Grand Kingdom Preview – 2D Tactical RPG at Its Finest (PS4)
In the warring world of Grand Kingdom you play as a ragtag group of mercenaries who fight for fame, glory and most of all, a purse full of gold. Combine its strategic turned-based battles with a pinch of real-time action and you have an innovative game that shouldn’t be missed out on.
The mission map in Grand Kingdom is thought out fairly well. You navigate on a board game-like playing field where your party is represented by a knight piece. Movement is turn-based where you hop along a branched out path. Despite having a view of the whole map you can uncover hidden enemies, treasure and even secret routes. Spending a turn to heal up or even takimg your time to explore the map may be a good idea. However, since you have a set number of turns to complete each mission you are constantly under time pressure nudging you onward.
Combat takes inspiration from the excellent Valkyria Chronicles. During a character’s turn you have a bar that indicates how far that character can move. It allows for a flexible and somewhat fluid control system in what is otherwise a fairly stiff genre.
Just because this is a 2D title it doesn’t mean its combat is single dimensional. The battlefield is composed of three layers and at any time you can jump to another of the layers. This adds depth to what would otherwise be a one-dimensional battlefield. Maps aren’t just empty planes where you fight on. Some of them will have blockades, items and even traps which control flow of the battles.
Positioning is key. Not only can you wall off enemies with careful character positioning but also use your area of effect skills to your advantage. However, you’ll quickly learn that casting a lightning spell can be devastating even for your own characters if they get caught in its line of fire.
After you complete the first mission you are offered to create your own party of four. Even though only 4 character types in the preview, the full game will let you unlock a total of 17 different classes, each filling a unique role. You can freely customize their appearance and stats. There are a number of body skins, hair colors, clothes and voices to choose from, enough to make a unique party. You round everything up by deciding how to distribute their bonus skill points.
After you complete the first two missions, which are this demo’s single player portion, you unlock the multiplayer element of Grand Kingdom. There is a far bigger emphasis on the multiplayer than one would usually expect from this kind of game. Here you are free to sign a contract with one of four different factions. Depending on how many battles you promise to participate in you will get bigger the bonuses at the end. Wars have you defending your faction’s forts while capturing the opposing one’s. This means that there is a constant struggle between the warring sides and you’ll always have something to do.
The enjoyment of this title is only hampered by the terrible control scheme. The circle, square and triangle buttons function as different commands. The cross button cancels any commands, but also skips a turn. This means that if you aren’t extra careful, you can easily skip a turn, letting an enemy get the head start on you. In order to change the direction in which your character is facing you need to hold L1 and press either left or right on the d-pad. By the end we did get familiar with the control scheme, but it all feels unnecessarily unintuitive.
The entire game may sound a bit familiar to the similarly named title Grand Knights History. That is because it is directed by the same person, Tomohiko Deguchi. The gorgeous 2D visuals are very similar to the art style of the stunning Vanillaware games. The character sprites and animations are beautiful, while the artworks are top-notch. Unfortunately there are noticeable frame rate stutters surprisingly only out of battles, when the game has 3D backgrounds and character portraits.
Grand Kingdom is a pleasant surprise. The finicky control scheme aside, there is very little to fault in this tactical RPG. The beautifully illustrated 2D visuals, strategic combat and element of uncertainty in its mini-games make this a title that we are excitedly looking forward to when it finally releases this June for the PlayStation 4 and Vita.
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