{"id":773,"date":"2023-08-25T17:07:19","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T17:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ballpeenhammer.com\/?p=773"},"modified":"2025-07-02T19:29:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T19:29:38","slug":"kingdoms-merge-build-review-prince-eddie-proves-unready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ballpeenhammer.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/25\/kingdoms-merge-build-review-prince-eddie-proves-unready\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Kingdoms: Merge & Build\u2019 Review \u2013 Prince Eddie Proves Unready"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The kinds of games we see come to Apple Arcade has certainly shifted in the general sense over time. I can understand why, as Apple tries to get the biggest engagement bang for its bucks. Why blow the bank on a bunch of games that people will play through once or twice and then never touch again? Oddly, this has resulted in Apple Arcade seemingly coming full circle to provide a lot of games similar to the ones that dominate the rest of the App Store. Kingdoms: Merge & Build<\/em> ()<\/a> is clearly one such title, taking after hits like Merge Mansion<\/em>. Not the first merger we\u2019ve seen on Apple Arcade, but it\u2019s the first one I\u2019m bothering to review. I\u2019d like to say there is some grand reason, but it\u2019s just a spontaneous choice. Let\u2019s see how it works out for me.<\/p>\n

Some information up-front before we get into things. I\u2019ve played a few merging puzzle games before, most notably Merge Dragons<\/em>. It helped me get some premium currency in Avengers Academy<\/em>, and I found it amusing for a while. Eventually I hit the hard paywalls and just stopped playing. Not the worst thing I played for a leg-up in my stupid Marvel game, but also not something I was going to go far out on a limb for. Merge Mansion<\/em>\u2018s ads certainly enticed me, but I quickly realized I was more interested in the ads than the game. So that is where I am at with this kind of game, and I apologize for fans of the genre if I don\u2019t quite do things service here.<\/p>\n

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Prince Edward is the young royal heir of a fictional kingdom, and he\u2019s a narcissistic, lazy, obnoxious, spoiled little twit. For reasons I can\u2019t possibly fathom, his parents decided it would be okay to leave the kingdom in his hands while they went on a trip. It doesn\u2019t take long for things to go to heck, and in the wake of an argument with a mage the entire kingdom is destroyed. The job of putting things back in order thus falls to the person least qualified in the world to do it. He only cares about his own comfort and revenge, of course. But he isn\u2019t going to be able to get what he wants without the help of others, and he\u2019s not going to get that unless he starts being less of a royal pri\u2026nce<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the story, and it pretty much progresses as you would expect. Edward gets to know the citizens of his kingdom, sees how hard they work, actually does some hard work himself, and eventually learns to stop being such a little jerk. Not a terribly original tale by any means, and Edward being the center of everything means you\u2019re going to have to put up with his antics for a good long while. The story is broken down into chapters, and as you complete the various goals of each chapter you\u2019ll get a bit of story doled out.<\/p>\n

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I wish I could tell you the gameplay has some original elements to it, but that would be a fib and a half. Generally speaking, you\u2019re looking to rebuild your kingdom. Building anything or upgrading anything requires money and materials, and you\u2019ll acquire both of those by merging things on the merge board. Some buildings serve to produce generators, producing a new one as you exhaust the previous one in an utterly pointless mechanic that is clearly there for the game\u2019s eventual move out of Apple Arcade and into the realm of free-to-play. Other generators can only be acquired by fulfilling requests, which only require things you can get via the basic generators.<\/p>\n

Some of your buildings will generate coins, but you\u2019ll get the bulk of your money by completing standard requests. Those will eventually run out, but will refresh very quickly. The timers feel almost pointless since they\u2019re really short. The more you play, the more generators you\u2019ll have to deal with, leading to a much more cluttered board. Luckily, you can sell anything off the board whenever you like to make some room. You can also use some of the ultimate merged forms as tools in the kingdom building portion. Well, if you\u2019ve played a game like this before you probably know how all of this goes. The more you play the more expensive everything gets, requiring you to grind on that board for a really long time to get anything done.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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