Graphics

Perfectly Average

The graphics in Majesty can't really be called disappointing, since that would assume we expected a lot from them. The game is perfectly average in this regard, though for different reasons than you might expect. When looking at screenshots, it seems very impressive - as good as Baldur's Gate, for example. The graphics are quite bright and colorful, in a typical high-fantasy style. Everything is clean and meticulous. The castle and other buildings are beautifully designed yet still retain an aura of believability. In fact, the only drawback that can be spotted from the screenshots is that the sense of scale isn't quite right. Characters are too big in proportion to the buildings, but that doesn't really interfere. We'd rather have big characters that are easily selected, rather than tiny, hard to click targets *cough*zerglings*cough*.

1000 gold prize for whoever destroys that keep!

Sewers? Eww...

So where is this problem that drags the graphical effort down to average? Is it the tiling method that the game uses for terrain generation? Nope. In fact, tiling works remarkably well in Majesty. We were impressed with what Warlords: Battlecry offered, but Majesty is way ahead of that. While our beta of Warlords used a good variety of large tiles to create a smooth, unique-looking world, Majesty appears to use smaller tiles but with extras that can be put on top of those. StarCraft map designers might recognize those as "doodads". No, we were quite impressed with the terrain in Majesty.

Thieves 'n Rangers gang up on a bug

Better Weapons needed

The Fault

Where Majesty's graphics fall apart is in the animation department. There are a few interesting animations - namely the construction of magical buildings - but other than that it's pretty disappointing. Characters, magic and adventurers all move in slightly choppy, repetitive motions. That is tedious enough to look at as it is, then you realize that every creature of any give type looks absolutely alike. It seems like Cyberlore digs George Lucas' Clone Wars idea a little too much.

WTF is that?!

Another target goes down

The animation is at its worst when in combat. When seeing the ranger in action with his bow, we had this awful feeling of deja vu. We knew we had seen this before somewhere - then it struck us. The ranger almost looked like an archer from SSI's old Gold Box series of AD&D games. Sure, the graphics were updated, but the rigid stance, the mechanical motions, the two frames of animation - it's all there. If Cyberlore wanted to pay homage to the old classics of yesteryear, there's a better way.