An awesome game that is enjoyable challenging but can be frustrating too. Actually it is two indie titles from developer Noi put into one gameAn awesome game that is enjoyable challenging but can be frustrating too. Actually it is two indie titles from developer Noi put into one game as it consist of “Kingdom: New Lands” and “Kingdom: Two Crowns” including DLC. I see this game as 2D real time strategy while others say it is rouge like game. The gameplay is actually simplistic but also enjoyable and challenging. You are a Monarch and try to rebuild your kingdom. It is set on a pixel art 2D landscape. You are riding on your mount and need to collect coins. With these you can hire citizens. Those start as vagrants and with 1 coin these become citizens. Those can be further trained at specific buildings in your kingdom giving them tools or weapons. Basic jobs are workers (adds a hammer) and archers (adds a bow) but others can be unlocked too. The other part is your kingdom. You build your Castle aka Town Center (base) and structures. These depends on the landscape. At certain locations defensive walls and towers can be erected as can farms. Some structures are erected automatically when you create or upgrade your Town Center. These structures cost also coins (The more improved the more coins). Most buildings can be upgraded and for some upgrades you have to meet certain conditions. You must also secure an income. Archers will hunt animals but this is not a safe or better said even income. There is a small tax treasure chest but it is also not useful later on. Farms help a lot and there are others ways. Now to the challenge. The land was ruined by the Greed. These monsters attack you kingdom at night. Those attacks get stronger and stronger as the days progress (Day and Night cycles) and you have to repeal them. They are stealing coins and tools turning your citizens back to vagrants while also destroying structures. You can escape the Island by finding a ship wreck and repairing the ship to reach the next island. If the Greed catch your monarch he or she loses coins, if no coins are available then the crown. If they get the crown your monarch dies and a new monarch starts rebuilding your kingdom (Not everything is gone). It has actually some benefits to lose your monarch that I will explain later in an advice section (game has a weak tutorial). Those are the basics and there is more like gems, hermits, different mounts and other stuff. You need careful planing to gain the upper hand and one false decision can be devastating. Both games are excellent and have a quite addicting gameplay as all good strategy games. There are some negatives too. The tutorial is weak and leaves out some critical advice. It is a game where you learn with each new failure and restart to get further and further. This is a (small) negative for me and a positive for others to be fair. I found it frustrating but strangely also rewarding. Here a few things I wished I knew before (Spoiler warning for some but those are just advice for others). There are blood-moons (moon turns red) and at those the Greed attacks are remarkably stronger, there are seasons and winter is hard to survive as many sources of income are not working, gems are only found from island 2 onward, hermits work like tools and can be stolen byGgreed, some mounts are far superior, loosing your monarch reset seasons and Greed attack level and finally there is a good Kingdom Wiki that explains a lot. Back to the review. The graphics are pixel art looking a bit better than the 16 bit era (SNES and Genesis). Those are beautiful and I enjoyed it a lot but pixel art is not for everyone so take this as a warning too. The soundtrack however is amazing and always delivered. The added DLC are good too. There is a Shogun setting which is a Japanese make over of the game with minor changes and some additional challenges (Some are incredibly hard). Overall I love and hate this game. It was amazingly entertaining on one hand but frustrating on the other. I restarted a few times because some mechanics are hard to overcome when you don't know what is coming or a simple mistake can destroy huge chunks of your kingdom. I end the review with saying it is a masterpiece but also something not everyone will appreciate at the same level. Hope to see more form the developer and praise them.… Expand
