This game defintely didn't get enough attention when it was released. It is a very good mixture of both heavy combat-focussed unit management and some build-up-your-own-village part. This package contains both the original game 'The Shattered Kingdom' and the re-release extra content 'The Peasants Rebellion', which basically adds a second campaign, a new building and new troops. Story/campaign: The campaign (The Shattered Kingdom) hasn't got a creative story, but it is not very important anyway, because nearly every mission has the same setting: build up your village, kill the enemy. Some missions are 'units only', which means you have to defeat the enemy with the soldiers you get in the beginning without building a base at all. The later missions require a lot of time to finish, eight hours isn't unusual at all. The second campaign (The Peasants Rebellion) has better designed missions and is a little harder, but doesn't come up with really new ideas. The story is continued. Gameplay: The build-up part at the beginning of a mission is necessary to create a wide variety of soldiers. When you have a threatening army, you move out to kill the enemy. Unitl then, you have to defeat your village and gather more ressources. That's it. That is what you do every mission. It sounds boring, but it isn't at all, because you always have to make decisions: Where do I build my structures? How do I build the streets in order to connect the houses? Is my mixture of soldiers deadly enough to kill the enemy? Can I deliver enough food so they don't starve? Sound, graphics, control etc: The soundtrack is okay for its time, it has some medieval touch. The graphic actually is pretty good, because of its lovely designed 2D animations. Activating autosave is strongly recommended and can be done via the ingame options menu! Tips: - Save every mission at the beginning, because your game progress isn't saved in any other way (except autosave). That means if you click on the 'start new capaign' button, you restart the game -- and don't continue where you have stopped. - There are fan patches availlable on the internet. They fix a lot of bugs. In total i recommend this game to strategy fans who want to experience combat-focussed missions. Also you will need a lot of time during the missions. I don't recommend it to strategy fans who like to build up a village and want to focus on economy, because in this game economy has the purpose to support your army and nothing else. But if you think this game could be interesting, just don't wait any longer! Like i said in the beginning: It didn't get enough attention when it was released.
