In my opinion one of the most underrated games ever. It is a very solid ARPG in a setting without elves and orcs !!!
Graphics are not really good , but never ugly and very atmospheric. Sound and music is very good and voices are great.
You will play with three different chars which can be changed during missions, which can be a lot fun .

The story is really good, especially if you like stories about Crusader, Stonemasons and the holy grail !!
I really enjoyed the feeling to be on a “little crusade” 

The game design is straight forward as in most action based RPG. You have to do a mainquest and lots of bonus quests.
Rewarded XP can be used to get new skills, upgrade skills, get more HP …..

Controlling with a XBOX Controller is solid and works good, but the game never shows Controller Button, only Keyboard shortcuts..

8 / 10

In the last few years the knights templar for gamers became synonymous with the iluminati with their representation in the Assassins creed universe.....already going off track here. When i first saw the screenshots for the game back in 2011 like many i thought it is an AC rip-off or "the poor mans AC" as i heard some say and did not even bother much until last year when i got it during summer sales.

The first templar takes place after the 3rd Crusade(1189–1192), its a 3rd person action-adventure game and features co-op.You can play as 3 main characters which are interchangeable.The game begins with Celian d'Arestide(the main character) and Roland de Saint-Omer starting their quest for the (you won't belive it) THE HOLY GRAIL !!!11 , cheesy as it sounds the story is actually very complex and has nice twists towards the end and you meet more characters during your journey .

Now lets talk about the first thing you experince, the graphics , while the game is not a triple A it still looks good with beautifull colors and textures, and while the character models look ok, there is no motion capture and it feels sometimes stiff.The soundtrack is nothing special but the voice acting is quite good.

The gameplay is where the game shines, the game has an excelent combat mechanic,as you level up you can learn new moves or improvements of already learned moves , each character has its own unique style Celian - Sword and Shield, Roland TwoHander and the 3rd main character Marie d'Ibelin has a rogue style gameplay with her weapons being daggers, althrough it seems like an rpg feature its not, there are no skill trees and in the end you can have all skills and upgrades.You can upgrade your equipment, but this is also simplified, you can use an armor or an wep set only when you have the full set, you find pieces of these sets hidden in the levels also they aren't many and give some stat improvements but they cannot be combined.Also besides figthing you have puzzles which add some flavour to the game and in some levels you can use cannons which also adds to the game.

In the end althrough the game is simpler than ther AAA games , its good story and decent combat will keep you interested as you find out the secret of the holy grail and who is the first templar :)

The good:
Combat
Puzzles
Story

The bad:
rpg features

Final Rating 7/10

Do not buy this game. It looked like it would be fun to play with a friend, but the coop feature relies on logging into a third-party server. That normally wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that the server was never up. No response from dev team, and when I contacted Steam, they said that the game doesn't offer multiplayer. Save your money.

Decent hack 'n slash with a fun co-op mode helps make The First Templar worth more than just a single run-through...

The story itself is pleasantly uncomplicated. I didn't even bother much with it. What's that? We're a knight in search of the Holy Grail? Whatever. Let's get our swords out and start slashing. You'll visit a variety of locations that genuinely feel different, even if it is easy to spot the direction you're supposed to go. How could it be hard? This is not an open world. Travel too far one way or another, and you'll come up against an invisible wall. Exploring too much would slow down the action, anyway. The voice acting is on the whole good, but some of the lines are just so cheesy / stiff that I doubt anyone could make them sound effective. The graphics don't look as horrible as some reviewers have stated. You will come across some incredibly low-res rocks and water at odd places in the game (usually towards the end). The faces of the characters barely move in the engine-driven cutscenes. But the general environments are nicely detailed - in particular, Acre and the d'Ibelin estate. Not earth-shattering, but nice. Fire and smoke are particularly well-rendered. And the game is light on system resources; I was able to run everything at Highest / Ultra @1080p while running an AMD R7 260X graphics card.

