izigame.me

Although the Kingdom games are mostly rehashes at a reasonable price, there's always been something to keep me buying the latest iteration of the series, the most recently being the co-op experience. Unfortunately this game removes many elements and simplifies the entire game while giving it an 80s reskin.
I'll try to list what they've added and what they've removed.
+ There are 2 new enemies added to the game, one is similar to the breeder but instead is slightly larger and slams its body down instead as it's only function, and the other are little ranged plants that spit at your wall (but easily killed by a single swipe from your companion).
- The crown stealer has been removed (Completed the game on hard never saw one).
- The breeder no longer has an armoured variant (Completed the game on hard never saw one).
- Greed armour system seems to be reduced as now some wear funny hats but it barely protects them making them easier to deal with.
+ Replacing most money earning mechanics is a job system. When placing walls past certain buildings you can pay 3 coins to open up various skinned stores for kids to generate coins from (pizza place/arcade cabinet/etc). These are all functionally the same but are operated by both builders and kids without a bow/hammer.
- Farming has been removed (except for some bushes which are functionally identical to the job system). Crops/Grass growing for wheat functionality is gone.
- There is little incentive to push both lanes (I didn't realise you even could) as you linearly push left or right and activate a scripted animation cutscene which sometimes abruptly teleports you to the next level.
- Less wall and tower upgrades
- Far less buildings
- Island specific upgrades are gone along with their buffs.
- Island specific villagers are gone with their ability to unlock certain buildings/mechanics.
+ 3 NPCs follow you around the game on their bike permanently once unlocked (mandatory to progress). These function as unlocks for upgraded walls, unlocking lane pushing, and unlocking turrets. 2 of them do periodic charge attacks on a cooldown.
- Less mount variety, with one being a reused and buffed unicorn from Kingdoms Two Crowns.
- Gems have been removed but not replaced with anything, making coins the only real currency now.
- Banking has been removed.
- Knight mechanic has been simplified (you can no longer send them to push/attack and they seem to just shield retreating archers if the wall falls instead of attacking).
- Co-op has been removed.
- Boat mechanic has been removed and if you can travel to previous levels I couldn't figure it out.
- Maps have been removed/additional gamemodes and there are only 4 short maps to complete that could probably take you an hour to finish if you know what the script trigger to move to the next level is (just push the dumpster as soon as it's available).
- Maps are linearly designed so there's no reason to return to them, if you even can. Unlike previous instalments there were upgrades that could only be obtained via backtracking. This is no longer the case where you can fully grab everything you see straight away and just push to the next map without coming back to your base, removing that feeling of persistence/accomplishment, or excitement in finding something you can come back to later.
The best thing about this game is probably the 80s soundtrack they've added, but that's about it for me. Artistically both the environment and background graphics are poorly done this time around where it's difficult to tell what is gameplay vs art asset. Unlike their previous games where forest elements and buildings were clearly distinct, this game blends in many 80s pixel art into a convoluted mess making it difficult to interact with things.
The worst thing is the simplified gameplay from an already simple game. Before you would upgrade your town until you could hire shield guards that would allow you to eventually push out a lane. They kept most of this in, you still get an upgraded kid that can guard a lane (although I don't know why this is useful as they no longer attack at the wall and seem to only defend retreating archers by blocking if the wall falls), but you can no longer push with these "knights". Instead you are given a dumpster to push with your always following helper, a reskin of the bomb into a cave mechanic, but this time it's a portable defensive item that replaces the knights lane pushing. Your objective is to push into the cave and instead of blowing it up which was satisfying, you now get into the cave to collect something, or worse yet push to the cave to collect some items around it, then leave it to complete a scripted sequence.
The game is far shorter, with far less decision making and building, and far less to do. The minor quality of life addition to builders and jobless people now participating in jobs to earn money would have been a nice addition if it didn't replace everything else and trivialise the game. Even decisions around cutting down trees are pointless now as the homeless people are now generated in buildings you can surround and easily manage (with the exception of the final level where they bring back camps for some reason). You just push out, build walls anywhere, push the scripted lane, and move onto the next level. I don't even think there's a way to return to a previous level as there's no boat mechanic.
Overall this is a lazy addition to the series that takes away far more than it adds, removes one of it's most request features co-op, and simplifies the game into triviality. The art style of the environment has been poorly thought out and the addition of drawn cutscenes doesn't really add anything to the game and honestly detracts from it as the quality looks like something from early flash animations, ironically coming full circle to the game's humble beginnings as a flash game.
P.S. the game still has jittery frame updates while you are moving making the scrolling appear unsmooth. This has been reported across every game they've released and I posted about it 3 years ago and yet every game still suffers from it, truly showing how little they update their engine or seemingly pay attention to user feedback.