Review | Kingdom of Arcadia

LifeisXbox’s ‘Kingdom of Arcadia’ review | Kingdom of Arcadia is a platform title developed by Ratalaika Games, Spoonbox Studios, and Eastasiasoft. The game focuses on the story of Sam, a boy who is a fan of videogames and finds an old console that belonged to his father, he tells him that, he can only play this machine when he is ready; and as a good teenager, Sam doesn’t listen and just play, when he realizes that he is absorbed and is now a character in a video game, he learns that he is the chosen one and must collect different rods that have been stolen, in order to help that pixel world.

We played Kingdom of Arcadia for about 6 hours on Xbox Series X. This game is also available on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch.

What we liked!

• A very “old school” style of art | The art is reminiscent of a pixel game from the golden age of 8-bit video games, however, it doesn’t feel old, so its nice to see the pixelated visual environment, its not one of those titles that inherits errors or a outdated gameplay, however, visually it will be noticed that many of the enemies are the same and only the skins change a little, likewise, the castles vary in tones, simulating that they are in the snow or in other elements, but it doesn’t affect anything in the playability.
• A simple and classic gameplay | The gameplay focuses on the fact that we will control Sam, in his knight skin, where he can jump, hit with a sword and throw different objects, throw axes, hammers or arrows, in your odyssey to recover each of the “magic rods”, you will have to visit different castles, each time you finish one, you will be able to access a new one, so the route is linear.
• A relatively good number of worlds and levels | Each castle (world) will consist of 5 levels and a final boss. The levels will be completed, when you reach the exit door; to reach it, you will have to defeat different enemies, activate switches and sometimes, face a mini-boss.
• A simple but effective upgrade system | The coins that you can collect in each level, are used to later be able to buy various improvements, such as a new weapon to do more damage, a new armor and even new throwable weapons.

Somewhere between

• A sound section that is neither bad nor good | In the sound section, it doesn’t stand out, since it consists of a melody that is constantly repeated and there are slight effects when you receive damage or in some scenes with certain enemies, so it simply serves as a light accompaniment, nothing that is applaudable for the genre of the chiptune.

What we disliked

• The level designs are very simple and repetitive | The exploration or the design of the levels is simple, there are very few forks in the roads and almost always those roads lead you to a dead end, where you will obtain different benefits, such as finding chests with coins or hearts. To encourage exploration a bit, in each level there are hidden rooms, if you find them they will give you more chests or you will find a small collectible in the form of a flying monster.

CONCLUSION

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