Gameplay
Most of the game takes place in a standard adventure game mode, in which the player causes an avatar of Robin Hood to walk between screens and interact with characters and objects by clicking on them. For navigation between screens, the game has several hot spots built into a map. There are also minigames involving archery, combat and nine men's morris with adjustable difficulty.
Gameplay is divided into days, each day ending with a cutscene of Robin Hood and his men discussing the plot and the day's events. Each day involves certain actions that must be completed before advancing, though it is possible to leave vital tasks undone, leading to a potentially worse ending.
Like most games of this period, it relies heavily on the player's ability to read instructions and character dialogue and contains almost no voice acting. Several of the puzzles are entirely language-based. Even though Sierra was an American company, the entire game (with some oversights) is written and punctuated using British English conventions.
The game keeps score in three ways: the number of points for puzzles solved, the amount of money collected for King Richard's ransom, and the number of Robin's outlaws who are still alive. There is one opportunity to recruit new members and several chances to get them killed.
Depending on how well the player performs, there are four possible endings. Robin Hood can be hanged for his crimes, given a pardon but no other reward, pardoned and offered a job in the king's service but denied Maid Marian's hand, or he can be granted a noble title and married to Maid Marian.
Development
Conquests of the Longbow is based on tremendous historical and cultural research, for detail within the story's setting and puzzles. The game manual lists twenty-eight volumes in the bibliography, including Robin Hood by J.C. Holt, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend by Maurice Keen, and The White Goddess by Robert Graves. The manual includes essays by Marx outlining the history of the legend and the approximate dates at which different characters were incorporated into the Robin Hood legend, such as Friar Tuck and Marian in the 15th century. Guy of Gisbourne is mentioned but absent from the game. Other essays cover the tree lore, early British history, and video game piracy.
Mark Seibert served as music director and provided sound effects while Ken Allen, Christopher Braymen, Orpheus Hanley, and Aubrey Hodges supplied synthesized score and sounds.
Reception
Jim Trunzo reviewed The Legend of Robin Hood: Conquests of the Longbow in White Wolf #31 (May/June, 1992) and stated that "Most impressive is the game's diversity. Combat, puzzles, and arcade sequences (set to whatever degree of difficulty you like) all add to the overall feel of the product." [1]
In 1992, Dragon gave the game 5 out of 5 stars. [2] That year Computer Gaming World named it one of the year's top four adventure games. [3]
In a 2009 retrospective review, Adventure Gamers gave it 4.5 stars out of 5; they praised the puzzles, writing, historical research, branching plot and graphics, while criticising unresponsive controls in the action segments, and regarded the game as a classic despite its obscurity relative to other Sierra games. [4]
In 2011, Adventure Gamers named Conquests of the Longbow the 42nd-best adventure game ever released. [5]
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