What's this all about?

I'm a guy with way too many interests and way too much time on my hands. A while back I realized that I spend a lot of my time just telling people I know about the various media I consume, so I just figured what the hell, let's just lay it all out. On here, you'll see my reviews of video games, films, books, tv shows, and more, but I've also decided to upload my hobbies here as well because why not?

Kingdom: Two Crowns: Twice the Pride, Double the Fall

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An entertaining microstrategy game, Two Crowns is (in my opinion) the best version of Kingdom we have so far. The base game mechanics of both classic and New Lands is still there, but now there's the inclusion of a legacy system and a campaign.

Especially for foolhardy people like me, the legacy system (which is how the 'campaign' by and large functions) allows for you to restart with a new character on the first land every time you die (note that you die when you 'clear' an island), and you retain all your infrastructure, progress clearing out the greed, and vault. The only things you lose are the bonuses, mounts, hermits (which are used to create specialized towers), and boat building progress. Needless to say, this is very helpful, and while this sounds somewhat snowball-y, that's because it is. Once you complete the first island, big brute squad of knights in hand, the other lands are much, much easier when you return to. You don't start with all techs unlocked, and you will have to advance to islands 2 and 4 to unlock stone and the top tier buildings (and you need the top-tier buildings to 'clear' an island), so that balances out your best-case-scenario steamroll. This also has the added bonus of giving you incentive to return to the previous islands, which I then found relaxing and enjoyable as opposed to stressful.

The art style is honestly pretty adorable, and the creators have done an outstanding job at making the environment stand out. Each one of the mounts has a distinct style and special trait (my favorite used to be the stag but then I discovered the griffon). The music is also a marked improvement on its predecessors, of which I didn't notice it at all. The current Shogun update and hopeful future environment updates give the added bonus of different units/challenges, but also a different visual flair if you don't want to see the European style.


I must say that I enjoyed playing this a lot more than I expected I would, considering that Classic and New Lands kind of chased me away earlier. The legacy system and the added tutorial messages, while occasionally finicky, do much to help newcomers to the game while not telling players everything they'll face or need to know.

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