Ming Dynasty Review

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Ming Dynasty is a unique free-to-play browser-based strategy game. As the name suggests, the game takes place in ancient China. You begin by choosing between one of three different clans. They all look different, but play the same.

The first thing you notice when playing Ming Dynasty is the sound and art design. Right away you’ll be pleased to hear an Asian sounding musical track. You may as well get used to this background music, as you will hear it a great deal over the course of your adventures. All of your clicks and button presses have a satisfying sound effect to them. This is great if you’re playing at home, but terrible if you’re trying to secretly play at work. The art is colorful, well drawn and fitting to the setting.

The writing is for the quests is not especially fitting to the setting. Quest givers give text descriptions of what they would like you to do in a casual tone unbefitting of an ancient Chinese society.

For example, one adviser said to me, “The emperor has everything in the palace. Let me check the gift. Well, it’s sealed. Thank you.” It’s not a terrible dialog, but it’s uninspired, brief, and in a simpler form than native English speakers use.

Your first tasks involve performing city-management tasks such as collecting taxes, hiring soldiers and upgrading buildings. Unlike other city-building games, you must move your character from building to building in order to perform these tasks. Having your character bounce from building to building as you perform tasks increases the feeling that you live in the city rather than rule it from on high, but it also slows down gameplay a great deal.

In your starting city you will find a cabinet of advisers to help you run your city. Unfortunately, these advisers have poorly written dialog and ask you to perform tedious tasks. Even collecting taxes is more trouble than it should be in Ming Dynasty. Thankfully, there is more than the strategic side of the game.

At any time you are free to pack up and leave your city behind. You can take your hero and whatever soldiers you trained to other areas of the world. You may visit a lumber mill and begin harvesting lumber, or you may visit a mine and begin mining. You can also visit a training ground and engage in drills to increase your combat abilities. All of these tasks require no input from the player and last for hours, so it’s best to do them right before you log off for the day.

The combat in Ming Dynasty is better than you would expect for a free-to-play browser game. When you enter combat, you watch as the two opposing forces move towards each other in turn-based combat. They swing attacks at each other until one side dies. The little battles are entertaining to watch, which is a good thing considering watching is the only activity you can do while the battles take place.

The superior combat makes up for the lack-luster city building. Fans of city-building free-to-play browser-based games have many more options at their fingertips, including Evony. However, the more direct control of the hero character in Ming Dynasty differentiates it from the competition.

One gameplay mechanic unique to Ming Dynasty is the random prizes which appear in the top left corner of the screen. Upon clicking them, you are often given a timer which you must wait through in order to collect your prize. This has the effect of forcing you to play an additional five or six minutes while you wait to see what your prize is.

As you advance in levels, Ming Dynasty allows you to own slaves, fight in daily challenges in Jia Yu pass, compete in arenas, and fight wars, but your ultimate goal is always to become stronger. Some multiplayer dynamics, such as being robbed, but most serve to draw you further into the game.

When all features are considered, Ming Dynasty brings a small amount of innovation to a genre with stiff competition. Players who demand their free-to-play games to have some audio will be pleased, but most others will wonder why this new game offers so little that is actually new.

Check Ming Dynaty Online Walkthrough, help and guide