Hasbro’s original Majesty was a sprig of fresh air in the suddenly blooming RTS Genre, way back in 2000. Majesty set you into the shoes of the ruler of Ardania. The Sovereign could only dictate policies of state – where to build buildings, researches and unit productions, and declare quests for heroes. Heroes , from far and wide would assemble under your banner and fulfill quests listed by you to earn the prize. It was unlike Age of Empires, since you couldn’t control your units. The unique take on the RTS genre was very successful. And then there was a quiet.
8 years later, Paradox Interactive revived the series with Majesty 2. Majesty 2 tells the story of you, the latest heir in the line of great kings of Ardania, who has to scourge the land off the evil Demon-lord, foolishly called upon the land by Leonard, the last king of Ardania, in an attempt to prove his courage and worth. The Demon-lord not only destroyed Leonard, but also set his own evil rule over the land with the help of his minions. It is now your destiny to cleanse the land and reunite Ardania under your banner.
The game-play is very similar to the original game. You, as the sovereign, build buildings, recruit heroes and do researches. Heroes are hired from guilds. Human, Elven or Dwarven guilds can be built to recruit respective heroes. You, then, declare quests for the heroes by using the quest flags – explore, attack, defend, and fear. In an exploration quest, a hero will explore to an area and make it visible to you. The Attack quest makes interested heroes to attack a particular target. Similarly, the Defend Quest is to defend a particular target. While the Fear quest is basically a notice to all your heroes to stay clear of the target. This is how you control all your units.
Heroes complete quests and loot treasures to earn bounties. They use these bounties to buy weapons, armors, spells, and inventory items which are researched at the market place, the blacksmith, and the guilds. While doing quests, they gain experience and level up. By leveling up they become strong and formidable. After completing a mission, you get the opportunity of promoting one of your heroes into a lord. Lord’s are consistently available from the ‘Hall of Lords’. Using this mechanism, you can start with a strong hero in difficult missions, rather than re-inventing the wheel.
All heroes have a race and personality. Elves and Dwarfs don’t go together. Rogues are more interested in Gold, while warriors seek valor. Rangers are better suited for combat with beats, while Clerics are best against the undead. There are a lot of factors at play here and the ideal strategist will use them wisely. Additionally, now you can group like minded heroes into a party. This is a feature addition over the original game is a very welcome feature. Parties are much stronger and useful than an individual hero.
The economy, thus, is very important. You cant have quests without bounties. Luckily, all non-military buildings generate Tax. As your city grows, so will the Tax-generating buildings. Trade also generates gold. Tax Collectors automatically visit buildings and gather taxes for you. Planning your expenses is very important, since one of the biggest motivators for the heroes to do a quest is the bounty.
The monsters in the game are many varied from sewer rats, bears, wolves to ogers, vampires and imps. They spawn from their monster lairs and come in waves. The most troublesome of all are the sewer rats since sewer openings spawn within your territory as part of the cities expansion, and the monster rats use that as an opening to attack you. This presents a huge challenge as the game progresses, since the difficulty level of a mission can suddenly spiral up. To add to this, the cost of a building increases as you make more and more of it. The Guard Tower starts with 150 golds, but by the time you are making your 5th or 6th tower, it already costs you a 1000 gold. Try fighting rats with that!
The biggest change Majesty 2 has over its predecessor, and the most visible one, is the transition from 2D graphics to 3D graphics. The game is beautiful and vivid. Yet, the graphics is not what you’d expect from a 2009 game. There is a lot of scope in improving the graphics. However, you will love the demolition graphics. Buildings break into pieces and these damages show on the structures. If a turret breaks, it is visible as a broken turret as compared to pre-animated demolition graphics in other RTSs.
Similar to the graphics, the AI is something that is lacking as well. Heroes give a lot of priority to the quest flags over the will-to-survive, especially when attacking monster lairs. Make them explore around treasures and they are happy collecting the loot over the quest. AI definitely needs a tune up.
The game also features multiplayer games with up to 4 players online. But the multiplayer appears to be very bugsy. It is quite difficult to connect to a match and stay stable.
All in all, Majesty 2 is a good game and a decent sequel. Though it doesn’t add much to the series. If you love playing Strategy games, you will like the way Majesty 2 shuffles the game play compared to other RTSs.
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Author: Kinshuk Sunil (72 Articles)
Kinshuk Sunil is the founder of the WiSy Blog. An active evangelist for Open Source and a enthusiast Game Designer, Kinshuk focuses on reviewing Softwares, Services and Games here. However, a jack of all trades, Kinshuk can be found talking about almost everything. Catch up with him on twitter @kinshuksunil.
