We take a look at Triumph Games’ Mercenary Kings. This video represents a more cursory reaction to the game either because of it’s still-in-development stage, or because we didn’t have time. It is not intended as a review.
Trading heavily in the bombast of 80’s Saturday morning cartoon nostalgia and the manic eye-candy of the 16-bit era, Mercenary Kings is a new game that relies on some old ideas. Featuring a non-linear series of missions to complete, a rather robust item and weapon crafting system, and modern gaming tropes like active reloading, dodge mechanics and a persistent (but not entirely open) world; Mercenary Kings adds a few new dimensions and several new mechanics to an otherwise fairly simplistic and well-worn genre of game.
You’d be forgiven if you mistook this game for an update to the Metal Slug franchise or even a high-definition remake of a long-forgotten SNES classic. It is obvious visual and thematic homages like these that really given Mercenary Kings its richly-detailed pixelated charm. Mechanically the game strikes a balance between twitchy run-and-gun action and open-world loot farming which ends up being a great way to fix the down-sides of these respective genres. The tight action alleviates the mundane grind for items, and the added depth of crafting breathes new variety into the typically shallow mechanics.
Mercenary Kings adds a few new dimensions and several new mechanics to an otherwise fairly simplistic and well-worn genre of game.
Mercenary Kings uses a series of semi-persistent levels, visited through the taking of missions and quests from your commander. Enemy and item placement in these areas remain largely the same, but your objectives vary from item collections and enemy eliminations, to boss encounters and rescue missions. Knowing the layout of the interconnected caves, camps, and jungle ruins in these levels becomes part of being able to complete your missions quickly and successfully.
Cooperatively the game supports up to 4-players locally and the ability to team up online. Characters are saved to specific files, so players can maintain their own unique configuration of weapons, abilities, appearance, and even game progress.
Mercenary Kings is a lavishly crafted homage to the era of 16-bit gaming mayhem blended with the item crafting and loot farming aspects of more modern-day shooters. Mercenary Kings is currently available for the PlayStation 4 and PC.
