LifeisXbox’s Make Your Kingdom review | You are the founder of a new settlement after your homeland is destroyed by a mysterious purple haze. In your new village, you will have to start from nothing and do your very best to turn your village into the lovely kingdom that once was. Of course, things aren’t as easy as they might seem and bad things can happy at every turn. Sounds like a fun game right? Well, that’s what I thought when I got a chance to review yo_serjio’s new game Make Your Kingdom: City Builder. Let’s found out what I thought of it after playing it for a few hours!
Most Memorable Moment
My most memorable moment must have been when I was exploring the casual mode. It was last Sunday actually and I completely lost track of time and before I knew it a couple of hours had passed when I was just calmly building a lovely village. Personally, this is exactly what I want to experience in a game: that you actually enjoy it and you just keep playing and playing while time flies by.
ℹ️ Reviewed on PC | Review code provided by PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion from the writer.
What we Liked!
- What’s it about | Make Your Kingdom is a settlement builder game. After the lovely and peaceful kingdom you lived in is destroyed by a mysterious purple haze, you and a small group of other villagers manage to escape to a brand new and safe place. Unfortunately, there is nothing there and every building has to be developed and build again. You as the founder will have to decide how everything is going to look and make sure that everyone has a place to live, that there is enough food and that it’s protected from natural disasters such as earthquakes and attacks from vicious orcs. If you do everything correctly your settlement might be even become even more perfect than the kingdom you once lived in. Imagine that!
- Game modes | The game offers you 3 different game modes but in its core they are all the same so let’s do a quick rundown about what is what. First of all you have the Prologue. Here you will learn about the story of the game, which I talked about in my previous point and you will learn the basics of the game. Once you have progressed enough you will build and aircraft and go on an expedition to find a new place to live, this is also where the second game mode kicks in: Expedition. This is where you will enter a new place to live and start from scratch again. It is basically the same as the Prologue but here disaster can strike like an earthquake hitting and destroying some of your buildings. You will also have to look out for Orcs who aren’t scared of you and will attack every opportunity they get. And lastly, you have the Casual game mode. This is a sandbox mode which is completely the same as the Expedition mode except natural disasters and Orc attacks are turned off. It’s as the title says: a casual city builder mode.
- Sound | While playing the game there is a calming/mystery soundtrack playing in the background which is actually quite enjoyable. This is filled which some nice extras such as the sound of the wind or the thunder and rain that are pouring down on you village. Unfortunately, the short story at the beginning isn’t voiced which I personally think should be done in a later patch since it’s now just a bit of text that can easily be missed when you aren’t paying attention to it. Still, it wasn’t the biggest dealbreaker and overall, the sound aspect was really good.
Mixed Feelings
- Graphics | There are 2 things that gave me mixed feelings about Make Your Kingdom, the first one being the graphics. I really like the simple cartoony art style that the game is in. But there are some things that aren’t a 100% correct. For example when you build a new building it has to be connected to a path so everything can be reached. But once you placed the path and look at how all the villagers are walking, most of the time they aren’t using them. They walk towards the water, right next to the paths and sometimes even through buildings? It was so noticeable that it gave me mixed feelings, and I’m sure that I won’t be the only one.
- Third-person mode | What a fantastic feature this is! Most of the game you are probably playing while overlooking your village, managing what needs to be build and just let the villagers handle it. But Make Your Kingdom offers a third-person option which you can just hop in and hop out from. In third-person mode you can carry building materials towards your newly placed buildings and even speed up the building process. Unfortunately, it comes with a downside. The other villagers will bump into you, a lot, which is causing you to move and stop what you are doing. I love the idea that you can play in third-person but it is far from flawless which made me play most of the game from the overview.
What we Disliked
- Short & repetitve | There is one thing that I disliked about Make Your Kingdom and that is that the game in its core is really short and very repetitive. In the Prologue you build your city and once you are far enough you will build an aircraft and go to a new plot of land and do the same thing all over again. Here you repeat the progress and this goes on and on and on. It is very fun to play when you are building in the Casual mode and stay at the same spot but when you have to move around the fun fades rather quickly.
How long to beat the story | You can stretch it as long as you like.
How long to achieve 100% achievements | 10+ hours.
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