App: Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim
Price: $2.99 (Universal)
Genre: Strategy (RTS)
Version Reviewed: 1.0.1
Rating: Must Have
PC/Mac gamers may be familiar with the classic real-time strategy game (RTS), Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim, which came out in early 2000, but to many of us who were not in the gaming scene then, we are lucky to get our grubby hands on the iPad port of this gaming classic. Majesty went on sale for the Labor Day weekend, and if you missed it, here’s a quick look at the game and why you should still hit the “buy” button.
Majesty embodies the usual elements of an RTS game: in the kingdom of Ardania, you gather resources, build a variety of structures to earn money or provide weapons and develop fighting units (e.g. tanks, healers, rangers, wizards, etc.) to defend your kingdom and destroy your enemies.
What sets it apart, however, is that unlike in RTS games where you get to control your units and tell them where to go and which enemy to attack, in Majesty, your people go about their business and wander off where they feel like going … Unless, you can ‘persuade’ them to do your bidding by offering them enough incentive, which is basically by offering them sums of money to attack a monster or its lair, or to do some scouting for you. Putting a fat sum as a reward may get the intended result but then again, your heroes might feel like going to the pub instead of fighting off a horde of monsters.
The game sounds pretty complicated, but doable. The missions vary, and completing one would average twenty to thirty minutes (excluding restarting the hard levels). Some levels won’t let you build certain kinds of structures or heroes.
The graphics are cute and have a retro feel to them, and the sound effects, while a bit on the generic side, feel integral to the game. Another thing you’ll notice about Majesty is its sly humor, with some funny mission objectives thrown in to make you chuckle. It’s also nice to see that your warriors have individual (and some, funny) names and unique stats. While the tutorial is sometimes downright confusing, the help buttons available for each building/structure you construct gives you enough information and helpful hints to work with and build a strategy on. The user interface (“UI”) is also quite easy to navigate, and you can jump right in and figure things out as you go along.
Micro and macromanagement here, are naturally challenging, and the game controls can only do so much for you to keep up with all that’s going on. Because of the large maps and the tendency of your heroes to wander off, it’s hard to keep track of their activities. The lack of direct control over your units can be frustrating at times, especially when most of them are either too far away or simply engrossed in fighting sewer rats while trolls and harpies are destroying the marketplace. On the other hand, it’s nice to see them improve and earn experience, and buy/upgrade weapons on their own.
The uniqueness of this game has helped it withstand the test of time and technological advancement. It’s a rare mix of complexity and accessibility that will engage even the most casual of gamers, such as myself. In whatever form it may be, whether as a classic PC/Mac game or an iPhone/iPad iteration, Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim proves that when you’ve got yourself a great game, it will stand head and shoulders above the rest.
