Kingdoms Reborn Review (Deathsythehell)
So this is incredibly interesting. The game plays like Foundation (which is a game on Steam) while having some similarities to Cities: Skylines. I'll go through the Pros and then the Cons that I found through my roughly 10 hours in the game so far and then will updated this when I get further into to give a much more granular look. Additionally, this is only based on the single-player, as I haven't played multiplayer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~PROS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. I like the 'Risk'-ness of it. You choose your zone that you want to start in and as you and other settlements build up, you have the option to attack, ally, or destroy their city (which frees up the land to be acquired). I really enjoyed getting to a certain point in the game where training units made sense and then you wage ware all around to start and expand.
2. The music is pleasant and the atmosphere of each piece of land is different, providing you with different challenges for yourself in terms of play style. Selected a desert landscape to start? You are going to have to trade more and expand quick to get some resources. Selected a forest with trees and fruit? You can leverage that to gain resources that are not around you.
3. I like the idea of the upgrade system that they use throughout. It provides a great way to scale up acquiring resources or using the resources that you are trading to make fancier things. I will also put this system in the cons as well, as I believe there are somethings to work on.
4. I enjoyed being able to trade and believe that some of the UI considerations for the resources are really great. I like the way that they have everything available to you on one screen so that you can see a snapshot of everything that you have at once. I liked the currency (coin, influence, and tech points) options and think that it has a lot of utility moving forward.
5. This game has some complexity that is nice to see in a city builder style game. I like the way that the resources interact with one another, as it provides a great sense of progression.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CONS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. The absolute lack of information in the help screen is laughable. This game gets complex at some points, so when I'm trying to understand, for example, how to purchase land that a neighboring town is in, there isn't a bunch of information on that. It has an area for buying land or expanding, but there is such a lack of information that it basically isn't there. I basically stumbled upon attacking other people to get more land.
2. The way that information pops up is pretty lackluster and just pops up right in the middle of the screen one after another. There isn't a quick reference anywhere in terms of information that you already received either, so if you are just clicking through, there is no way to see what came up before the latest window. I think that maybe having some icon as a way to keep track of the latest information could be useful.
3. In some ways it's rather rigid when it comes to building. You have a block system, but it only allows you to rotate 90 degrees every time. If there is a way to expand the functionality of the placement system, that would be appreciated (this is not that serious a con, as I don't think this system currently is horrible, but it could be expanded and improved upon)
4. There are some kinks when it comes to the storage system. I like the idea that they went with, but would like to see more information about the storage in game like:
a. What is the stack amount is for each storage space
b. Limit the amount of storage of a specific resource
c. What resources are used for what (it has it on the building, but would be nice if it shows in tooltip if
possible)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Conclusion~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's a fun game with some things that, in my opinion, could be cleared up and streamlined. Overall, I would recommend this to someone that doesn't mind a slower kind of progression that you have to feel out and learn yourself. It's challenging and can be even more so if you populate the word with more extreme weather, players, etc. I haven't tried the multiplayer, as stated above, so this is just on the single player information.