Lord Monarch: Tokoton Sentou Densetsu/Lord Monarch: Legendary Battle Royale (MD, 1994)(Fan Translation) WIP
Graphics-8 Sound-7.5 Control-7 Challenge-7? Story-6.5?
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-7.5 Fun-7? Originality-7
Overall Score-7?
+
God sim/RTS hybrid gameplay (similar to Populous in that you can set villager behavior to auto and they'll expand your territory on their own by building forts and roads+breed+turn into soldiers when near the enemy, similar to SimAnt and Dune 2 in that you can give orders to individual units, similar to Herzog Zwei in that you have a single commander avatar which is stronger than the others and you gain resouces semi-automatically (conquer land and keep the hero at your castle to collect taxes from the villagers), can set the tax rate in real-time to balance gaining more money over time at the cost of populace happiness which seems to affect how well they work/fight), mission briefings, )
Can command your units to gather into a single stronger one via the Reinforce command (villager to soldier then knight) - Populous. Guard also makes units passing by a unit more likely to gather into it while it builds a fort where it's standing
Worker villagers gradually lose health so you need to also manage this unless you're using auto to make them go back to forts and replenish it (for example if you give a command and then follow it up with Continue, the villager will actually work itself to death by continuously going to the nearest relevant object to its task and carrying on working)
Can clear forested land (Populous), build fences (Dune 2, PC-98 original from 1991?) and build bridges across rivers
Can play at 3 different zoom levels (only the most zoomed in view shows actual sprites however - the others show icons instead)
Can give orders either to individual units or to all units besides the hero
NPC advisor (occasionally helpful; SimCity SNES, Dune 2)
Some interesting level gimmicks and mechanics (neutral towns that can be taken over (Herzog Zwei, Power Monger), Monster orb which makes critters fight for you while controlled - something similar was later used in C&C3 and SC2, mission where you race an opponent to save some prisoners)
Game speed options (4 settings; SimCity) and button config, Button combo shortcuts for zoom levels and for moving the camera to either king/commander
Story and challenge game modes (the latter includes the maps from both of the original and Advanced versions of the PC-98 original (here you take on 3 other factions in each map) while the story mode features 32 new ones)
Pretty good dialogue (comedic and edgy tone - the hero is a 16 year old who's disrespectful towards adults and generally cocky (similar to Musashi from the PS1 game), some characterization of enemy commanders)
Great art direction overall, Pretty nice cutscenes (large artwork frames with some animation+text), Much nicer visuals when zoomed in than on SNES, Basic cutscenes for important events in a small window (artwork stills and text) - SimAnt/King's Quest VGA
Fairly detailed ranking after each mission (days spent, percentage of land conquered which affects how big a penalty in days lost you get, efficiency percentage (not sure how it's calculated) which yields bonus days to your total time in the campaign, )
Critters/wandering monsters (SimAnt, Dune 2) and monster spawning caves which can be sealed by your units
The music changes to a new track as you're getting close to winning
Fast dialogue and you can speed up cutscene animations
Includes the different visual themes from other versions (no gameplay effect)
+/-
Partially non-linear structure (hub map in-between missions which starts off linear but gets non-linear after the first chapter)
Time limit which carries over across each chapter, each consisting of 4 missions (160 days for the 1st and 120 for the 2nd - easy, 160 for the third - ). If you don't do well in a mission you are penalized and lose days). Can use the time machine fruit via the status menu to replay missions if you're doing poorly
Real-time with pause gameplay - game pauses while giving orders
Save between missions only (could save during them in JP PC versions, one slot per game only)
Alfred (the hero) doesn't respawn if he dies during a mission
Can't gain taxes without keeping your hero at the castle+you gradually lose HP from being outside of it meaning you can only perform fairly short attacks with him and then have to backtrack across the map over and over. Over time you gain more HP and money from expanding your territory and population though, making each trip potentially longer and less risky
No alternate hero units and there's no character creation
No terrain altering via spells - Populous
No map editor tool (PC-98 ver.)
The commander can't build anything nor clear trees
Status menu also shows the overall strength of each enemy faction in the current mission so it's easy to tell when you have the upper hand
No deployment phase
No mini-map however there is a second viewport showing what the unit you're hovering over's current role is
Most enemy commanders have no personality
Can't build bridges across 5+ tile wide gaps
No scouting element since the whole map is revelaled by default
While there is an option for 2 controllers there's only one cursor so there's no real 2-player coop or vs mode
Player controlled diplomacy is only included in the challenge mode maps and alliances are temporary until the enemies are defeated+you can't ally after about 5 mins of gameplay?
