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Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster

Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster Game Cover
58%Game Brain Score
Most mentioned positive aspects:graphics, emotional
Most mentioned negative aspects:gameplay, story
65% User Score Based on 31 reviews
Critic Score 66%Based on 5 reviews

Platforms

Nintendo SwitchXbox Series X|SPCPlaystation 5Playstation 4XboxWindowsPlayStationNintendo Switch 2
Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster Game Cover

About Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster

Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster is a single player city builder game with fantasy and anime themes. It was developed by INTI CREATES CO., LTD. and was released on April 23, 2026. It received mostly positive reviews from both critics and players.

A kingdom-rebuilding adventure filled with action and strategy! Kingdom's Return is an action RPG where you'll adventure to restore your fallen kingdom. Collect materials in 2D side-scrolling adventure stages, then use them in the strategy part to rebuild your kingdom and power up your characters!

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Looking for games like Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster? Here are top city builder recommendations with a fantasy and anime focus, selected from player-similarity data — start with Dragon Marked For Death, Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune or Rogue Wizards.

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Reviews

65%Audience ScoreBased on 31 reviews
graphics3 positive mentions
story4 negative mentions

  • Charming and cute pixel art with well-animated sprites and a pleasant soundtrack.
  • Fun and engaging combat system with multiple playable characters, each having unique playstyles and skills.
  • Enjoyable city-building mechanic that provides some strategic element and stat boosts, making the gameplay loop satisfying for short sessions.
  • Combat controls feel stiff, unresponsive, and repetitive, leading to a tedious and sometimes unfair experience.
  • City-building and upgrade systems are underdeveloped and lack meaningful impact, with many buildings being purely decorative and limited stat bonuses.
  • The game suffers from lack of content, shallow story, poor class balance, repetitive enemies, and excessive victory animations that hurt game pacing.
  • gameplay

    27 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    15% positive mentions, 70% neutral mentions, 15% negative mentions

    The gameplay offers a simple, skill-based action loop focused on attacking and blocking with modest variety across four characters, though it can feel repetitive and lacks depth. While the town-building mechanic adds a strategic layer, it often feels underdeveloped and largely inconsequential to overall gameplay. Overall, it provides casual fun but may not satisfy players seeking challenge, variety, or a richer gameplay experience.

    • “I enjoyed the knight character because they have a parry mechanic, and it feels great to play especially as you unlock more abilities.”
    • “The gameplay loop involves completing different quests by exploring procedurally generated 2D levels, allowing you to improve your city and your characters.”
    • “4 characters with each having their own gameplay style for better and for worse.”
    • “The gameplay loop gets old fast.”
    • “Its main mechanic is lobbing potions that have an arc that's just large enough to be annoying to use, only 2 of its chemical shots are any good, and its skills are all either impractical to use in stages because of their cost or useless for boss fights because of their very low hitboxes.”
    • “This game is like 2 hours of content stretched into 7-8 in the worst way possible, like genuinely the core gameplay is fine, not exceptional and they made some weird decisions about mobility, but it's way too simple for its length but it didn't have to be this long, if this was the 7-ish dungeons back to back with one of each of the boss fights sprinkled I'd probably tell you to play it but it's like every dungeon is split into 3+ quests and you have to walk back through the overworld every time you do another one, then redo a fist full of rooms before getting to the new ones, and it's like at every turn they try to milk what little content they have for as much playtime as possible and it's just profoundly tedious for no reason.”
  • story

    24 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    13% positive mentions, 70% neutral mentions, 17% negative mentions

    The story is generally regarded as basic, thin, and lacking depth, with sparse dialogue and repetitive, simple quests that offer little narrative progression. While it has some comedic elements and semi-serious undertones, the plot feels stretched over repetitive gameplay, making it unengaging for those seeking a rich or challenging story experience. Overall, the narrative serves mainly as a backdrop to the gameplay rather than a compelling driving force.

