Majesty 2 Review [PC]

As a huge fan of the original Majesty back in 2000, I was extremely excited when Paradox Interactive announced that a sequel was in the works. I'd ploughed hundreds of hours into the first game, so I was keen to see what a new version would look like. Slightly worried that some of the original's charm and tongue-in-cheek humour might have vanished, I eagerly loaded up Majesty 2.

I worried needlessly. Paradox Interactive seem to have made it a priority to retain the essence of the title. Right from the start, as the opening cinematic shows, the game pokes fun at itself and the situations the player is presented with. Unlike the first game though, there is an overarching storyline; the cinematic explains that Majesty 2 is set 500 years after the first game, in the same land, Ardania. In that time, a series of kings have kept the peace and fought fierce battles to save the kingdom, but with a lack of battles or monsters to fight, the latest king summoned a demon to spice things up a bit. The king was promptly murdered by the demon, and now it is your job, a distant relative in the royal line, to once again save the land.

I was thrilled to discover that the voices for many of the characters in Majesty 2, including the advisor who reads out the overview at the start of each mission, had been kept. Several other sounds and voices were familiar too, though I did mourn the loss of the original soundtrack!

You have the option to play the campaign, single player one-off missions, or with your friends over LAN or the internet. The campaign continues on from the story set out at the start, and begins with easy missions to teach you the ropes. Advanced and expert missions unlock as you complete the easier games.

Players start with a modest palace and a coffer full of gold. You are also served by a number of AI-controlled peasants and henchmen, including tax collectors and royal guards. Peasants, who dwell in small houses surrounding the palace, act as builders and repairmen for any constructions you order. As your kingdom grows, all henchmen and peasants increase in number, and build their own dwellings at no extra cost to you.

As the 'Sovereign', it is your task to spend the kingdom's gold as you see fit. One of your first jobs will be to construct a guild, which can recruit heroes. The type of hero depends on the guild; if you build a Ranger's Guild, you can produce Rangers and so on. Once the guild is built, recruiting heroes also costs money, and they vary in cost depending on their class; Rogues are the cheapest, Wizards cost five times as much. You may recruit up to three heroes from each guild in the basic guilds that you start with, this changes in the later guilds and temples.

At the start of the game, you can only see the small area that your palace and surrounding peasant homes occupies. As your heroes and henchmen venture out, the map is revealed. A new feature with Majesty 2 is the swap from 2D to 3D; players can now zoom in and out, and rotate the viewpoint to whatever suits them best. You may choose a vantage point from almost directly above the action, or down at ground level.

Once the heroes have arrived, they begin their adventures completely unaided by the player. They have minds of their own, and will go where they want, when they want. You can try to temp them with a selection of 'reward flags'; the Explore Flag, a favourite with Rangers, can be placed in an unexplored part of the map or somewhere you need them to visit, perhaps for a quest objective. The Attack Flag can be placed on enemy buildings or units, and the Defend Flag can be placed on friendly buildings and units. The tempting factor here is, of course, gold. Each flag has a gold bounty on it, and the heroes that respond to it get the cash. At first, when your heroes are low level, they will respond to flags worth very low amounts, but as they gain level, they tend to become picky about which flags to respond to, and you often have to put very large sums of gold on offer to get a single hero to become interested. Be careful how much you put on these flags too, because once placed and priced, that cash is spent and cannot be reclaimed.

Of course, gold doesn't make itself. Half of the battle in Majesty 2 is making enough gold to continue building guilds and recruiting heroes. You accomplish this by constructing economic buildings like the Marketplace and Blacksmith and once built you can research things to sell to your heroes, such as health potions, improved armour and better weapons. Heroes need something to spend all their hard-earned cash on, after all, and often rush to make new purchases as soon as possible. The wandering tax collectors are all too glad to collect up their spendings and return them to your coffers.