REVIEW – Take the Middle Ages, and add elements for survival and crafting. Mix in gameplay that’s something like Animal Crossing (with a less family-friendly tone, as expected). That’s what you get with Medieval Dynasty, where you must create a lasting dynasty from a small village while also managing your resources skillfully.

Hunt, survive, build and lead in the harsh Middle Ages: Create your own Medieval Dynasty and ensure its long-lasting prosperity or die trying!

Surviving at all cost

There are simple things to do. Cutting wood, hunting, cleaning ourselves, and meeting the needs of other villagers, while slowly managing our resources as we hopefully slowly bring our village to life—all of it at a leisurely, comfortable pace that can even be adjusted to our taste. By default, a season consists of three days, and a day takes about 25 minutes, so a year is a good hour and a quarter. However, you can adjust the length at the start by taking it a little faster if you desire. It may not be worth it, though. Our actions earn experience points for opening up skills in the respective categories. The more trees you cut, the better you get at gaining resources (you can gain more experience, get faster, or gain more resources), and the system is not overly complex. The same goes for our character stats. Depending on the time of year, we should pay attention to our clothing and not forget the basics (eat our food as soon as possible before it spoils). So we should also pay a little attention to the strategy, as Racimir, our hero who has fled the war, starts to look for his uncle to help him, only he is dead. Still, thanks to his family connections, he inherits land and thus settles in his new place of residence.

This story is minimal and does not serve much of a role en bloc; it is good for the basics, nothing more. Still, it is adequate for that. Our character starts at the age of eighteen and learns to build a garden, craft a knife, and set a trap, so he gets the basics to survive, which sounds exciting, but that can only be said of Medieval Dynasty in the short term, which is best described as shallow, but more on that a little later. The building and handling are good (the latter is mostly good, though…), and it feels good to build your house from scratch, then start a family, and then over time, make more houses to expand the size of your village in which may even become a mayor, and you get to decide who does what. It will involve keeping the other inhabitants happy and well-fed. Otherwise, we may well be abandoned. If we can get that far, it will add a lot of variety to the gameplay and fit into the game.

Depth…?

It was mentioned on the previous page that Medieval Dynasty is shallow. When the game becomes monotonous (because even the dialogue itself is predictable with NPCs that seem lifeless and dry), that’s where the atmosphere deteriorates. The game is not fully dubbed either, so you will only hear a few lines; you have to read the rest of the text (which can be several paragraphs long), which is not fun. The variety of the missions is also dull, as you have to go from one point to another, and meanwhile, the fact that the world map is extensive, your character gets tired and sometimes, you even have to wait to complete your tasks. We can get stuck in the scenery. It is not some idiotic joke. In the game’s button assignment, an unstuck button lets us put our hero back where he’s free to be. The look of the characters is also poor.

Beyond the fact that the NPCs have a life converging to zero, the quality of the models is lousy, and anyone who sees the interaction between two NPCs should play the lottery because there is no example of that. Fortunately for us, the seasonally different-looking areas have a cosy feel, but at the same time, let’s not forget that the location of your first home is an important decision, as it might not be a good idea to be in a completely secluded place, for example. The sounds and music are appropriate, but getting objects out and about is a bit of a fool’s errand, as it can sometimes overcomplicate things. Getting a bucket of water out for a bath also requires multiple inventory visits. You have to take the bucket out of your hands and then put it back in your hands again afterwards. At this point, the bucket will be empty, but you must fill it with water again. It can be so annoying and monotonous.

Family-friendly

Medieval Dynasty was recently released for consoles after spending more than a year on PC. The console version didn’t add much to the PC release, so it gets the same six-and-a-half out of ten rating on all platforms. It can be fun and atmospheric, but some annoying, distracting, or not-quite-developed elements detract from the overall picture. If it had a little more variety in the missions, or maybe the characters were nicer looking, it would quickly deserve a seven out of ten. However, without it, no, it doesn’t. Still, the fact that we can set the pace of the game ourselves is a plus. That’s something not many in this genre offer.

-V-

Publisher: Toplitz Productions

Developer: Render Cube

Style: Survival, RPG, Simulation

Release: September 23, 2021 (PC) / October 6, 2022 (Console)