-
Control/interface issues (can't create groups of units (so if you want to, say, gather 10/20 units into a stronger one you have to command one at a time) - added in a later PC version, no button to quickly show the current health of each unit and building, can't grab a unit from within a fort, can't control the exact route a unit takes to its target, no patrol move and no "follow the hero" move, no "retreat directly to/near your castle" move, can't use the continue command on your avatar meaning you have to babysit him - would've been best if you could make him continue attacking until near death then retreat back to the castle, also can't make your avatar destroy your own forts, can't tell your commander to attack a wandering monster and have him follow it until he reaches it - have to try to collide with it instead and it's quite fast (so since you can't grab villagers from forts or split them up into weaker units it's often hard to trap one with them), the "there's a dangerous enemy on the route" warning message gets spammed if you have a large population instead of the game letting you say yes to all prompts, your units can't move through allied units)
Annoying how the commander automatically absorbs other units to add to his own HP when moving through them - should've been a toggle
Some trial & error (so-so tutorial - doesn't really explain most basic mechanics, a commander that seems much weaker than you can still win a duel+there's no warning if yours is about to lose, can keep using build on a finished bridge tile that's part of a larger bridge without the game making the worker go to the next tile, if you take out your opponents in moneyraising missions it's game over - can't keep collecting money after you're the last one standing, sealed caves that are holes in the ground still block movement across them and can' be re-opened)
No alternate soldier types such as bowmen, cavalry, spellcasters or medics
No alternate building types besides the castle and neutral towns and you can't upgrade or modify buildings (no guard towers or mines for example)
The fast drain on money when Alfred is outside your castle gets kind of tedious in missions without neutral towns of which there are quire a few (these continuously send an NPC to pay tribute after taking them over, letting your king roam around more freely) - it could've been possible to take over enemy castles to have them act as additional outposts (see Herzog Zwei or Heroes of M&M), build more of your own or move the one you have. Kinda ruins gameplay flow in missions with a lot of bridges/rivers as these get expensive
Lag/slowdown - especially noticeable when giving your whole population an order some ways into a mission where there are 2 opponents and/or monsters
Gets repetitive after a while
No scaling effect when zooming (SNES version)
The exact same in-game tutor/priest advice is given in mission 2 as in mission 1 after a short briefing - starts changing after that though
Occasionally inefficient fort placement by the AI which can also become tedious to adjust manually by making you halt all of your units while doing it
No difficulty options
Bugs:
-Can tell all units to only build forts but they'll still end up attacking the enemy castle long before conquering all the surrounding land
-An AI issue in the rescue mission of chapter 2 makes the main opponent's king go towards an NPC's location even if they've been rescued already - lets you take him out easier
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-7.5 Fun-7? Originality-7
Overall Score-7?
+
God sim/RTS hybrid gameplay (similar to Populous in that you can set villager behavior to auto and they'll expand your territory on their own by building forts and roads+breed+turn into soldiers when near the enemy, similar to SimAnt and Dune 2 in that you can give orders to individual units, similar to Herzog Zwei in that you have a single commander avatar which is stronger than the others and you gain resouces semi-automatically (conquer land and keep the hero at your castle to collect taxes from the villagers), can set the tax rate in real-time to balance gaining more money over time at the cost of populace happiness which seems to affect how well they work/fight), mission briefings, )
Can command your units to gather into a single stronger one via the Reinforce command (villager to soldier then knight) - Populous. Guard also makes units passing by a unit more likely to gather into it while it builds a fort where it's standing
Worker villagers gradually lose health so you need to also manage this unless you're using auto to make them go back to forts and replenish it (for example if you give a command and then follow it up with Continue, the villager will actually work itself to death by continuously going to the nearest relevant object to its task and carrying on working)
Can clear forested land (Populous), build fences (Dune 2, PC-98 original from 1991?) and build bridges across rivers
Can play at 3 different zoom levels (only the most zoomed in view shows actual sprites however - the others show icons instead)
Can give orders either to individual units or to all units besides the hero
NPC advisor (occasionally helpful; SimCity SNES, Dune 2)
Some interesting level gimmicks and mechanics (neutral towns that can be taken over (Herzog Zwei, Power Monger), Monster orb which makes critters fight for you while controlled - something similar was later used in C&C3 and SC2, mission where you race an opponent to save some prisoners)
Game speed options (4 settings; SimCity) and button config, Button combo shortcuts for zoom levels and for moving the camera to either king/commander
Story and challenge game modes (the latter includes the maps from both of the original and Advanced versions of the PC-98 original (here you take on 3 other factions in each map) while the story mode features 32 new ones)
Pretty good dialogue (comedic and edgy tone - the hero is a 16 year old who's disrespectful towards adults and generally cocky (similar to Musashi from the PS1 game), some characterization of enemy commanders)
