As it now stands, Majesty’s scenario design walks that fine line between cutting down on micromanagement and not giving you nearly enough to do but wait until your taxes are collected. You can intervene directly with the occasional spell but there isn’t enough building on display to make you any more than an idle landlord. Since very few missions are here, there is a strong chance that an expanded campaign or more pressure in a skirmish will change the calculus.

The artwork is colorful without being garish. As your heroes get better equipment, their appearance changes and their attacks have a little more spectacle. Even though your heroes are very tiny at the default viewing angle, they have been drawn distinctly enough to avoid confusion. There is still a lot of placeholder art and empty icon boxes, but given what’s on the screen already, it’s not hard to imagine the final appearance.

The missions in the preview version are enough to give a broad outline of the campaign. Things get a little rougher every time out and some buildings aren’t available to you on certain maps. None of the elf or dwarf stuff has been implemented yet, so it remains to be seen how this will work with the human centered fantasy world they have built.

Some major features have not yet been implemented in this build. In the final version, heroes we able to band together in parties, making it more likely that your first and second level heroes will survive their initial encounters with raiding minotaurs. The game will include magic artifacts that can be recovered for the kingdom, items that confer bonuses and can be carried from mission to mission, giving some continuity to what is, for the moment, a disjointed series of maps. Special heroes called “Lords” will also make this journey with your king, but considering the power of an 8th Level rogue with 10 healing potions, it is unclear how they will balance the power of these mighty heroes.

Majesty 2 shows promise, but it’s unclear if the very old school design and appearance will fit with a genre that has moved well past the moment when the original seemed so fresh. Maybe it will. The preview build was just a bit too rough around the edges to tell one way or the other. Though no one else has picked up on the indirect control scheme of the original Majesty, the RTS/RPG hybrid has been tried a number of times. For Majesty 2 to be a success, the final version will need to build excitement beyond the small audience of fans who fondly remember a nine year old game.

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