Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster Review
Inti Creates blends 2D action RPG combat with city building in a fantasy adventure set in the fallen kingdom of Almacia.
Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster. Credit: Inti Creates
Kingdom’s Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster from Inti Creates combines side-scrolling action RPG combat with light kingdom-building management, but neither side has enough depth to stay interesting for very long. The result is a repetitive, shallow experience that felt like a waste of my time.
You play a hero working alongside Chronos, the Fairy of Time, to restore the ruined kingdom of Almacia by clearing stages, gathering materials, and rebuilding. The story is here to justify the gameplay loop. That’s usually fine if the gameplay carrying the experience is compelling enough. The problem is that with everything else being equally thin, the story gives you no reason to stay invested.
Missions, including optional objectives, repeatedly send you through short side-scrolling combat stages where you fight waves of enemies while collecting resources for construction projects back in town. The four playable classes are unevenly balanced, and I found the Zipangu class dramatically more effective than options like the Imperial fighter. You can purchase new abilities, but none of it meaningfully changes how encounters play out. Outside of a few boss fights, combat devolves into repeating the same attack patterns against a limited variety of enemies.
Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster. Credit: Inti Creates
The kingdom-building side is even less compelling. Building structures rewards passive stat boosts, and I barely found a reason to engage with it. The whole system feels like a glorified upgrade screen rather than a meaningful second half of the game. It should have been cut entirely.
The pixel art is solid, as expected from Inti Creates, even if it falls on the lower end of their work. Unfortunately, good sprite work can only do so much.
Kingdom’s Return never develops enough depth on either side of its hybrid design to make rebuilding this kingdom feel worth the effort. Don’t come here looking for fun. You’ll get tedium instead.
Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster
Kingdom’s Return combines action RPG combat and kingdom-building, but neither system has enough depth to make the experience worth your time.
