Am I choosing the right region? Let's get started building a kingdom.
Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown is a complex city builder, where the fate of your kingdom hinges on your every decision. Explore this medieval land alone or with friends, make tough moral choices and conquer your foes in RTS combat. Will you struggle to survive, or find the strength to Thrive?
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Let’s build this review m’lord!
Graphics
Nothing really flashy here. You know what you get when you have a city-builder game. It’s either realistic looking graphics or cozy/colorful. This was realistic looking graphics and nothing really stood out to me beyond that.
Controls Learning Curve
As with most city-builders, there’s many complex systems that will make you feel a bit overwhelmed. A good fix for that is a solid tutorial system. Things were going well for me up until the “Health Topic” quest came up. I’m not sure if maybe I’m just a knucklehead but I couldn’t find where I was supposed to look. There was no indicator anywhere and I felt I went digging through every menu. If you can find it, you’ll probably have more luck getting things moving an learning the game easier.
Storyline
There does seem to be a storyline with impactful choices and you continue to build your kingdom. I did like being able to choose the style in which we wanted to rule. I aimed for more of the economy, safe citizen option. Making sure people had food and shelter. There are more military based options. So something to keep in mind when choosing your answers.
Gameplay
I’m not sure there was a stand out mechanic that would separate this game from other city-builder games. I do however enjoy seeing the progress of the buildings when they are being built.
Replayability
I can definitely see this game having high replayability. The different regions, different choices, all sorts of different buildings. So alot of potential for multiple playthroughs. There is also a multiplayer mode which I think could be super interesting with friends.
Final Thoughts
I hate to say it but this needs alot more work. There isn’t much that the game does to stand out from other city-builders. It is early access but it just seems like you could probably get more out of a Civilization game. I really hope the game continues to improve because there’s a good foundation there. But at the moment, not my thing.
Rating out of 10
Eesh… gotta give this one a 3 out of 10…. with room to improve…
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