Played this (partially) live on stream on the 23rd of March (twitch.tv/sleepy_nice, come thru).

I spent basically the first 5 hours of my time playing this alternating between saying "Ohhhh I get it" and "WOW". Kingdom Two Crowns has such purposeful and vivid execution that knowing absolutely nothing when I started, I felt like I was given everything I needed to comprehend what it was going for. I love this game, I think it's super special and really fun and I'd love to replay it in co-op because I think the very few problems I had with it would be completely sorted out in that environment.

I was truly compelled by the slowness of everything. You're forced to play at a speed dictated by the game for the first island or so, and judging from some other reviews I've seen that was a bit of an issue for some players. Not me though! I love that stuff. It made the escalation of your mobility feel really momentus, and the first time I was able to use a new mount I felt like I was flying across that island comparatively.

Sidenote, knowing now that the same developer who made Cloud Gardens (one of my favourite games of last year) also had a hand in Kingdom makes total sense. That guy really has a sense of pace and knows how to utilise it!

That said, I do really wish there was an auto-run button. I don't mind moving back and forth constantly but I played for a few hours last night and my thumb hurt from holding right and left (which you do uh, a lot of in this game). The only other issue I had was the difficulty in returning to islands you had been to in the past - you always have to recover your boat before you can leave again, and that felt a little annoying when there were moments that going back and forth between two islands was necessary for some unlocks.

Anyway yeah this is really great. Nearly perfect. Loved it