Monarchy [Review]
Monarchy is a blatant copy of the Kingdoms series but with the art style of Scribblenauts. This game does almost nothing to innovate on the Kingdom's play style but instead gives players an unbalanced, half-hearted experience with a multitude of bugs on PC and unresponsive controls on PlayStation 5.
The mechanics are similar to Kingdoms, so if you've played Kingdoms, you will feel right at home. The object of the game is to travel left and right on the map and find the perfect spot to start your kingdom and eliminate the threats on both sides. This was done very poorly. In Kingdoms, there is a very specific spot on every map that you have to find in order to start your kingdom. With that being said, the spot is relatively close to the spawn point. Monarchy gives ZERO indication as to where you can start your kingdom, and you will spend a lot of time trying to find a spot that will allow you start it. Also, this game lacks any real tutorial and uses pictures to teach players, but the pictures are confusing and don't even tell you what the action you are performing does. In a few play-throughs, it took me a while to find the start point, and by the time that I found a spot that let me build my tent it was nighttime, and I was immediately slaughtered by enemies.
Like in kingdoms, players start with a tent. As the game goes on, you will acquire money, and this money is used to build your base up, level up your people, and buy weapons. One huge difference with this game is the option to build what you want wherever you want it, and that is a nice touch, but otherwise, it is flawed by several limitations of placement. Also, after getting enough villagers, players will have a soldier follow them. This is also a pleasant touch. There are a few differences with defenses that are in this game that are not in Kingdoms Like spikes from the ground. Also, it's worth noting this game can be played in co-op. Like in Kingdoms, structures require coins to construct. Cutting down trees allows for your kingdom to expand and gives you more land to build defenses. Gaining more villages is also like Kingdoms. In kingdoms, there are homeless camps, and you can provide coins to employ them and boost your ranks. In this game, they are just out and about.
Also, like in Kingdoms every morning there's a guy you can pay to bring you coins, although in this game you can pay him to bring you people and coins. I find bringing in people this way is not helpful at all, as it makes getting coins harder. Having more people means protection, sure, but if you have no coins to provide weapons, then all you have is several meat shields. Another annoying thing is that in this game, soldiers just die if they are hit at all. In kingdoms, your soldiers just become homeless, and you can recruit them again. I wanted to like this game and waited for a while for it to come out. Maybe after a few updates this can be direct competition to the Kingdoms series but as it currently stands this game isn't great or even good. I think it would be best to play Kingdoms rather than an imitation.