Single player mode works well. The controls are smooth if simple (like in a lot of hack 'n slashers), but there are a number of combos and special moves that can really change things up. You don't need to do them, which is nice; you can play the whole game with the basic attack / basic block if you want. Jumping / dodging is a little trickier, requiring a double-tap of the direction key. Now this sounds simple, but in the boss fights, you will be dodging a lot; my hand certainly needed a break afterward. But this is a minor fault. The combat is very quick to learn, and the upgrade tree is very deep. Custom weapons and outfits are only cosmetic that I could tell, but obtaining them does grant XP, in some cases large amounts. Stealth sections are simple; hold down the Shift key and time your movements. You will never confuse The First Templar with Assassin's Creed or Deux Ex Human Revolution; but there are several places where a stealthy approach is required to progress.

Switching from one player to another is simple and seamless: just hit the Tab key to change to the other character. And you will need to do this to solve some of the dungeon puzzles. Which is one of the most fun parts of the game - the puzzles. There are all kinds of traps and levers that need to be pulled in the correct order. Most fall into a few basic categories: you got your fire hazard, your spinning blades hazard, the spike hazard. There are more, and they almost always presented in combination. I never actually died completing the dungeon puzzles, but patience, tact and timing are rewarded.

If you're purchasing for the co-op, great. You have long hours of fun ahead of you with your friend. Only the hosting player gets achievements, though, so be sure to take turns hosting the game.

The game ran very smoothly, with not a single crash. There were several bugs, though, and they could appear at any time. All were related to side missions, whether looking for a series of chests or attempting to rescue a series of villagers. Sometimes, the area the chest was in would not unlock, even though I had done everything and the game itself indicated that I could go get the chest, I could not. Another time, I needed to help some soldiers, but when I went to the spot indicated on the map, there was no one there. I revisited the spot before progressing to the next level, and the soldiers were there, but I could not interact with them in any way! Incredibly frustrating, since there is no way to save your game; you are entirely reliant upon the checkpoints. The only way to fix the bugs was to reload the last checkpoint. There were also a few occasions of sound-drop (no sound, like sword 'clink' and 'clank' when there should be sound), but usually only in huge battles. I assume the sound queue got over-loaded.

Overall, The First Templar was a fun game that is worth a play-through, thanks to the engaging level design and variety of gameplay (slashing, stealth, and puzzle-solving). Not a must-buy at the current list price of $20; at $6 or less, though, it represents good entertainment value.

Eugh. Picked this up during one of the Week Long sales for only $4.99(technically 10 bucks since I purchased one for my buddy as well), and even at that price I would say to stay away. The combat gets repetitive and boring after only the first mission, and there's around 20 of them. It's easily the longest and most drawn out game I've ever played. ~12 hours later and we beat it, and towards the end we were just pushing on to end it so we could remove it from our HDs.

The story is kind of interesting if a bit cliche at first, a knight's epic search for the Holy Grail; though to give the game credit they do throw a curveball at you later on for which the game gathers it's namesake. The environments are fairly nifty, especially during the part where you have to navigate these sort of trials to get to where the Grail is. Reminded me of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, minus the fun, entertaining, and enjoyment part.

Voice acting is atrocious. The characters are about as deep as the drool puddle you'll likely form from boredom: the interaction between Celian(the main Templar character) and Marie(I don't even really know her role or why she followed you other than she did) is literally her asking a question, sometimes incredulously("We're really going to fight that entire army!?), to him answering it with a one liner in his dull, dead and flat tone("Yes..."). Though this game doesn't feature much in the way of artwork, one thing that incessantly bothered me was the character potraits in the bottom left and right. The Templar's picture is actually something resembling artwork...the female co-op partner's picture looks like they just took a snapshot of her model and pasted it there. It's hugely out of place and inconsistent.

I would only ever really suggest this if you're a BIG hack and slash adventure game fan. Even then there are plenty other better alternatives on the market. The only positive I can give this game is tons of collectibles leading to lore or outfits(reskins), and a VERY lengthy campaign.