There probably isn’t a whole lot of you who knows about Majesty, and old awesome simulator, where you weren’t the plucky Hero of the Land going out to murder the bad guy for gold and glory.
You’re the King, who sends out the plucky heroes with promises of Gold and Glory, but really just Gold.
In the first Majesty, you build market places, Inns, a blacksmith and other economical buildings to make Gold, which you then used to build Guilds for Heroes, Towers for local defence and other residences.
It was great fun, for the kind of people who prefer a bit more slower paced action, rather than crazy screaming Goblins in your face every five minutes. Sure, it had it’s moments of utter annoyance, and sure the Wizards went “I’m melting!” every 35 seconds, because they where made of cheese.
Majesty was simply a city-builder simulator with RPG heroes management at it’s core. It was fun and didn’t take itself very seriously.
It’s Gone 3-D!
Majesty 2 is essentially the same game, with a 3-D rework, streamlined hero management and a few tweaks all around. What its done is preserver the point of the original game, and wrap it into a beautiful 3D engine.
It’s still based on the same old concept, you’re the Local King, you have a problem with your neighbours, due to them being wolves, bears, undead, werewolves, vampires, ogres, Minotaurs, elementals and other supernatural annoyances.
You build a small city, hire heroes from a bunch of Guilds, and bribe them into murdering everything that looks at you funny, in a lovely number of creative ways. From cheap rogues who love gold, into rangers who murder beats and love exploring, into clerics who are basically the best of the best, since they can fucking heal, into Warriors who are though.
And the Wizards, who are glass cannons, they are, however, slightly more competent and durable in this particular incarnation. you’ll still get the “I’m melting!” now and then.
And when some of your heroes die, guess what? A freaking graveyard spawns in your city, where you can resurrect your heroes, and be attacked by: THE UNDEAD!
Also, as the number of heroes grow, the number of peasants you can gather taxes from grows too, this does, however, carry a penalty: Sewers.
And guess what sewer exit’s spawn? That’s right, rats first, then Ratmen! So expansion and losing heroes has a downside too, but, these graveyards and sewers keep spawning low level creatures, so you can use them as training grounds for new inexperienced heroes.
Just remember to build some guard towers around them anyway.
So in the end, Majesty 2 captures the original game, simplifies the heroes a bit, but it’s still the same game, which in this case is a good thing. It even uses a large element of the original sounds and even the advisor, who sounds like a drunk Sean Connery.
You can even play Multi-player, using your heroes to murder HIS heroes.
A single criticism is really just the lack of a random map generator, but it’s alleviated by the slightly lower price, at least in Euroland.