Reigns: Three Kingdoms does something a bit different. Rather than isolated lifetimes, you’re gradually building up a dynasty as your consciousness keeps going back into members of the family as it builds up. However, its new battle system is what really kept me fascinated in this situation.
To be honest, Reigns: Three Kingdoms’ start reminded me a bit of Assassin’s Creed and Abstergo. You are using experimental technology to send yourself back in time to the Three Kingdoms period. Your goal is to gradually build yourself and your family line up to conquer every region.
It is a bit of an adjustment. Typically, I play the games approaching runs differently as I decide between decisions, and here it feels like there’s an incentive to keep fulfilling missions and making progress to ensure overall success. But the new battle system really helped make it feel a bit more distinct and unusual.
As you go through runs and make your choices, you can end up recording new character cards. These folks can become your units who fight in your battles. You’ll have four of them “dealt” to you in a fight, should you choose to handle a battle firsthand and not delegate it so you can focus on choices instead. Each one has different attack focuses (some may hit multiple enemies for example) and their own health.
Once your four are equipped, you spin them back and forth for as many actions as you have to unleash attacks. Your goal is to protect your center area for your individual health, while wearing down the opposing units protecting your opponent’s “core” to defeat them. It’s possible to revive fallen units, and success can also come from knowing how to arrange and spin your unit cards around so when the enemy turn comes, you’re protected, but you can still swap to another unit easily to continue the assault on your own turn.
It’s quick and simple, but can occasionally prove challenging depending on the characters each side is using. Putting together a deck is also more fun than I expected. I do wish the online multiplayer was more active, since that seems like it’d have potential. I haven’t had much luck with finding instant matches on the Switch version of Reigns: Three Kingdoms.
Reigns: Three Kingdoms feels like it tries to do a few different things to set itself apart. Of them, the battles are the part I find the most fun. It feels like there’s a bit of potential here in these brief altercations. I just wish there were more chances to face off against others.
Reigns: Three Kingdoms is available for the Nintendo Switch, PC, and mobile devices via Netflix.
