Royal Revolt for Windows Phone 8: a Medieval family feud

Royal Revolt is a wonderfully animated game for your Windows Phone 8 device that has you on a quest to become King.

You play the role of a young Prince sent away to boarding school. Upon your return you learn that your Aunts and Uncles have taken over the kingdom. Your job, conquer the various castles and retake the kingdom as King.  A Medieval family feud of sorts.

Game play is challenging, animations great and all totaled, Royal Revolt is a nice addition to the Windows Phone 8 gaming library.

Royal Revolt plays like a reverse tower defense game. Instead of setting up defensive positions to battle invading armies, you play the role of the invading army.  There's also a RPG aspect to the game in that you can upgrade your troops, add spells to your arsenal and upgrade your Prince's abilities as you progress through the game.

The map view is your launch page for your game. Here is where you can start a level of play, upgrade your troops, manage your spells, upgrade your Prince (the Hero tab), and make in-app purchases of gems that can be used for upgrades.  Game play has the Prince leading his troops through fifty-eight levels of action to reclaim his land. Each level contains a combinations of barricades, enemy troops and outposts all leading to a castle that has to be destroyed.

The gaming screens has your Prince's health in the upper left corner, your troop selection in the lower left and spell options in the lower right. Your troop generation meter runs along the bottom of the screen. There are various types of troops (swordsmen, archers, mages, etc.) that require differing amounts of energy to produce (represented by the dots on the troop type icon). As you generate troops the troop generation meter is depleted. Give it a few seconds and the meter regenerates so you can create more troops.

Once generated, troops head down the trail to confront the enemy. They won't wait on their Prince so you may find yourself playing catch up to get into the battle.  As you proceed through the gaming level, you can continue to generate troops.  It just takes them a few seconds to catch up to the action.

Moving your Prince is easy, you can either tap/hold and drag your finger around the screen to move the Prince or just tap the area you want the Prince to move to.  When he is moved adjacent to an enemy soldier or structure, he'll start hacking away at it with his sword.

The Prince has an circular area around him where the spells have influence. For example, there is a healing spell that will heal any of your troops that are within that circular area. You also have destructive spells that will impact any enemy troops within the circle.

As you take out enemy combatants, coins will be dropped that can be used for upgrades. At the end of each level, you'll also earn coins and gems that can be used to give your characters a little boost in abilities. If you're not the patient type, you can buy gems within the app. The cost ranges from $1.49 for 100 gems to $89.99 for 6,500 gems.

The game starts a little slow with pop-up tutorials guiding you through the motions of defeating your enemies. Royal Revolt picks up in speed with each level to keep things from getting stale. Additionally, with fifty-eight levels and a large handful of unlockable bonus missions, there is plenty of gaming with Royal Revolt.

The two biggest drawbacks to Royal Revolt is the lack of a help section and that it sucks the life out of your battery. While the tutorial walks you through the game nicely, a help section for reference would be nice.  Not sure what the answer is on the battery consumption which is likely due to the graphics. Just be aware that if you sit down to play Royal Revolt for very long, you'll need a power source.

All in all, Royal Revolt is a fantastic game for your Windows Phone 8 device. We've tinkered with the game for the better part of the afternoon and find it perfect for the times you only have a few minutes of gaming available and for those times you want to sit down for longer sessions. The developer did an excellent job on the graphics and creating a fun battle game.

Royal Revolt is a free game for your Windows Phone 8 device that you can find here in the Windows Phone Store.

QR: Royal Revolt

George Ponder

George is the Reviews Editor at Windows Central, concentrating on Windows 10 PC and Mobile apps. He's been a supporter of the platform since the days of Windows CE and uses his current Windows 10 Mobile phone daily to keep up with life and enjoy a game during down time.