows and torture to be found in game.
 * Worthy Opponent: The boss battle agains Sir Longchamps.