Road of Kings Review

The current American political climate suffers from a bad combination of money and politics. However, this isn't entirely unique to the 21st century as money has almost always equaled and guaranteed power. In Dancing Sorcerer's latest title, Road of Kings, the goal is to accumulate 500 gold pieces within a 100 days to prove who's be the best candidate to be King of the people.

Political commentary aside, Road to Kings is a neat experience. It plays like a 4-hex board game, where players move their dude (Sorry ladies, only comes as a guy) around the board with random events taking place; anything from encountering an enemy to finding out the main character got lost in the hills due to his poor navigation skills. Movement on the board, as well as events, are very much dictated by the terrain on any particular space, be it good or bad. But at the end of the day, Road to Kings feels a lot like a single player board game minus dice rolling or dropping $70 on a boxed version.

Being that things happen at random in this title, it's never quite predictable how one's game experience will go. There isn't any real difficulty setting, meaning that one game could see players breezing their way to victory while another could see them defeated before they even leave the first area. Road to Kings is well balanced in that all decisions seem to have consequences - good or bad. For instance, one could recruit a whole posse of extra soldiers to help make fights easier, but now they're faced with the challenge of trying to feed them all. Players could also attack every single person they encounter on the roads, bathing themselves in riches, but good luck staying healthy long enough to enjoy it.

There are, of course, a couple of things that set this title back. The major and most noticeable flaw is the lack of decent graphics. Anyone familiar with how graphics looked in Civilization II will be accustomed to how the art and graphics appear in Road of Kings. To sum it up: the graphics appear a little rough around the edges and feel very outdated. They also feel slightly disappointing, considering how awesome the rest of the game is.

Road of Kings is exactly the kind of game that is fit for those who want to play "nerdy" style board games (Think Dominion, Catan, etc) but don't have the opportunity to get together with others. It's also perfectly enjoyable in small amounts or one big marathon, as the game will allow players to pick up where they left off. While this title of gore and glory may look a little shabby, it's gameplay is certainly not - making it the ideal game for a Barbarian King.