Grand Kingdom is a new RPG that seeks to marry traditionally single player RPG style gameplay with an online community system as well. The result is a pretty solid game that you can play totally alone if you like, or with others if you prefer.

The first thing I noticed starting up Grand Kingdom is that the game is in English with on-screen text and the voicework is pretty well done, but one of the voices made me cringe or want to mute the volume. Your background music sounds pretty much like what you would expect for a medieval looking battle game. You’ll also get sounds in battle, like clashing swords, that provide a nice background.

The overall look is mediocre. There’s nothing dazzling about the graphics, but they’re not horrible. Grand Kingdom would probably run just fine on a much less powerful system as it doesn’t push the PS4 visually at all. The character creations are a bit basic. There are a number of classes including Fighters, Medics, Challengers, Witches, Arcanists, and Rogues. Once you select a class, you can change the skin color, clothing color, hair style and color, face, and voice. Overall that does change your looks just a bit, but only the clothing colors are enough to really notice a difference. Still, Grand Kingdom isn’t a game that depends upon graphics to enjoy.

Grand Kingdom opens with a cut-scene of a battle. Your team is winning and just about to conquer the enemies completely, but there’s a twist. In a world where you are simply mercenaries, when the people who hire you surrender, all your work was for naught, including no pay. Because you fought bravely, your opponents offer you the chance to join their guild. That’s just the way things work in the new world. One hundred years ago, the world was ruled by the Uldein Empire, at least until it collapsed. It seems odd that in a century, no one has united the land again. Instead, there are several factions, all supported by mercenaries. Mercenaries fight for money as it’s pretty much the only job available to them. In Grand Kingdom, you will be controlling mercenary troops, leading them into battle, and deciding who will do what and when.

When you start or load a game, you will be taken to your base. This is essentially your Game Menu where you choose what to do. You have a few options. First there are Quests. Most of them have an objective and a time limit. You have to meet the objective before your time runs out or you fail. There are different types of Quests that will be available. The Campaign is going to be part of your guild's story, so the Quest will depend on your guild. There are also Single Quests, which are just assignments that other nations need done and they will have various objectives. There are also Travel Quests. In these, there are no objectives. You just get to roam around and find stuff. A Travel Quest has 17 areas that you can visit and you'll have to raise your level to unlock them all. The resources in the areas will regen over time, so use them as you need. Even though there are no objectives or time limits, there will be enemies. These enemies can and will take the resources too, but you can take the resources back from them if you beat them in battle. There are also Versus Quests. When you select one of these, you will then choose which side you want to fight for. The rewards vary depending on the difficulty.

When you want to do things online, choose War. You will need to choose a side to fight on and how long you will contract for that side. Once you go to war, you can choose to Dispatch Troops or send a Troop Detachment. If you Dispatch Troops, you will be in charge of their moves and choosing what they do. If you have troops idle, send them in as a Troop Detachment. The game will handle their battles. It’s an easy way to level up your characters and earn rewards without even playing.

Back at the base, you can also choose to make policy, shop, train your troops, get information, and even go to the Capital. Policy is where you go to create new characters, take on war contracts, and other such things. When you train, you can learn skills and raise your class. Going to the Capital is something you’re probably going to want to do. Be aware that you can’t visit a Capital city of a place that you are currently fighting in war. In the Capitals, you can talk to various people, you will learn random things, and sometimes they give you objects. You can go visit the castle and report on your status to a nation that you are serving. The ruler will give you stuff, if you have pleased them. At the barracks, you can do a whole bunch of stuff, from planning invasions to researching items, weapons, and more. Finally, there are several markets in the Capitals. Each of them will have different goods, so visit them all and see what you might want.

If you try and rush straight through the "story" Quests without playing any of the rest, you will find Grand Kingdom to be a bit difficult. You really need to play some of the other Quests or go to war to level up your team. Each quest has a recommended level. You can still attempt the Quest if you are below that level, but eventually they will just be too hard for you. Eventually, you will get your squad’s level high enough to be able to adjust the difficulty, but you can’t use that at first. The good news is that leveling up isn’t very hard. You simply need to battle. Since you are mercenaries, there are plenty of battles to be found and money to make on each battle!

War is a bit of a different story. Depending on which side you have contracted for, you might be the underdogs or you might be on a clearly winning side. When you go to war, you will need to select a region to fight in. Obviously you can only choose one that the nation you are contracted to is fighting. You will be able to see based on the bar below the region which side has control. You will also see what you need to do to get a reward. War tends to be a bit more difficult than Quests, or at least I found it to be. If you’re looking for more of a fight, go to war.

Grand Kingdom has a turn-based battle system, so it should be pretty easy to control. Having said that, I found that it wasn’t as simple as I would like. The D-pad or (L) moves you around the board and you have a little chess piece that moves around the board. You will see enemies on your route. If you touch them, you will be in a battle. I could not use the D-pad though. I kept going a direction I didn’t want to simply because of the layout of the squares. Once in battle, the D-pad was fine.

The battle zones are interesting. In battle, you have three horizontal lines that you will fight on. (Square), (Triangle), (O) are attack buttons, depending on the type of unit. You will need to correctly time ranged attacks by pressing (O) again. Be warned, friendly fire will hurt you, so be careful where your ranged attacks, especially magic, are going to hit. Your healing will also heal the enemies if you aren’t careful. I really had trouble getting my medic to throw the healing right where I wanted it, especially when I was trying to heal the medic too. You will also have to watch out for various battle zones. There can be areas where cannons will hit and these will hurt everyone, not just their targets. Sometimes, there are also healing zones, so try and make sure your troops end up in them. It definitely requires more of a strategy than a lot of games. One really nice thing is that if you don’t like where you moved to, you can press the Touch Pad (before you attack) and it will take you back to your original position. This will let you plan out a bit.

Overall, Grand Kingdom provides a lot more than I originally thought it would. Personally, I don’t like the War. It is more strategy than I want to try and figure out. There are a lot of nuances to the kingdoms. If you’re looking for a game where you need to strategize every move, you will love it. I like the Quests much better, and if that’s all you like, you don’t ever have to go to the War. Grand Kingdom provides a game where you can play whichever parts you want. If you’re looking for a strategy game, you might want to check it out!