Exiled Kingdoms

“Well we thought it was a good idea” That quote has been uttered by many developers when trying to explain a blatant game flaw, and as I played this game, I wondered how many times the guys/gals at 4 Dimension Games uttered words like this. The game itself isn’t bad, though it isn’t great either. In all fairness it reminded me a lot of Spiderware games… with some really questionable decisions thrown in. The main fault I find in this game is the super grind. You can’t rest outside of a village and will find yourself heading back to one quite a lot before completing a task. Problem is, that every 12 hours game time, the bad guys re-spawn. This means you may have to come back to town again as you may not be able to finish a mission. This isn’t fun, it’s lazy development. By all means restrict resting, that’s actually kind of cool, but when combined with infinite re-spawn, it makes the game boring and an unnecessary grind. Graphics are on the poor side, the story is “meh” (but there are many side quests to at least give the game a non-linear feel). Character selection and development is quite limited, and equipment and potions quite expensive. This in turn adds to both the grind and lack of player immersion. You also want to be real careful about hiring a mercenary to aid your character, sometimes they are helpful, at other times you are protecting them At a discount, go ahead and grab it, just know what you’re getting before you do so.

I've only managed to get 6 levels in until my patience ran out. Well, 6 levels on my 1st attempt, because I originally started on the normal difficulty, where you can't save in dungeons, which very quickly got old, with having to retry an entire dungeon because of a mistake at the end. The combat isn't exciting nor are dungeons procedurally generated to warrant this repetition. I restarted on casual difficulty, but it only improved things marginally. Despite the world being open, there's obviously a linear progression in mind between areas with distribution of enemies of a particular level. But the quests don't take your level into account, and may send you to an impossible area. So you end up wandering around, by trial and error trying to find the next quest that is appropriate for your level. I've read that it's easier with the Warrior or Cleric classes, whereas I chose Rogue, but honestly I'm too tired of this game to start again. Lastly, the skills system, and how the whimpiness of my rogue meant that after every encounter I'd stand around for half a minute waiting for my skills to recharge. This got old too.

Maybe harder than it needs to be. I have nearly six hours of gameplay at this point, and have barely crawled to level 5. I still get my head caved in whenever I leave the starting area, if I'm not incredibly careful. But sometimes it's good when games are hard, and frankly, you shouldn't be ashamed of just setting the difficulty lower. You know what? I don't have a lot of patience for most games. If I didn't like one, I would never GIVE it six hours - I would be unlikely to give it 30 minutes! So don't be afraid of the difficulty, don't be afraid of setting the difficulty TO something you feel is fun, and explore a world where every corner you stick your nose into is hiding something. And die. Die so much, oh my god.

I'm normally not a fan of action-RPGs and don't like games like Diablo so I was hesistant at first. But this game really surprised me. I didn't expect much when I purchased it but it's keeps me hooked for many days now. There are only four basic classes, but they play very differently, an intuitive and clean RPG-system, a big open world to be explored (a bit similar to Baldur's Gate 1, you explore the world on different maps but every part fits to the adjacent part) and many quests (most of them more on the "traditional" side, not overly complex, but entertaining nonetheless), a plethora of different equipment pieces, different climates and quite some settlements and cities to visit. The story is well written, there are different Kingdoms and factions (who will take notice of your actions), many random events on the road make the adventurer's life interesting (brigands, travelling merchants, hireable mercenaries,...). But beside all the features there is something very special about this game: It gives me a very "classic" feeling, the atmosphere is strong, everything is made with so much dedication and care that I enjoy it immensely. It's almost impossible to imagine that it's the work of one single genius. It's not an easy game however - especially for the first hours expect to die a lot. If you are easily frustrated I recommend using the "casual" mode - while it doesn't change the overall difficulty of encounters it allows you to quicksave your game in dungeons and your hero will recover up to 50 % of his/her health if not fighting - both features are a great help. Overall Exiled Kingdoms is a great game for the RPG-connaisseur.

Bought this on Android for tablet. What an amazing little gem. Real depth to the game with lore and background that was as good as any recent Pc games. Yes the graphics are very old-school but after a while it adds to the charm.