Developer: Pixelated Milk
Publisher: Klabater
Platforms: PC
Tested on: PC
Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs – Review
Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs is a tactical turn-based RPG, developed by Pixelated Milk and published by Klabater, this game was funded by kickstarter and is one of the better videogames to come out of this. It features an overall light atmosphere while paying homage to classic JRPGs, but hey, enough of that, time to get into the details!
Story
The story of Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs stars our unlikely hero Kay, his sisters, Gwendolyn and Elaine and Kay’s guardian/friend Griffith. When Kay’s grandfather dies, he tells our party that their family belongs to the once highly respected house Loren that ruled over the Rashytill expanse, curious about this heirship, Kay and his companions venture to Ascalia, the once glorious capital city of Rashytill. What they find though, is a city in ruins, demolished by war. When Kay sees this and figures that he has to put this all back in order, for he is the last remaining heir to house Loren, he breaks down and rejects his responsibilities as new ruler. While the main characters are standing in the town square, a man followed by two trolls comes in and asks if Kay is the lord of these lands, the man then begins to elaborate about the gigantic debt that House Loren left behind and that Kay is responsible for. Having nowhere to turn, Kay finds himself in a situation without a choice, he will have to rejuvenate Rashytill in order to pay off the debt.
This storyline is interesting to say the least and really gives an offset to the game, together with a clear goal: paying off the debt. As the game progresses, a lot of story elements get added along with side quests that’ll help you in the long run. This tale gets told mainly through text and big story elements have voice-acting most of the time, which is always nice. In my humble opinion, this storyline has no shortcomings whatsoever.
Graphics
Graphically, the game handles an anime style that is very reminiscent of classic JRPGs with the characters popping along with the text they are saying. Along with this there are hand drawn, colorful backdrops in 2D that are very pleasing to the eye and are much appreciated. All in all, the static graphics are neat.
Moving on to the non-static parts of the game, this being the characters and enemies (everything that moves, basically), these 3D-models give the impression to not be very detailed but that is not really necessary as you will never zoom in on the game, so it doesn’t matter. When these characters move, especially in combat, the walking animations often feel rough and repetitive. Natural walking animations might not be the simplest to pull off but a bit more effort could fix it. The combat animations are maybe a bit basic as well but they check out, they’re good.
Sound
Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs’ soundtrack is composed by Henri-Pierre Pellegrin and it is a fully orchestrated and rather upbeat soundtrack, even though the songs might get repetitive, they do not at all become irritating, unlike many other games of the same genre. Furthermore, the soundtrack feels very comforting, excluding some combat songs, Henri-Pierre does a great job at keeping it sounding like a soundtrack but still adding that little something extra. If you would want to check out the soundtrack before buying the game, there is a song on Pixelated Milk’s youtube channel that you can listen to.
Going over to the voice acting, it’s great and gives the characters some actual character, you know? Most conversations even have a spark of humor in them which is always highly appreciated, the voice acting only facilitates this humor. Even though the voices are overall very well done, there are some situations where the acting goes a bit over the top and a certain line ends up sounding ridiculous. Luckily this is only in rare occasions and is just a minor detail.
Gameplay
Okay, Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs is classified as a tactical turn-based RPG, but looking at it like that, we would only be talking about the combat because there is a lot more to it than just taking turns. The first thing that you need to understand is that Regalia works with deadlines, the game features its own timeline and in order to evade the debt collector, you have to make sure your empire is expanding and growing enough. For example: in chapter 1 you have to have 5+ kingdom quests completed by let’s say the 29th of June, you then receive a personal calendar that shows how many days you have left until that deadline, if you don’t achieve the goal by then, it’s game over.
Now what are those kingdom quests we were talking about? Well the game has normal quest like: go there and fetch that. But kingdom quests are quests that help you manage your kingdom, a kingdom quest for example could be: “Construct 3 buildings” or “Reach acquaintance status with 4 people”. These help you make your kingdom grow. Of course, when a new king arises, people take note and said king receives diplomatic missives from different factions. The game features 2 pairs of factions that oppose each other so you can’t be in good regards with everyone, in other words, you will piss some people off.
Other than that, Regalia possesses an interesting dungeon system, let me elaborate. How does your average run-of-the-mill dungeon look? You go somewhere and explore it, fighting you way through, right? Well this is where Regalia does it different, each dungeon features various, differing “nodes”. You have battle nodes, text adventure nodes and camp nodes. Battle nodes feature a battle, obviously, which is turn based and has almost no shortcomings, except for the silly walking animations sometimes, each character feels different and that’s excellent. Text adventure nodes are basically old-school text-based mini games where you read a story and make choices in that story, many experienced gamers will recognize this as something “wicked old”, but still pretty cool. Camp nodes are places within the dungeon where your party can rest up and fallen teammates are recovered, you can also save your progress. This way of dungeoneering is welcomingly refreshing and makes the game stand out, the “node” mechanic is thoroughly enjoyable.
Coming back to the turn-based combat system, it is everything it needs to be, tactical but simple enough. These battles feature a main objective, needed to clear the node, and side objectives that increase your chance of finding treasure. Further details of the combat system aren’t required because it features quite standard turn-based mechanics, armor, support characters, line of sight, that sort of stuff.
Conclusion
Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs is an excellent game that is good at what it does, with a refreshing dungeon system and lifelike characters, you will not be bored. If you are a difficult person and dungeons alone aren’t enough for your high standards, then the storyline of crippling debt and lordship will probably help you out with not being bored at all by the game. All in all, a fun game you can look back on with a smile.
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