Tower Defense and Strategy games are often few and far between on Switch, so it’s always exciting to have the opportunity to review a hybrid of both genres in the form of Monarchy, a side-scrolling, kingdom-building, tower defence game with a minimalist vibe. What’s It Like? Saddle up, get your coin purse, and prepare to throw money at your problems as we review Monarchy on Nintendo Switch.
Monarchy is a unique game in which you play a horsebound leader whose job is to establish your own kingdom in a land full of bandits and strife. There’s not a lot to the story, but I feel Monarchy probably wouldn’t have thrived with one, instead, it opts to keep things simple and straightforward: build a base, progress through the tech trees, and defeat the bad guys. You can also play the game in Co-op if you feel like having another Monarch help build your empire, but unfortunately, I was unable to test this out during my review.
You do this by finding a clearing and spending a coin to build a camp, this then expands by paying a wagon driver a coin to bring you more coins or more people to help populate your base. These people will then be assigned jobs depending on what you build. If you have a workshop and build hammers, villagers will pick them up and start work as builders. The same goes for archers, swordsmen, and farmers. It’s all rather simplistic in approach, yet still delightfully charming in its own way. So begins your game of throwing money at problems, and having other people fix them. You can throw coins at trees to chop them down and expand your territory, throw coins at hermits living in trees to come to join your cause and throw coins at caves to have someone mine them for more coins.
Unfortunately, there’s not really a lot of direction given which may throw off some budding royals and at times I often found myself at a loss as to what I should be doing apart from throwing coins at problems, and more often than not, I lost the level because bad guys burned my tent despite having several archers, fences, and even catapults. This lack of direction can take away from the beautiful simplicity of the gameplay, and eventually, that charm can wear off.
What won’t wear off is the gorgeous 2D artwork and presentation of Monarchy, which manages to do so much while sticking to its minimalist vibe. Your character and horse are well-animated, the landscapes are gorgeous, and the style suits the game well. While it may not come across in the video footage of my review, the art style creates the feeling of being wrapped in a storybook. Seasons and time progress throughout the game, and as the interface is a bit on the light side, you have to gauge when night falls by guessing because if you’re deep in the forest you will have no idea of when the bandits will descend upon your camp.
I guess this would be the main issue with Monarchy… In its effort to be simplistic, it doesn’t really do anything to guide you through the game or help you out in any way, making gameplay a trial-and-error affair. You can play perfectly, establishing great defences and armies, only to be in the forest and getting a game over screen. Nearly all of my failures took place when I was most immersed in the exploration aspect of the game, and Monarchy gets in its own way by not allowing you to enjoy the game. Stay at your base, you won’t progress, leave the base you will probably fail no matter how advanced you think you are. This could be resolved with a warning or in-game clock to let you know it’s time to head home, alas, there isn’t one. All of these issues are a shame because there’s a lot going on with Monarchy, but it’s not there to be enjoyed. For my royals looking into accessibility options, there are no specific options to speak of, so as always, I recommend further research into whether Monarchy suits your needs.
At $22 AUD, Monarchy is a decent value for money. It only has 4 scenarios but they could provide hours of gameplay… or frustrations depending on how you go. The concept is great, and the presentation is nice, but more often than not, you will be frustrated by the lack of guidance, indicators, and general direction in trying to build your Kingdom.
So, What’s It Like? Monarchy is like Kingdoms, with a splash of cash.
In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this doesn’t influence my score.
