Olivia wants to please her husband, Victor, with a nice vacation: that's how the Weather Lord and his wife find themselves repairing new lands or bringing more life after the demon that kidnapped Olivia last time came back. And in a twisted way, for the bonus levels unlocked with three stars, become the demon himself and disrup the peace!
Weather Lord: Royal Holidays is a continuation of the direction taken by the Legendary Hero, so allow me to copy paste some parts of the review for that opus, augmented with the new elements.
The gameplay brings back the deck of the three weather elements, which is better as you don't have to find them anymore on the level. While workers are still collecting ressources, now, you don't have trees or fields or mines. You have to build a grain mill to have fields to harvest, a sawmill for trees to chop and mines to get gold. Improving these buildings will allow you to increase your production. In other words, two gameplay mechanics from previous games were fusionned in one. However, you can still collect these ressources thanks to bushes or obstacles or shipwrecks or treasures. Besides, now, you don't have to build an house anymore for more workers, you can hire them from the wagon. As the game has also a seaside landscape, you'll get buildings to restore which will give... ressources: gold, food and wood. However, a new type of ressource appears and replaces the crystals: the fame, the only ressource that can't decrease. You can earn it by building arenas or fountains, defeating wild boars or even by speaking to natives (and restoring their houses). Also, you have traders to exchange ressources.
New buildings appeared: a textile house, jeweller's workshop or a forge to make elements needed like magic spheres or dresses or swords. The textile house is however just used for making textile that is a component for crafting, a new gameplay element that I will explain later.
The weather elements are these ones: wind (for mines, dissipating fogs or make trolls fly), rain (for flames, grain mills and sawmills), wave (for pushing vases with ressources to the ground, for leading aways turtles or shells, for fisherman's hut and archaeologist's tent), sun (for drying roads or puddles and for corral houses), thunder (for drying lava or destroying barricades), rainbow (for restoring portals, dissipating mirages and uncast a spell on fairies). A new one was added: the moon, used to scare ghosts or owls). These elements can also be used to drive away enemies, replacing the warriors from previous game, whether directly on them or by building a tower. Also, for some actions, like inflating balloons for trolls, you need a stronger element than given at the beginning of the level: you have to restore altars.
Also, you have also bonuses that you can use during the level: hire a temporary worker, stop time, more wood, food or gold, working faster.
The artifacts gameplay has also carried over: you can use three per level and they're varied: more wood, more food, more gold, longer bonus, elements getting resplenished faster, more ressources after using an element, etc..
And the new gameplay element? Well, it's crafting: for example, you'll need textile and wood to make beach chairs. Or for a dress, you need food and textile. Or even better, you need crystals (which is not a ressource like food, fame, wood or gold) from the fairies houses and food to craft... gold! Anyway, I'm letting you discover what you can craft. That element can be quite disconcerting because you're not always thinking about crafting what you need. And well, to reach now level 3 sawmills, forges or mills, you'll need to craft a piece of decoration...
That gameplay changes a little when you're the demon: you need to cast a spell on workers - every level begins by that if you want more of them. You need to destroy what was build though you're not really immune to the enemies like ghosts, which are really a common enemy between Victor and the demon. The moon is way more present when you're the demon than in the normal game.
Anyway, now, Olivia has a more active role and is even sometimes the sole heroin (at the beginning but also when the demon messes the couple up, with Victor on one side and Olivia on another). She has the same role as Victor: only needed for specific tasks.
The graphics are still cartoonish, which is nice and the soundtrack is fitting.
Weather Lord: Royal Holidays is a great game, though now more complex with the crafting side. I loved the demon's story and the fact that a new weather element was found: the moon. There is however a negative point: the last achievement is still bugged and I was victim of it, even if a patch was apparently released.
Really, now, I'm just waiting for Graduation to arrive on Steam, because it's the next generation of gifted people who will be featured...
