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

Reviewed on Mar 27, 2022


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