Review for Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs. Game for PC, Mac and Linux, the video game was released on 18/05/2017 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 10/04/2018 The version for Xbox One came out on 13/04/2018
Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs is a Strategic RPG made by the independent studio Pixelated Milk via a Kickstarter campaign fairly successful: the aim of the Polish developers was to recreate the spirit of classic oriental and "old school" role-playing games, presenting them in communion with elements recovered from Western games and amalgamating everything with a sagacious and balanced humor.
The result certainly does not scream a miracle, but it manages to satisfy the players who approach it with the right expectations and does not look bad at all compared to the quality level of the modern indie market. It was thanks to the positive feedback received on the “master race” market that Pixelated Game decided to bring Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs also on home consoles in a "Royal Edition" (which has nothing to do with the eponymous version of Square Enix's fifteenth Final Fantasy).
The game traces the events of Kay Loren (the assonance with the name of a certain, famous cinematic anti-hero does not seem at all coincidental), a young nobleman who on the death of his father becomes heir to the now ruined kingdom of Ascalia, once glorious and renowned all over the world, but now reduced to a pile of rubble and debts to be paid. The mystery surrounding the fall from grace of Ascalia, of the Loren family and the adventure of Kay and her increasingly numerous allies are faced in a fresh and playful way, a brilliant irony that does not tire, thanks also to the very accurate English dubbing, although not always equalized at best.
The plot itself is extremely simple and the reasons why this or that character will join the protagonist's mission are simplistic to say the least, although in most cases their banality is intentional, indeed, points to ironize on the alleged but not very credible. seriousness of the motivations of the supporting actors of classic role-playing games. A pity, therefore, the lack of localization, which would have allowed a wider audience to appreciate the work of the Polish studio.
While making a mockery of the stereotypes of old-school titles, Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs respects them and is certainly not thrifty in gameplay: the title in fact he fishes with both hands from tuned mechanics and creates an unoriginal mix that works.
The player's objective is to pay off the debt incurred by the family, restore Ascalia to its ancient splendor and obtain the respect of the locals. Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs requires the achievement of certain minimum objectives every about two months of in-game time, under penalty of a premature game over and the need to replay the current chapter. The core of the game involves one management component, with construction and strengthening of the various infrastructures and improvement of relations with the various NPCs; having a limited number of days available, the player will have to choose from chapter to chapter on what to focus on to obtain the necessary results.
The construction works and the favor of the people cannot be realized only in words: the exploration of the world and the overcoming of the dungeons will be indispensable for obtain money and crafting resources, as well as to satisfy specific requests from subjects. Even without reaching the depths of Pillars of Eternity or Torment: Tides of Numenera, Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs provides multiple choice dialogues to interact with the supporting actors and win their esteem (and their active and passive skills during the fights) as well as real ones text adventure sessions inside the dungeons.
The latter are composed of "nodes" to be conquered; based on the type, the node consists of an already mentioned textual mission (the results of which become more and more unpredictable as one advances in the more complex dungeons), in a camp in which to rest, save the game and have a chat with teammates or, of course, in battles to the death. The battles of Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs hark back to tactical style with isometric view and require the player to meet certain conditions to achieve victory, not always related to the sheer slaughter of every hostile creature on the battlefield.
Since there are no magic or healing items, survival is linked to two values, Health and Shield: as expected, the first value cannot be restored and causes the character to KO once it is reset, while the second value absorbs part of the damage from hits and offensive spells and can be restored both by support actions and by secondary effects of some abilities . Obviously not all characters have the same amount of Health and Shield and not even with the same distribution, so it is up to the player decide the right side before the fight begins, thus avoiding that the more fragile fighters find themselves targeted by unwelcome attacks.
The fights involve a shift, dictated by the initiative value of each character on the field. During his turn, the fighter can move or attack in any order he chooses. As in any self-respecting RPG, the damage inflicted and suffered depends on the level, the weapon and the accessories equipped and, in full strategic / tactical style, each offensive and support action has its own area of influence. The protagonists are extremely different from each other and it is a lot of fun to experiment with combinations between their skills and finding the best synergies is essential from the standard difficulty level.
Both the heroes and the enemies do not have a particularly original design, but their sprites are extremely accurate; even the settings are quite varied, although the realization is a bit sparse and not very memorable. Pixelated Milk decided to create 2D hand drawn backdrops and polygonal characters: the result is convincing and the difference in style is not marked to the point of annoying, if we exclude some movements of the models, which are definitely too woody.
Judging by the pure and simple porting work of the original title in this Royal Edition for consoles, the verdict is not the best: both in fighting and in exploration, Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs suffers from stuttering even on consoles with more than enough power to “run” the game smoothly; moreover, the interface has remained almost identical to the PC version, with decidedly unintuitive keys, impractical menus which often hide the game action in a very annoying way.
Overall though, the game remains enjoyable and with the right level of difficulty, the latter highly customizable from the options, to guarantee a pleasant experience both for those who are sailors of the genre, as for the less experienced or for those who are interested only in following the plot events.
Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs is an unexpectedly well-edited title, which however suffers from a lazy porting in the Royal Edition for consoles: the awkward interface, the short but frequent uploads and the lack of texts in Spanish could rightly discourage the purchase of the simple curious, relegating the interest in the game to the - few - fans of the genre unable to play video games on PC.
► Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs is an RPG-type game developed by Pixelated Milk and published by Klabater for PC, Mac and Linux, the video game was released on 18/05/2017 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 10/04/2018 The version for Xbox One came out on 13/04/2018
