Kingdom Two Crowns Review (kork)
Kingdom Two Crowns is the 3rd installment in the Kingdom series of games. The simple gameplay of picking up and spending coins and expanding your kingdom is still there, with slight variations from the previous games, such as new mounts and the new objective of blowing up the lairs of the monsters (versus just sailing away in New Lands). The main selling point of this version is the co-op mechanic, where a second player can join you (hence the title Two Crowns). However, the co-op in this game falls very short, and without it, it is nothing more than New Lands with slight alterations and small updates.
In terms of new content, there’s a new soundtrack, and some new visuals, but largely the same from the previous Kingdom games. There’s a new limited gem resource, which is used to unlock statue upgrades, hermits, and mounts; but it feels like a redundancy more than anything and a bad attempt at adding variety to the game. There are also the challenge islands, and as the name suggests, are extra challenges for the players to overcome. However, there’s not that much beyond one main mechanic that you have to work around, and will mostly be the same gameplay as the main game.
One of the things that was done well are the 2 free DLCs. The Shogun one is mostly a reskin of the game, and Deadlands introduces new mechanics. These were a welcoming addition to the game, as they provided a newer graphical and soundtrack remix of the game, which helped make them feel like a fresh new game experience.
The main aspect of co-op is having an additional player to help you out in your kingdom building, but there is really nothing more beyond that. You have certain events where you have to be together, like blowing up the monster lair and riding the boat, but that’s it.
The other major problem with the game is that it’s not fleshed out. Despite the fact that it’s a co-op game, achievements that are earned through the efforts of both players are not awarded to both players, but instead only the host. Sometimes the second player will get achievements, but the requirements or triggers around that are a mystery. There are four campaign modes, but only three save files. The minion AI is still sometimes dumb as fuck. For example, archers will sometimes sit too far back for them to shoot (this made me lose in one of my games). My co-op buddy also encountered some visual/gameplay bugs with the knights and archers. I personally have not encountered many bugs, but based on what I see on the forums, there’s still quite a bit at this time since the game’s release.
Two Crowns isn’t a totally bad game; I would put it somewhere in middle. But I’m more critical of the game because by their 3rd game, I expected something better and greater, especially with the fact that the core gameplay of Kingdom is quite simple and has been kept throughout its 3 games so far, and its current price point. The lackluster co-op, minimally new content, and unrefined state of the game were big disappointments for me. For that, I do not recommend this game.