    • “The gameplay is simple and the story is not particularly deep, but I feel the title achieves what it sets out to do well.”
    • “You basically play missions and gather materials from mobs/bosses in order to level up your land and character class.”
    • “The gameplay loop involves completing different quests by exploring procedurally generated 2D levels, allowing you to improve your city and your characters.”
    • “And the story is very bare bones, and while the idea of building the city works and can be fun, it lacks depth.”
    • “The story is boring and thin, the time to kill is all jacked up, the character gameplay is not very good, and the town building is far too basic to be interesting.”
    • “This last part is just a personal opinion as someone who tries a lot of free-to-play games but the way the game has an immense amount of dialogue to basically tell you the boring backstory of the game as if it were going to be interesting to anyone whose played any game at all ever. The tutorial is also slow and wordy for no reason to the point where it feels like a badly designed gacha game.”
  • graphics

    7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    43% positive mentions, 57% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The game features charming and cute pixel art with well-animated graphics that evoke a nostalgic retro style. While the mix of modern art and pixel art may feel somewhat unrefined to some, the overall art direction is praised for its beauty and appealing presentation. Fans of classic pixel graphics will appreciate the game's delightful visuals and artistic craftsmanship.

    • “+ Cute artwork and amazing pixel graphics - leave it to Inti to master their retro graphics craft like always!”
    • “I almost forgot to point this out, this game has some beautiful artworks, the art direction folks did an amazing work here.”
    • “The artstyle is very cute and the pixel art is well animated.”
  • grinding

    6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    Grinding in this game is generally seen as tedious and overly drawn out, with repetitive dungeon layouts and forced backtracking that stretch limited content unnecessarily. While some find it tolerable if approached with low expectations or as a simple farming experience, the unresponsive controls and disruptive gameplay moments diminish the enjoyment of grinding. Overall, the grind feels like it pads playtime rather than enhancing it.

    • “This game feels like 2 hours of content stretched into 7-8 in the worst way possible. The core gameplay is fine but overly simple for its length. Each dungeon is split into 3+ quests, requiring repeated backtracking and redoing rooms, making the experience profoundly tedious as the game tries to milk what little content it has for playtime.”
    • “If only the grind weren't impacted by the annoying victory flow-breaking moments. Playing as Zipango could make farming mobs feel fun, but the way it is now, the grind just isn't worth the time.”
    • “The core idea of the game had potential, but issues with the grind and combat feel prevent it from becoming a satisfying farming experience.”
  • music

    6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    50% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 50% negative mentions

    The music is generally upbeat and pleasant, complementing the game's atmosphere without being particularly memorable or groundbreaking. While some find the soundtrack enjoyable and fitting, others feel that the most frequently heard tracks are lackluster. Overall, the music serves its purpose but doesn't stand out significantly.

    • “The music is kept pretty upbeat throughout and while this is not ground-breaking stuff it's at the very least an entertaining little base building action RPG.”
    • “Consistently pleasant music and sound effects.”
    • “Graphics are really cute, and the soundtrack is also good.”
    • “None of the music really stuck out to me and unfortunately the music you end up hearing the most is just plain bad to me.”
    • “None of the music really stuck out to me and unfortunately the music you end up hearing the most is just plain bad to me.”
    • “The music is kept pretty upbeat throughout but this is not ground-breaking stuff; it's at best an entertaining little base-building action RPG.”
  • emotional

    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The emotional aspect is weakened by a lack of meaningful incentives tied to character classes, resulting in minimal engagement or attachment. Players feel little motivation to explore different identities, diminishing the game's emotional impact.

  • replayability

    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    The game offers low replayability due to minimal postgame content and limited incentives to return. While the DLC primarily consists of cosmetic skins, they lack the value and unique gameplay additions seen in comparable titles, reducing motivation for extended play.

    • “Low (if not no) replay value and lack of postgame content that make you want to come back for more.”
    • “They're obviously just skins but for skins, they're not worth the money.”
  • monetization

    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    The monetization is perceived as a cash grab, with the game feeling like a quickly made, less polished release compared to Inti Creates' major titles. While not overtly offensive, it lacks lasting appeal and fails to engage players deeply.

    • “I'm very familiar with Inti Creates games and I'm almost certain they have a specific pattern to their games where for every majorly good game they release, they release some game that could have been made by someone with Unity in a few days and is just a cash grab.”
    • “This is a cash grab release game. Nothing majorly offensive but overtly not a game anyone is going to fall in love with. You'll play it and get bored. I only have 22 minutes on the full release but the demo did not sell me on it either.”
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Frequently Asked Questions

Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster is a city builder game with fantasy and anime themes. Common tags for Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster include trading, 2d, pixel graphics, action rpg and cute.

Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster is available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5 and others.

Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster was released on April 23, 2026.

Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster was developed by INTI CREATES CO., LTD..

Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster has received mostly positive reviews from both players and critics. Most players liked Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster for its graphics but disliked it for its gameplay.

Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster is a single player game.

Similar games include Dragon Marked For Death, Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune, Rogue Wizards, The Slormancer, Cuisineer and others.