Kingdom’s Return Time Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster Review Explores A Repetitive Hybrid Of Side Scrolling Combat And Shallow City Building Ending In A Mediocre Verdict
Inti Creates is a studio well known for its specific style. They've built a solid reputation for making fast, exciting 2D action games, like Azure Striker Gunvolt and the Mega Man Zero series, and usually stick to what they do best. However, their latest game, Kingdom’s Return Time Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster, tries something quite different. The idea was to blend 2D side scrolling combat with town building elements, hoping to create a cozy and engaging experience. Unfortunately, the game ends up feeling very repetitive and tedious.
The game's setting, full of magic and swords, feels charmingly old fashioned. You play as a lone adventurer, joined by a time fairy named Chronos, who has to rebuild the fallen kingdom of Almacia. This setup brings to mind classic 16 bit JRPGs, and fans of Inti Creates will quickly recognize the familiar anime art style.
But while the basic idea brings back good memories, the actual story barely makes an appearance. Talking to the people in town feels very hollow; these conversations often serve as thinly disguised tutorials or just empty dialogue. The game does offer multiple endings, depending on how you rebuild the town and complete requests from non player characters, but it's hard to really care about Almacia’s fate when the characters themselves don't have much personality.
The main loop of the game involves going into 2D dungeons, fighting monsters, collecting items, and then returning to town to build things. A good part of the adventuring system is the variety of classes you can choose from. You can switch between four different characters back in the kingdom, and each one offers a unique way to play:
- The Imperial: This is a tank character, good for beginners, who uses a shield and powerful counter attacks.
- The Alchemist: A clever character who uses debuffs and throws elemental potions with precise angles.
- The Sorceress: A very fragile character who deals high damage but needs careful management of her special points (SP) and precise positioning.
- The Zipangu: A fast, dual wielding rogue who can dodge attacks to become invulnerable.
This variety sounds great on paper. However, the dungeon design unfortunately ruins it in practice. The environments look different, but they all play the same way. To get through a stage, you almost always have to defeat every enemy on that floor. Because the basic moves for each character aren't very deep, combat quickly turns into mindlessly pressing buttons.
What makes it worse are the constant breaks in the action. Things like intrusive battle result screens and mandatory character movements after every small fight frequently stop the flow of exploration. The only times the combat truly shines are during boss battles. These fights actually require strategy, quick reactions for counters, and an awareness of your surroundings, giving a brief glimpse of the excellent game this could have been.
You upgrade your characters using a circular skill tree with Class Points (CP). This is where issues with balance become clear. CP is earned slowly, which means your choices really matter. However, some classes feel noticeably weak unless you unlock certain skills early on, like the Alchemist's Chemical Shot or the Zipangu's Shockwave Inferno. Since the game doesn't let you easily reset your skill points, making a "wrong" choice can artificially increase the game's difficulty and take away from the fun of trying out different builds.
Then there's the city building part. If you were hoping for a complex management simulation, you should adjust your expectations. Rebuilding Almacia feels very passive. You simply pick structures from a menu based on the loot you collected from dungeons. These buildings then give your characters passive stat boosts. It functions less like a city builder and more like an interactive menu for upgrading your armor in a physical space.
While you technically can ignore the building mechanics, doing so significantly weakens your stats, making the already tiresome combat even longer. Conversely, the town NPC requests which are basically just copy pasted fetch quests and monster hunts don't add any real strategic depth to the game.
If you're diving into Kingdom's Return hoping for the super quick combo attacks typical of an Inti Creates game, prepare to be quite disappointed. This game, instead, is aimed at those who enjoy more relaxed, hybrid games, similar to Moonlighter or Rune Factory. It’s ideal for players who like to just chill out, do some dungeon crawls, and slowly watch their town expand.
Pc Version Tested.
Disclosure: We received a free review copy of this product from Devs
