App Army Assemble: Kingdom Two Crowns - Is this acclaimed side-scrolling strategy game a must-play on mobile?

Kingdom: Two Crowns is a beautiful-looking, side-scrolling strategy game that has been available on pretty much everything apart from mobile, until now of course. So we decided to get some of our mobile gaming fans to try it out and see if it's a good port and just strategy title in general.

Here's what they said:

Simply charming and brilliant, starting with the lovely retro graphics, very well made music and very good gameplay makes this game an incredible RPG and enjoyable to play. The game runs extremely fluid! worth buying for sure.

I love this game! I’ve played it on PC Switch and now iOS and I still love it.

Retro pixels, check
Replay value, check ( you’re gonna die a lot)
Simple smooth controls, check

It’s really a beautiful fun game that I’d recommend to anyone. The added themes give it another level of enjoyment and unlocking the mounts and upgrades to make your defences impregnable is something I look forward to on each new island There’s a real feeling of satisfaction I get after I freed an island from the greed and sailed off into the sunset

This is a beautiful looking game. The retro pixel graphics are bright, the soundtrack playing in the background fits in well and the gameplay is easy to master. At the start, the main objective is to collect coins so you can build your town and create barricades to protect it. The only thing that slightly disappoints is the repetitive travelling back and forth on horseback passing the same things over and over again.

At points along the way, there are creatures who want to steal your coins and then your crown, these must be avoided because, once they have everything you own, at that point the game ends. Little touches like the progress through night and day, and your horse’s breath visible as you gallop along made me smile. A lovely game for anyone who enjoys this genre.

If you’ve played previous iterations of the kingdom games, then you’ll feel at home here. There are a couple of different game types to play but the overall purpose of the game is the same: build up your camp and don’t die. Money has to be spent well as it is sparse. Think about what resources are needed, how many archers you need etc. This will probably take a few playthroughs before you find out exactly what you need. On the surface, the game looks quite simple: graphically and the initial gameplay, but it is a beautifully created game that has a great amount of depth.

This is probably the longest I've played a game to be reviewed before putting my thoughts on paper, but I still can not make up my mind if I like Kingdom Two Crowns or not and whether I am going to play it afterwards. Undoubtedly it was created with the utmost attention to detail as it looks rather sophisticated despite its pixelated graphics, which combined with a euphonious score and superb sound effects ensure a fabulous gaming experience.

There is only a basic tutorial at the start of the game, and because of that to succeed as a ruler, you'll have to discover everything on your own. I've had only a couple of good runs as opposed to quite a number of futile campaigns, when I could not turn my settlement into a thriving one, because of a dire lack of financial resources.

What makes this game a rather tedious experience is the constant need to ride back and forth to collect coins, recruit workers and build structures. It's basically "ride or die" game and with that being said the option to cooperate your actions when playing in a split-screen mode might be the major selling point of KTC. Anyway, I reckon every fan of mobile games involving "building, expansion and defence" should definitely give this one a try.

I was dying to play Kingdom Two Crowns in a co-op mode. Why? Correct me, if I am wrong, but I think this is the first example of a true cooperative split-screen experience on a single mobile device. And it is so much fun than riding solo. This time around you get to split your ruler’s duties and the tasks at hand do not seem so daunting and tedious any more.

The game supports MFI controller in both modes. As far as the gameplay is concerned, KTC offers three standalone campaigns - the classic New Lands, as well as two new ones set in medieval Japan and in some Dead Lands. I had little to no experience of the previous version of the game, so I (or should I say we?) needed some time to get our sea legs (pun intended).

The game itself offers a rather scarce tutorial, so if you are a new player you should be prepared for a learning curve. However as is the case with all strategy games, it becomes rewarding as soon as you start figuring things out. The game drains the battery pretty quickly, I got about 6 hours of playtime on a single charge. I enjoyed my gaming experience very much and intend to venture forward.

If you’ve played Kingdom: New Lands before, you’ll feel right at home in Two Crowns. It’s pretty much the same game but enhanced with some new features, game mechanics and, as the name suggests, split-screen multiplayer mode.

For those of you that are new to the Kingdom games, this is a side-scrolling strategy game with beautiful pixel graphics and kind of unusual but very deep and well-made gameplay. You control your king (or queen) and must protect him at all costs from the Greed (the game’s enemy creatures) that attack every night. Your character has no fighting capabilities but instead, he uses gold coins to hire people, equip them with weapons and tools and command the construction and upgrade of buildings, walls, towers etc.

The goal is to build a strong enough town to keep the Greed at bay while saving enough coin to repair your ship and sail to the next island. Each island is different and also has some unique buildings that you unlock in order to get its upgrades. For instance, there is a mine that once you unlock it and then you can upgrade your wooden walls and towers to stone. The difference from the first game is that those upgrades apply to all islands and you can revisit them to further expand your settlements there.

Overall it’s one of the best strategy games on mobile right now and one that you should definitely try. (Played on iPhone 7plus).

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Two Crowns is the second title in the Kingdom series. Kingdom is a bit of tower defence, base and resource management, exploration and survival horror, intersecting through beautiful pixel art as you race your mount across the landscape, delegating tasks by throwing money at things in what could be the ultimate feudal flex. It’s a beautiful and meditative experience, punctuated by intense emotion as an ominous force bares its teeth at your fledgeling camp, it really feels like the world breathes and grows with your actions.

