It seems I have played the expansions in the wrong order, as Majesty 2: Battles of Ardania came out before Monster Kingdom. It was actually Majesty 2: Kingmaker that introduced the monster faction, which is the first of the expansions. However, the difference is that they are unplayable in these and only act as an enemy faction, at least in the single-player campaigns. But the new monsters and goblins are all here, and your job is to exterminate them – among others. All fine by me!
Calm boring times
The story isn’t much to hang on the Christmas tree, but the humorous advisor returns once again, making up for the lack of a real plot. It seems times are too calm in Ardania, which has both the advisor and the majesty (aka you) bored to tears. As luck will have it, the monsters and smaller rebel factions start to become uppity, and once again throw parts of the country into chaos that you will have to clean up.
Unfortunately, I didn’t finish the game, so I didn’t get to experience the last mission and ending narrative for myself. I did check out the ending on YouTube though. The problem wasn’t shoddy programming or crashes this time, but the gameplay itself. It’s just so extremely grindy compared to the main campaign and Monster Kingdom, and Monster Kingdom could be very grindy too. One problem is that you will be fighting a lot of tough dudes, like noble werewolves and rat plague paladins. That in itself isn’t an issue if you have a good group of heroes, but many of the maps are scripted to spam these kinds of units to attack your base. To make things worse, they become significantly harder after some time too. So, even if you level up your men, worse things will surely come soon to wreck your city.
You see when the monsters reach your defenses, your heroes defending, and your towers for that matter often just gang up on one of the attackers, and usually it’s the one that is the tankiest. That means, that everyone lesser than that guy will have free reign to trash towers, guilds, and shops. These attacks consist of many tanky units, so you can see where I’m going with this. It’s a real ordeal defending, especially if you slip behind and the enemy faction starts to spam their best units.
It is doable, yet, I gave up on the mission before the final task. The grind was just too much for me. I should add that the expansion is difficult too. However, surviving isn’t that hard at the beginning of each map if you make use of your special abilities, like the Crown of Ardania that summons the spirit of Kings to fight for you. He can one-shot most lower creatures, and clear up your base before you get heroes out. There are some timed-based missions too, that require you to do stuff beyond turtling up. These can be fun, but also frustrating, as often they will force a restart when you realize that you just will not make it in time.
Love among monsters
One thing I find weird, and a bit disappointing is that animals and mindless creatures don’t attack your opponent. You are not playing by the same rules as the AI, which I find immersion-breaking. Seeing all those wolves and whatnot making a beeline for you across the map when they have fleshy parts to eat next door is just lame. In the original campaign creatures attacked the AI, however, from what I remember Monster Kingdom suffers from the same thing. It’s silly.
On the technical side, Battles of Ardania runs much better than Monster Kingdom. I had zero crashes, and I assume the final mission is doable in this one. The game still looks and sounds great, but most of the assets will be reused – it’s more like a mission pack than anything else. I would like to recommend the expansion, but only if you like the general gameplay of Majesty 2, because you will be getting a lot more of the same. Be warned though, it’s pretty damn grindy, as mentioned.
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
| System: | PC (Steam) |
| Played with: | Mouse & keyboard |
| Mods/fixes: | None |
| Enjoyment rating: |  |
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