With a history spanning three decades, starting with their works on the likes of Mega Man Zero and branching out into a range of unique long-lived franchises such as the Gal Gun and Azure Striker series, Inti Creates has long enjoyed a reputation for tight, hand-crafted action that wears its retro influences proudly on its sleeve. But they are not a studio that just rests on its laurels; they do dabble in other projects. In 2026, the developer/publisher has opted to revive one of their old Japan-exclusive mobile titles from the 2010s, bringing it to PC and Consoles – this time a side-scrolling action RPG on the bones of a light city-builder… Kingdom’s Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster. Read on to find out if it is worth your time and money.
Kingdom’s Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster is a budget-priced adventure that follows the once-proud kingdom of Almacia flung headlong into a ruined future, its fairies scattered to the winds and only the Fairy of Time, Chronos, left to guide your adventurer as you set about rebuilding what was lost. It is a premise brimming with possibility, and the studio’s pedigree only sweetens the anticipation. But does this particular blend of swords, spells and stat-boosting structures rise to the occasion, or does it play things a touch too safe for its own good? For all its promise, the story is where Kingdom’s Return shows its hand earliest. There is a setup here, dutifully delivered across the opening stretch, but it is a thin and largely weightless affair that struggles to give you any real reason to care. Your adventurer is a silent cipher, addressed by all and sundry as little more than “the adventurer”, and the supporting cast fares little better. The writing musters the odd light-hearted moment, and Chronos is a pleasant enough companion, but after that front-loaded burst of exposition, the plot all but vanishes for long stretches, only to resurface much later with little of the emotional payoff it seems to be reaching for. It is the kind of narrative that exists because the genre expects one, rather than because it has anything pressing to say.
Thankfully, the presentation picks up much of the slack. Visually, this is easily the game at its best, all bright and cheerful pixel art in that classic 16-bit cartoon mould Inti Creates does so well, with sprites with plenty of animation for each of the playable cast and clean, readable enemies that pop nicely against the colourful backdrops. Dialogue scenes swap the sprite work for a higher-fidelity, anime-inspired portrait style, while the isometric view used for your kingdom lends a tidy, albeit not particularly ambitious, visual identity of its own. The main downfall is that the aesthetic designs never tip into memorable territory, with the town and overworld in particular coming across as a little plain. The soundtrack follows much the same script, offering up a cheerful, fittingly fantastical accompaniment that suits the tone without ever demanding your attention.
Mechanically, Kingdom’s Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster splits itself neatly into two halves, and it is the side-scrolling action that is the stronger of the two. The loop is a familiar one: you accept a mission at your base of operations, set out across an isometric overworld dotted with roaming foes and the occasional dungeon, and make your way to your objective, where the real business of clearing room after room of enemies awaits. Each dungeon stacks several floors atop one another, ramping up the hazards as you descend before depositing you in front of a boss. The combat itself is where that trademark Inti Creates polish shines through, with a quick, punchy and responsive feel that makes simply wading into a pack of monsters satisfying in the moment.
You have four classes to pick from, each playing quite differently: the Imperial is a sturdy front-liner who leans on a shield and well-timed parries, the Wizard is your archetypal glass cannon lobbing spells from range, the Alchemist is a fiddlier sort who hurls status-inflicting flasks along an arc, and the Zipangu is a nippy melee specialist who carves through enemies with ease. The stages are scattered with clever little environmental flourishes and traps, and ultimately reward you for thinking on your feet rather than mashing buttons. Best of all are the boss encounters, which are far and away the highlight of the package, each a sizeable spectacle with its own distinct set of patterns to learn and pick apart. For all that the moment-to-moment combat feels good, it is the bigger picture where the cracks begin to show, and the chief culprit is repetition. Because every encounter boils down to clearing an area before you can move on, and because the enemy roster and your own movesets are fairly limited, that initially satisfying loop starts to wear thin.
The city-building, meanwhile, is the weaker of the two halves by some margin. In practice, it amounts to little more than plonking down buildings for the stat bonuses they confer, with roads strung between them to squeeze out a touch extra, alongside an arbitrary cap on how much you can construct (tied to your castle’s level, which is itself gated behind the game’s story. There is no real sense of a living settlement taking shape, and the remaining supporting systems do little to help, with an overworld that mostly just saps the pacing, copy-and-paste village side quests, and a stingy three-potion limit per outing in a game that will not even let you buy items in town.
Kingdom’s Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster sits in that space where it isn’t a revolutionary experience – it is a rebirth of a mobile game from a time when mobile games were still fresh on the market. However, for its price, it is a perfectly competent game, and a pretty one too, with combat that feels good in the hand and a run of boss fights that truly impress. As it stands, this is a title best suited to newcomers and more casual players, those who love the aesthetic, and anyone after something undemanding to enjoy in short bursts (or a few meatier, longer bursts). Plus, in a time when games can be quite pricey, the asking price of $17.95 AUD (may vary by storefront) is definitely great value for what you are getting.
Final Score for Kingdom’s Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster
This review was based on the PlayStation 5 version of this game, with a digital code provided by Inti Creates to facilitate the review.
Kingdom’s Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster is now available for the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam.
