My Kingdom for the Princess III Game Review

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Revisit the world of Arthur and his princess in the long-awaited My Kingdom for the Princess 3, the third game in this exciting time management game series. Repair buildings, remove obstacles, recover lost artifacts and rebuild an efficient network. Utilize your skills in resource management and task prioritization in a competition where a princess and a throne are at stake!

The My Kingdom for the Princess series by NevoSoft comes back strong with its third installment. While it uses pretty much the same game mechanics and interface as its predecessors, it does have a bit more polish in terms of graphics and interface, with characters and objects popping out a little bit more. There is also a new story that is entertaining and engaging.

The story again revolves around our hero Arthur from the last two games, but it is now 25 years later. Arthur is now a king with 3 sons. One evening, while he was dining with a neighboring king, the neighbor proposed to give his daughter’s hand in marriage to one of Arthur’s sons. In order to see who deserved the princess, Arthur assigned a portion of his kingdom to each son to see how they would fare managing it. You play the role of his youngest son Andrew, and the game chronicles your exciting adventures.

Each level starts out with similar conditions. You start with a base camp and one worker, and are surrounded by an entire map filled with debris to be cleared, buildings and bridges to be repaired, animals and bandits to be fought, and resources and treasure to be collected. You do not need to clear the entire map, but must complete the level’s objectives (which include goals such as repairing all bridges or producing enough wood) before time runs out. Do it in expert time and you will also get an upgrade to your castle.

Most of the actions in the game are performed by your main workers. These include picking up resources that are lying around, repairing bridges and buildings, breaking down obstacles and collecting treasure. Other obstacles require specialized help, such as wild animals that need to be removed using a hunter (which becomes available when you build a Hunting Lodge), and bandits that need to be chased off by a soldier (trained at the Barracks).

There are other buildings, such as the Farm that continuously produces food, and the sawmill that continuously produces wood. There is also the warehouse that increases the amount of resources your workers collect. Your buildings can be upgraded to become more efficient as well. However, both the upgrades and the repair/construction of buildings require wood. You will have to therefore carefully plan which buildings are most important in your current situation, and prioritize reaching and setting them up. In that sense, the game can also become more of a puzzle, where you need to find the sequence of tasks that will get you to your goals the quickest.

You also have a set of special abilities using a power bar that recharges with time. They give you temporary benefits such as an extra worker, faster work speed, faster building resource production, halving construction costs etc. These abilities use differing amounts of power from the same pool, so it is up to you to decide which abilities will be of the most use to you at any given time.

Every few levels, you will also encounter minigames that provide a welcome change of pace. Some of them involve hordes of wild animals rushing into town, and you need to whack them before they do any damage. There are also other minigames that are reminiscent of old arcade games, such as the one where you need to guide your mount across treacherous terrain while collecting coins and avoiding monsters that are trying to kill you.

The story is also quite entertaining, and the levels in the game are actually organized by story chapter rather than by the typical progression on a map. The bright art and music also make the game very enjoyable. It is definitely a solid successor in a very good game series. You will love My Kingdom for the Princess 3 if you liked the previous games in the series or any other games featuring similar gameplay such as Rescue Team or the Roads of Rome series.

Check out the other games in this series!

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