Inti Creates, of Mighty Gunvolt and Bloodstained fame, returns with this fusion of an action RPG and a city builder. You increase your level and gear in 2D hack ‘n slash platformer stages, before heading home to spend your hard-earned rewards on building a city, complete with taverns, shops and more. It’s a nice idea, but sadly, Kingdom’s Return never quite follows through with anything it sets out to achieve.
We’ll start with the story, which is knowingly absolute tosh. We’re transported to a fairy world, where all but one are missing. I’d love to tell you more, but the story rarely makes you sit up and take notice of what’s going on. I’m not one for believing that every game needs a good yarn, but Kingdom’s Return falls into the trap of trying to set one up, because that’s what is expected. The moment-to-moment gameplay has very little to do with fairies or even restoring a kingdom. You’re mainly moving from left to right across a 2D map, fighting with swords ‘n spells while trying to dispatch every monster inhabiting an area.
Four character classes are available. The Imperial has a shield and can withstand damage, the Wizard has various wizarding skills, the Alchemist performs status changing attacks, and the Zipangu (bless you) is a typical sword expert. I went with Zipangu, because I’m basic. I would have liked to experiment with other classes, and the game seems to allow for this, as it’s possible to swap characters at any time. However, you level up only the character you’re using, so swapping to a different class means starting again with only base skills. Hardly tempting.
Once you choose your character, town building commences. This element is severely undercooked, so don’t expect anything like Sim City. There’s a five building limit, for a start. You can upgrade those buildings over time by spending material earned in missions, but all upgrading does is give a stat boost. It would be nice to see your weapons upgraded upon building a weapons shop, or some feeling of the town coming to life. However the town screen is quite static, and Inti Creates have decided not to show villagers walking around, or other little visual signifiers that your town is coming to life. It all feels quite pointless.
The missions, then. You choose them from a selection screen and then head out into an isometric overworld where you try and find the location of your task. I have no idea why this overworld was needed. There are encounters on the map, but they’re pretty easy to avoid, and the slow walk to the missions does nothing but kill the pacing.
Once you’re at a location, it’s your typical walk, jump and slash situation. You have to clear every enemy out of an area before you can move onto the next, and each has several floors that eventually result in a boss battle. The combat is fine. It’s chunky and satisfying to hit stuff, but there’s never really much sense of peril. Attacks are easy enough to dodge or block, and then it just becomes a case of wading through some enemies and getting to the boss – which is always significantly harder than the regular stages.
Defeating enemies earns CP, which you can spend on a ‘class circle’ offering upgrades and new attacks. This resets when you choose a new character, making changing class a difficult choice.
A few things in Kingdom’s Return are adequate. The hacking ‘n slashing is serviceable. The graphics are colourful, the music reasonable. Had this hit PSN and XBLA in 2008, I’m sure it would have been popular. But this isn’t 2008, and there is a deluge of action RPGs on the eShop. Kingdom’s Return isn’t able to justify its existence. As the story is fluff, there’s nothing here to stir the imagination aside from the boss battles, which are a highlight but still require grinding to reach. Simply put, not enough delight per hour.
Inti Creates’ Kingdom’s Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster is out now on PS5, Switch and PC.