Two Crowns expands on New Lands in almost every way possible. The rough edges from the first title have been smoothed out with lots of effort put into the presentation of mechanics. This makes it much more accessible than the fairly esoteric New Lands. New mounts lands and tribes can be unlocked incrementally, adding layers of depth to the experience.

It is a real expansion and maturation of the concepts introduced in New Lands. I love the local Co-op, especially on a larger screen. I recommend Kingdom to anyone, especially if you love pixel art, if you enjoyed New Lands you will find a worthy sequel here, and if you are a same device co-op fan like myself, then this is one you don’t want to miss.

I played the first Kingdom game on Android for a bit but never really finished it. I recently dove back into it right before the sequel arrived. I feel like the new game is basically more of a good thing with the addition of the co-op feature and overall improvement of the genre. Essentially, the game consists of travelling with your character on horseback to the left and right of your settlement employing helpers and claiming territory.

The game is as beautiful as ever with lots of attention to detail with rabbits scurrying about and multiple scrolling backgrounds to add depth. You will earn money as tasks are completed daily and use the coins to upgrade defences, build new structures, and hire new workers. I found one of the most rewarding things to be exploring just a bit further each day and risking the danger of running into "bad guys".

Reaching just a bit further into the undiscovered wilderness is rewarding especially when you find a treasure chest or mysterious ruins or monuments. I just feel like the game is great to enjoy in small bites or even in 30-60 minute sessions. The tutorial, in the beginning, does a great, if brief, job of helping you with the basics before turning you loose to discover things on your own.

Overall, I will be playing the game for some time to discover all its secrets and grow my kingdom. It's a great strategic game for those who may not really be into strategy games. With a healthy dose of adventure thrown in it seems to be a near-perfect mix of genres.

I played Kingdom New Lands a lot, and this sequel didn't let me down. The game is beautiful, I would love to play it on a bigger screen. I thought the horse runs very slowly and the game is very slow too, but I still had a lot of fun. Unfortunately, multiplayer on a smartphone is impossible, but I loved the idea. The mechanics are simple, although the gameplay is not so easy, which is great. Maybe too repetitive but I would have to play more times to confirm or not. Overall, it is a very beautiful game that is perhaps best played on a big screen.

Kingdom two crowns Is a beautiful, slow-paced 2D side-scrolling game where you are the king on the horse spending the kingdom's money. You can spend your money on weapons, villagers you find outside in small villages, buildings or on tools to complete the building upgrades.

Building your defence with walls and archers is also very important because you are not alone and going outside too far will be punished with small monsters hunting you down and steal your coins or even your crown.

The best feature about this sequel of the franchise is the easy 2 click drop-in and drop-out coop multiplayer where you can play with your friend on one device together. This feature works best on a tablet. But the devs were funny making it available for the smartphone displays too. Why funny you may ask. Well, think about 2 heads may colliding above a small 5-6 inch big smartphone display trying to play together.

It's the alternate dating in these social distancing times.

On the surface, Kingdom Two Crowns seems to be a fairly simple pixel graphics side-scrolling strategy game. The gameplay is pretty simple, exploring the detailed and lush terrain for places to pick up gold coins and stay away from bad guys, and it does start off pretty slow. But stick with it. Pretty soon you’ll build and level up different features in your kingdom to better protect it and earn more gold.

All of this is to defend against wandering bad guys. I’ve been through it a couple of times and honestly didn’t last too long, but I was also kind of careless. The game is kind of formulaic, but the terrain really is gorgeous for a pixel graphics game, and the King and his horse and really all the people you encounter look really good. If you run the horse too long too fast, it gets tired, and you can see it. All these little details really sell the experience.

Add to that, multiplayer co-op modes and expanding lands to explore, and you’ve got an easy-to-play experience with lots of lands to explore and try to survive in. Controls are very very simple and work fine. The music is nice, if pretty standard. The sound effects are appealing. Kind of a steep price maybe but it looks like something that can entertain for a long time. I happily recommend it.

Initial impressions are that the presentation is excellent. Despite being 8bit inspired, it's still pretty detailed and I have to hand it to the devs. Looks amazing. The gameplay is way slower than I'm used to, and I'll have to be more patient with it. It's very slow-paced.

Updated impressions:

Alright so I've had the chance to play the game longer and what I said earlier holds up, the graphics really are on another level. They've taken the 8bit theme and pushed it to a whole different level. It looks gorgeous within the realms of 8bit sprites. Imagine an NES game made in 2020 and that's what you get.

The gameplay is a slow burner, it really wants you to understand the basic day and night cycles, and your limitations, such as how far you can go without being attacked by ghouls at night, etc. It's your basic strategy game - pick what to upgrade, defence or offence, pay for builders to expand your reach and all.

Personally I found the game a little too slow for my liking (the building procedure takes a whole minute per object) and the combat is silly, especially the archers shooting upwards instead of straight on to the enemy right in front of them.

Sound design is basic, we have some ambient music that plays depending on the time of day, and the other sound effects are what we could expect from other retro-inspired titles. Controls are also a bit iffy. Sometimes the game doesn't register me tapping on an object to upgrade it or to pay the required coins for the various townsfolk.

Now Co-op is where I think they need to provide some fixes. The split-screen Co-op is a nice touch, but anything below an 8-inch tablet seems really hard to play. I mean you will be struggling to control and see what you are doing on a mobile phone. I didn't see any options for controllers, nor did I have a chance to test it out. Seems to me like the game could use some polish in this regard.

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