Parents' Guide to

The Hand of Merlin

By Michael Lafferty, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 10+

Twists on classic myth hampered by complex combat issues.

Game Windows 2021
The Hand of Merlin Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

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What’s It About?

In THE HAND OF MERLIN, a Cataclysm is corrupting the land with abominations, and it's up to a stalwart band of heroes to transport the Holy Grail from Albion to Jerusalem where it can be used to put an end to the evil. Along the way, the heroes will encounter those in need, bandits, and monstrosities in corrupted lairs. The Hand of Merlin is a roguelite progressive game where players take a band of heroes across a big map, making decisions that affect the tone of the game or resulting in perma-death. While the setting is historical, the game deviates with actual history, offering some twists and creating a non-linear story arc that makes decisions matter. The combat's turn-based with typical real-time strategy elements for movement and combat skills. Players will gain renown to level up characters (health and power are auto-leveled, but you can add to combat skills from randomly dealt cards containing new skill sets).

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

Blending a familiar tale with some clever twists, players will find immense replayability coupled with odd combat options and generic fighting sequences. The Hand of Merlin doesn't feature the best graphics on the real-time strategy/adventure block, but it's heavy in storyline. It asks the player to make decisions that can affect the path taken, leveling your party, how NPCs (non-player characters) view your hero, and many other options. Some frustration comes from the fact that there are two bars for each hero -- their health and armor. In battle, a character's armor goes first before their health, but if they run out of health, the hero dies -- permanently. Your mage can pick up healing spells, but initially only gets a spell to boost armor points. That seems pointless when your warrior is attacked by multiple enemies, wiping out any boosted armor by the first monster before others destroy a characters's health.

Movement and combat is a been-there-done-that experience, and there's little that's different from other real-time party-based dungeon crawls. If your party gets wiped out, you jump to a different universe with different kings and start anew, though some of your acquired skills follow you. While the narrative is text driven, The Hand of Merlin is a solid story experience. Decisions matter and while you can't backtrack your path to take a different route, you do hit intersections where you can pick a different outcome, which adds to the replay value. Overall, The Hand of Merlin isn't that visually impressive, but it can be an engaging strategy adventure and story. While the strategic elements, combined with permadeath and the story may be too much for younger gamers to assimilate, but veteran gamers find this to be a pleasant diversion.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about games created with an historical background, and how they may spark interest in history. Is it necessary to have history accurately portrayed? Why is using historical places or characters a good or bad thing? Would players prefer a game based off history, or would they rather play a game that is completely made up in terms of places or characters?

  • Why are turn-based strategy games a challenge, and how do you develop strategies for success? What are some instances in the real world where devising strategies for approaching a situation comes in handy?

  • The Hand of Merlin is heavy on text-driven storylines, but do you think younger players find this compelling or a waste of time? What makes for a good game -- story, action, or a combination of the two?

Game Details

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