Aerial Kingdom review: a pretty mobile RTS, but not worth the waiting

Chengdu-based mobile developer Enveesoft has just launched a new mobile game — perhaps its most ambitious yet — titled Aerial Kingdom (天空之城). At the moment it’s only available on iOS and there is no English version that I could find, but I still took the Chinese version for a spin to see whether the Aerial Kingdom was worth ruling.

Gameplay: RTS without the S

Aerial Kingdom is a tough game to fit into a genre. In a lot of ways, it’s like an RTS game: you build up your home base by upgrading various buildings and collect resources you can then use to build troops and battle other armies. But those battles, which take place on a flat battlefield in an alternate dimension, are like a very dumbed-down RPG: the only things that matter are your troops’ stats and how many of them you have. There’s no strategy to winning or losing battles; if you lose it’s just because you needed more — or better — soldiers.

Unfortunately, getting those soldiers can be an exercise in boredom. Upgrades and soldiers take a while to build, and while that’s true in most RTS games, there isn’t enough to do in Aerial Kingdom while you’re waiting, so often you find yourself sitting around, watching the 2 minute clock count down so you can get your new soldiers and proceed into battle. It’s the sort of wait that could be justified if the battle mechanics were really fun, but they just aren’t. You already know whether you’re going to win or lose before you even start, and watching the fight play out isn’t particularly entertaining. In the end, the payoff just isn’t worth the wait.

The game also seems to load somewhat slowly; you’ll see a spinning “loading” icon quite a bit, although rarely for more than a few seconds at a time. Still, it’s more waiting in a game that really didn’t need it.

With all that said, Aerial Kingdom does have its moments. Upgrading your base is fun and zooming around your celestial city collecting gold, building soldiers, and upgrading buildings will keep your attention for a while. The game does have quite a bit of depth to it; ultimately heroes get added into the mix, there’s a base defense activity as well, and a few other things to do, so don’t get the wrong idea: you can have a fun play session or two with Aerial Kingdom for sure. After a while, though, it’s going to drain on you. You can spice things up a little by playing with friends, but ultimately that won’t change the fact that the game revolves around battles, and the battles just aren’t very fun.

Graphics and Sound: Not too shabby

For a mobile game, Aerial Kingdom looks pretty good. Your home base (a sky city of sorts) is rendered in colorful 3D, and there are airships and a dragon flying around constantly, giving it the look of a living, breathing settlement in the clouds. Players have full control over the camera position, and you’ll have fun zooming in and out and flying around looking at your city from every angle, at least for a while.

The only visual element that really doesn’t work is the battlefield. Battles take place on an ugly two-dimensional plane, and it’s generally pretty tough to know what’s going on. You’ll see some explosions, some spell effects, and some damage numbers flash on the screen, and then get a notification of victory or defeat.