Great art direction overall, Pretty nice cutscenes (large artwork frames with some animation+text), Much nicer visuals when zoomed in than on SNES, Basic cutscenes for important events in a small window (artwork stills and text) - SimAnt/King's Quest VGA
Fairly detailed ranking after each mission (days spent, percentage of land conquered which affects how big a penalty in days lost you get, efficiency percentage (not sure how it's calculated) which yields bonus days to your total time in the campaign, )
Critters/wandering monsters (SimAnt, Dune 2) and monster spawning caves which can be sealed by your units
The music changes to a new track as you're getting close to winning
Fast dialogue and you can speed up cutscene animations
Includes the different visual themes from other versions (no gameplay effect)
+/-
Partially non-linear structure (hub map in-between missions which starts off linear but gets non-linear after the first chapter)
Time limit which carries over across each chapter, each consisting of 4 missions (160 days for the 1st and 120 for the 2nd - easy, 160 for the third - ). If you don't do well in a mission you are penalized and lose days). Can use the time machine fruit via the status menu to replay missions if you're doing poorly
Real-time with pause gameplay - game pauses while giving orders
Save between missions only (could save during them in JP PC versions, one slot per game only)
Alfred (the hero) doesn't respawn if he dies during a mission
Can't gain taxes without keeping your hero at the castle+you gradually lose HP from being outside of it meaning you can only perform fairly short attacks with him and then have to backtrack across the map over and over. Over time you gain more HP and money from expanding your territory and population though, making each trip potentially longer and less risky
No alternate hero units and there's no character creation
No terrain altering via spells - Populous
No map editor tool (PC-98 ver.)
The commander can't build anything nor clear trees
Status menu also shows the overall strength of each enemy faction in the current mission so it's easy to tell when you have the upper hand
No deployment phase
No mini-map however there is a second viewport showing what the unit you're hovering over's current role is
Most enemy commanders have no personality
Can't build bridges across 5+ tile wide gaps
No scouting element since the whole map is revelaled by default
While there is an option for 2 controllers there's only one cursor so there's no real 2-player coop or vs mode
Player controlled diplomacy is only included in the challenge mode maps and alliances are temporary until the enemies are defeated+you can't ally after about 5 mins of gameplay?
-
Control/interface issues (can't create groups of units (so if you want to, say, gather 10/20 units into a stronger one you have to command one at a time) - added in a later PC version, no button to quickly show the current health of each unit and building, can't grab a unit from within a fort, can't control the exact route a unit takes to its target, no patrol move and no "follow the hero" move, no "retreat directly to/near your castle" move, can't use the continue command on your avatar meaning you have to babysit him - would've been best if you could make him continue attacking until near death then retreat back to the castle, also can't make your avatar destroy your own forts, can't tell your commander to attack a wandering monster and have him follow it until he reaches it - have to try to collide with it instead and it's quite fast (so since you can't grab villagers from forts or split them up into weaker units it's often hard to trap one with them), the "there's a dangerous enemy on the route" warning message gets spammed if you have a large population instead of the game letting you say yes to all prompts, your units can't move through allied units)
Annoying how the commander automatically absorbs other units to add to his own HP when moving through them - should've been a toggle
Some trial & error (so-so tutorial - doesn't really explain most basic mechanics, a commander that seems much weaker than you can still win a duel+there's no warning if yours is about to lose, can keep using build on a finished bridge tile that's part of a larger bridge without the game making the worker go to the next tile, if you take out your opponents in moneyraising missions it's game over - can't keep collecting money after you're the last one standing, sealed caves that are holes in the ground still block movement across them and can' be re-opened)
No alternate soldier types such as bowmen, cavalry, spellcasters or medics
No alternate building types besides the castle and neutral towns and you can't upgrade or modify buildings (no guard towers or mines for example)
The fast drain on money when Alfred is outside your castle gets kind of tedious in missions without neutral towns of which there are quire a few (these continuously send an NPC to pay tribute after taking them over, letting your king roam around more freely) - it could've been possible to take over enemy castles to have them act as additional outposts (see Herzog Zwei or Heroes of M&M), build more of your own or move the one you have. Kinda ruins gameplay flow in missions with a lot of bridges/rivers as these get expensive
Lag/slowdown - especially noticeable when giving your whole population an order some ways into a mission where there are 2 opponents and/or monsters
Gets repetitive after a while
No scaling effect when zooming (SNES version)
The exact same in-game tutor/priest advice is given in mission 2 as in mission 1 after a short briefing - starts changing after that though
Occasionally inefficient fort placement by the AI which can also become tedious to adjust manually by making you halt all of your units while doing it
No difficulty options
Bugs:
-Can tell all units to only build forts but they'll still end up attacking the enemy castle long before conquering all the surrounding land
-An AI issue in the rescue mission of chapter 2 makes the main opponent's king go towards an NPC's location even if they've been rescued already - lets you take him out easier
