When I heard that Majesty 2 Monster Kingdom would do away with building a Kingdom of heroes and instead focus on building a Kingdom of monsters and other questionable characters, I was elated. Dungeon Keeper being one of my favourite games of all time, this looked to have a lot of potential. Majesty 2 Monster Kingdom is the latest expansion for the rather good Majesty 2. And like any expansion, it requires the base Majesty 2 game(this isn’t a standalone product). How exactly did they change a game about human heroes to one where you’re building a monster kingdom?
Well the story is a little kooky(it has always been so). You have been dethroned as the King of Ardania and you and your advisor must find new allies, in the form of monsters. Don’t ask, I’m still wondering how exactly your advisor found it all right to resort to hiring monsters. Your wizard advisor who does a crude impression of Sean Connery returns and the funny scripts and voice overs remains intact in Monster Kingdom. Your advisor is finding it difficult to adjust to dealing with monsters. They don’t really have good hygiene those critters.
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| Build your monster kingdom. |
The gameplay remains largely the same as in Majesty 2. You build structures to recruit monsters(instead of heroes), build a blacksmith to improve their armour and weapons, towers to defend your territory etc. Standard fare RTS stuff. What’s different is that one, each recruitment structure you build can only recruit a certain number of monsters. For instance if you build one Ratman guild, you can only recruit three Ratman from that guild. Two, you can build multiple buildings and recruit more monsters and this is usually vital to win the challenging missions(and boy are they challenging).
The game discourages players from breaking this by having inflation as a mechanic(it’s not dynamic). The second structure you build(of the same type) will cost more and will continue to rise as you build even more structures. So you can’t spam out multiples of the same structures early in the game, you’ll have to earn it. This is especially evident with guard towers as you’ll probably have to build a few of these to keep your kingdom safe.
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| Enemy monsters will spawn from lairs that randomly appear around your kingdom. Never a dull moment in Majesty 2. |
To gain more gold, you’ll have to build up your palace which increases your population. It’s not stated anywhere but just keep in mind your workers(gnomes in Monster Kingdom) will build houses as your Kingdom expands. Your tax collector, who is a Vampire(they apparently make the best tax collectors, for obvious reasons), collects taxes from each house and puts that into your coffers.
Gold is very important in Majesty 2 because you see, you don’t control any unit. Not your tax collectors, your gnomes, or any of the monsters you recruit. They work on their own volition. The only thing you can do in Majesty 2 is build the structures and to incentivise your monsters to do something for by placing down flags and offering rewards. They can be a defend, attack, exploration or fear flag(causes your monsters to flee in terror from the location the flag was placed down) and you attach a gold reward to it so that the monster which completes it gets the reward. This is the crux of Majesty 2.
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| Expect to face human adventurers. |
Majesty 2 has a funny way of keeping you in line though. It spawns monsters(ones that attack your own monsters) over time around your kingdom and as you expand. If you grow a large army quickly, the game has a way of throwing much bigger waves at you(although this might just be me imagining things).
Gates of hell and other evil monster lairs appear out of nowhere right near your buildings. This might seem a little unfair for new comers, but this is just how the series has always been. A mechanic to stop you from completely steamrolling over the map.
If it has not been made clear enough in my review, Monster Kingdom still doesn’t completely reinvent the formula of Majesty 2. It is an expansion pack after all. It’s still Majesty 2 albeit with new content and a new campaign. Which also means it inherits some of the weaknesses of Majesty 2. The AI for your guards are frankly, quite bad. Often times they’ll just walk past some monster that’s attacking your building.
It doesn’t help either that all your monsters might hang out around their guild and don’t come to help out in the defence of your Kingdom(only if the attacking enemy was near them). A little annoying, but you’ll learn to compensate for it by placing defend flags more aggressively(pah! lousy monsters! they need to be paid to defend their own turf).
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| The gates of hell is dangerous and handy. It spawns demons and you can resurrect dead monsters back right from hell. |
It’s also an extremely challenging game like its preceding expansions. You can’t change the difficulty setting, there is no difficulty setting at all. You are stuck with the predefined advanced difficulty for most of the entire campaign. There are points in the game where I just raged that it was being unfair. Just 5 minutes into a mission, a level 20 dragon flies(yes, your monsters will level up and get better if you can keep them alive) into my camp and decimates my lowly monsters and destroys many of my buildings. Wow! just wow…
Majesty 2 Monster Kingdom is still an excellent expansion pack despite flaws that are inherited from Majesty 2. It does exactly what a good expansion should do, giving you a completely new campaign with lots of cool new stuff. It certainly is a way more newer experience compared to the previous expansions that were mainly just new missions. If you own Majesty 2 and want a new campaign, get this. If you want a different type of RTS experience, you can purchase Majesty 2 and get this expansion and it will last you for quite a while(partly also due to the difficulty). Easily recommended.
Pros:
- Witty dialogue/script/voice over. I lol’ed :)
- Gives you something completely new, campaign wise .
- It’s way cooler building an army of monsters.
- New units, buildings and spells.
Cons:
- Still inherits the problems from the base game. Mainly poor AI in regards to how your guards and minions suck at defending your kingdom.
- Very challenging. Not for the faint hearted.
Verdict: A fine expansion that is monstrously good and monstrously challenging
Great expansion, A fine example how to make one if you ask me. Same mechanic, different fun, this is what it is all about!! 9/10 here is adequate, more complicated missions is one wish to be made...
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