Heirs of the Kings (Android)
Aug. 2nd, 2024 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroYears ago, the Nox Tribe of the underworld attacked the human world, and when the Light Ruler fell, the three Rulers of Fire, Water and Wind sacrificed themselves and combined their powers to build barriers between the dimensions. Now, the son of a local mayor (...who’s mysteriously powerful and knows more than he’s letting on), the daughter of the Fire Ruler, a wandering academic, and a mysterious girl with magical powers but no memory are charged with collecting the elemental crystals Soul Maps to prevent the barriers from falling.
This has a forced-vertical layout, which is a first in my experience, so I played it on my tablet. And man, I have been SPOILED by the physical buttons on the Retroid Pocket 3, because going back to touchscreen controls is a pain. Otherwise the graphics are pretty standard fare. (Though a few of the cutscenes…want to be much more exciting than they come out.) The translation is decent, too. The difficulty is a little inconsistent depending on whether you try to do everything in order or if you go exploring for towns you aren’t supposed to reach yet (and how much you use the IAP systems).
The systems are also a mix of things we’ve seen from EXE-Create before: There are lottery tickets for random weapons that you can merge to upgrade. There are three elements that your characters specialize in and the usual selection of status effects. The soul maps work like a sphere grid; you get SP as you gain levels and also from certain items, and you can activate nodes for stat bonuses and new skills. There are IAP points to buy special items (including storehouse keys for the special treasure rooms—which contain a top-level weapon for each character), but there are also Coins and Rare Coins you collect in-game to buy high-end equipment. In this game you don’t heal between battles, but you do fully heal at level-up.
The dungeons are lackluster; there are several variants of one-way floor tiles and a bunch of switches to press, but nothing complicated and most of them are fairly straight lines. (They do love Mimics, though.) Most of the dungeons have warp points at the halfway and at the end; and many of them have both miniboss and boss fights, virtually all of which are completely immaterial to the plot. (“Oh, there’s a monster in our way. Let’s fight it!”) There are the usual small, large, and metal variants of monsters, and the metal ones just flat-out give you SP rather than XP bonuses.
SPOILERS:
As you’d expect, the four characters are the heirs of the four rulers. The wandering academic got a blood transfusion from the previous Wind Ruler. The mysterious amnesiac is the daughter of a disinherited heir to the Water Ruler and the deposed king of the Nox Tribe. The Nox king actually wanted peace, but was betrayed by his trusted advisor Bolvo. Bolvo took over the body of the Fire Ruler and is actually the main antagonist. And your main character is the son of the Light Ruler—big shock—who lost most of his power in the last war and knew what’s been going on the whole time but refused to tell you because he’s a smug jerk. In the ending, Bolvo also takes over the Nox king’s body, so after the battle the Light Ruler sacrifices himself to separate them, so that humans and the Nox tribe can live in peace. In the postgame, you need to retrieve rings to power-up the Sea and Sky Gods to transcend time and re-fight the final battle. (I decided not to bother. Ten hours of game was plenty.)
Overall: This is more basic than the most recent EXE-Create fare, and there’s really less variety and actual ability to customize your characters despite the sphere grid. And the forced-vertical layout is weird. The story and characterization are…fine? Rote and honestly forgettable. It’s a perfectly decent experience but nothing standout.
This has a forced-vertical layout, which is a first in my experience, so I played it on my tablet. And man, I have been SPOILED by the physical buttons on the Retroid Pocket 3, because going back to touchscreen controls is a pain. Otherwise the graphics are pretty standard fare. (Though a few of the cutscenes…want to be much more exciting than they come out.) The translation is decent, too. The difficulty is a little inconsistent depending on whether you try to do everything in order or if you go exploring for towns you aren’t supposed to reach yet (and how much you use the IAP systems).
The systems are also a mix of things we’ve seen from EXE-Create before: There are lottery tickets for random weapons that you can merge to upgrade. There are three elements that your characters specialize in and the usual selection of status effects. The soul maps work like a sphere grid; you get SP as you gain levels and also from certain items, and you can activate nodes for stat bonuses and new skills. There are IAP points to buy special items (including storehouse keys for the special treasure rooms—which contain a top-level weapon for each character), but there are also Coins and Rare Coins you collect in-game to buy high-end equipment. In this game you don’t heal between battles, but you do fully heal at level-up.
The dungeons are lackluster; there are several variants of one-way floor tiles and a bunch of switches to press, but nothing complicated and most of them are fairly straight lines. (They do love Mimics, though.) Most of the dungeons have warp points at the halfway and at the end; and many of them have both miniboss and boss fights, virtually all of which are completely immaterial to the plot. (“Oh, there’s a monster in our way. Let’s fight it!”) There are the usual small, large, and metal variants of monsters, and the metal ones just flat-out give you SP rather than XP bonuses.
SPOILERS:
As you’d expect, the four characters are the heirs of the four rulers. The wandering academic got a blood transfusion from the previous Wind Ruler. The mysterious amnesiac is the daughter of a disinherited heir to the Water Ruler and the deposed king of the Nox Tribe. The Nox king actually wanted peace, but was betrayed by his trusted advisor Bolvo. Bolvo took over the body of the Fire Ruler and is actually the main antagonist. And your main character is the son of the Light Ruler—big shock—who lost most of his power in the last war and knew what’s been going on the whole time but refused to tell you because he’s a smug jerk. In the ending, Bolvo also takes over the Nox king’s body, so after the battle the Light Ruler sacrifices himself to separate them, so that humans and the Nox tribe can live in peace. In the postgame, you need to retrieve rings to power-up the Sea and Sky Gods to transcend time and re-fight the final battle. (I decided not to bother. Ten hours of game was plenty.)
Overall: This is more basic than the most recent EXE-Create fare, and there’s really less variety and actual ability to customize your characters despite the sphere grid. And the forced-vertical layout is weird. The story and characterization are…fine? Rote and honestly forgettable. It’s a perfectly decent experience but nothing standout.
