Kingdom Two Crowns

I adore this game, bugs and all. I mostly play it solo because my husband isn't as big of a fan of it as I am. The builder AI just got a revamp, and thank goodness, because those dudes are dumber than rocks. Literally must be, to hit a hammer on a tree and expect it to fall down. My mom was really excited for this game to come out and actively played New Lands often. We were so looking forward to Two crowns coming out because it meant she and I could play together. Sadly she didn't live to see the launch but I know she would have adored it just as much. They kept her favourite mount (the Stag) that she'd use and giggle mischievously as she lead unsuspecting deer to their demise. I enjoyed most of the dlcs, and the soundtracks are beautiful. The mounts are cool and all have their quirks. If you enjoy tower defense or 2D sidescrolling artstyle then this game is worth a play. Make sure to lead a few deer to their untimely end.

This game helped me go through grief, illness and boredom multiple times until I got better. Thank you game! (Also it's really fun, addictive and insanely gorgeous!)

Look I'm gonna be completely honest, I have no idea what's going on half the time or what I need to do, but it's still my favorite game to play with my partner. Sometimes we grind a save for 12 hours and then I ruin that said save in 12 seconds.

5/5 relationship experience

This game should be studied. It's a time machine, I swear. It's the kind of game you can quickly boot up when you wanna chill for half an hour before you do your chores. Next thing you know, it's dark outside, your eyes are stinging from lack of blinking and you have to do your chores quietly, in the middle of the night.

Amazing game, I spend more hundreds of hours with it.

Extremely simplistic game, not unlike what you'd find in the good old browser / flash games, but It's amusing enough until the excessive repetition kicks in.
• The very buggy and unreliable AI, seemingly a staple of the Kingdom franchise, makes a comeback of course. It really does make me wonder what the devs do when developing these games considering how simplistic they are and how much asset reuse there is. A couple standouts among the general clunk:
- There's a mechanic where a stray dog joins you. Its function is to signal incoming enemy waves, it does so by barking and howling towards the wave's direction. Or at least that is how it is implied to work, I had several instances where it kept howling towards one direction then the wave came through the opposite side.
- The high tier tower upgrades seem to be very buggy, existing archers will simply refuse to man them. You have to recruit and produce new archers and even then, they sometimes just refuse to go in.
• It feels like the game punishes you for doing well and for active play. If you are super efficient with expanding your kingdom, you get punished with significantly more expensive peasant recruits. The merchant you invest a coin on on a daily basis also stops visiting, so you also lose that steady daily amount of income. If you happen to have a mount with an ability like the griffin or salamander and try to play actively during defenses (pushing or burning enemies), the big Greed monsters are more likely to use the boulder attack targeting you so you'll end up absolutely decimating your own troops, instead you are encouraged to just hide behind your walls and observe as things play out on their own. If you spend currency to unlock the special upgrade troops, they can and will be kidnapped by the Greed.
• Speaking of it, the NPC kidnapping mechanic is weird. For some reason an NPC you could unlock on Island 1, when kidnapped, can somehow end up hostage in the cave on the later islands. I'm not sure if that's a bug or what, if it isn't that's a horrible mechanic considering how there's like two actually useful upgrade NPCs so if they are locked behind the fourth and fifth islands, well that's a mechanic you won't be interacting with for that playthrough I guess.
• There just isn't enough variety in gameplay. Move left, move right, drop coin - that's the extent of player actions. Limited troop types on both your end and the enemy's. We are still fighting the same enemies we fought in the first Kingdom game, in this third installment.
• Dubious mechanics like decay. If you are away from an island for an extended period of time, everything starts to decay until your previous kingdom pretty much returns to its starter form. On paper it might sound like a mechanic that makes sense, in practice it is just a slog as you just end up having to repeat everything you already did before, over and over again - so much pointless grinding. Nothing new is added on revisits either.
• No dialogues, no story, no lore, no narrative or world building really. There's very little to keep you around after you get well acquainted with the gameplay.
Overall, even if everything I've said so far might sound mostly negative I still think Kingdom Two Crowns is an overall okay game. I've said this before but it is the best iteration of the Kingdom formula for sure, the Strategy-lite aspect of it is engaging enough and there's something cozy about building a "kingdom" from scratch, quite satisfying if you enjoy checklist gaming.
I do recommend it but on sale. That's about it.

★★★★★
After 500+ hours, I can honestly say that Kingdom Two Crowns is one of my favorite games of all time.
I've been coming back to it for years, and it never gets old. Every DLC is fantastic in its own way and adds something special to the experience. The atmosphere, music, art style, exploration, and gameplay all come together perfectly.
It's the perfect game when you want to relax, especially in co-op. Few games have kept me entertained for this long while still making me excited to start a new campaign.
Thank you to everyone who worked on this masterpiece.
And please... I'm still not ready to retire my crown. 👑