Note: This is a copy of my review for the previous "The Leviathan's fantasy" Steam Store page. The review was originally published on 23 March, 2024 after 76.4 hours of game time. In total i played the previous incarnation of the game 128.5 hours.

TL;DR: The Leviathan's Fantasy is an interesting blend of a city builder with RTS, RPG and simulation elements that has you simultaneously build a city and control groups of adventurers. Building your city will strengthen your adventurers, who will in turn provide you with resources to expand your city. There is a surprisingly sizeable amount of interlinking game systems and progression implemented which will have you expand a city over many hours of game play.

For those interested it is best to treat the title as an early access title. The game is as of writing still being very actively developed but equally has a truly staggering amount of bugs for a title not marked as early access. Aside from a specific crash i had to work around none of these were game breaking, but if you are a player with low tolerance for jank wish-listing the game and checking back later may be advisable.

For me the sheer fun i have with the game more than offsets the wobbliness of the games technical underpinnings though.

In The Leviathan's Fantasy you thematically take the role of a Leviathan who floats around a shattered land consisting of floating islands. The premise is that there islands have been corrupted, and it is your task to cleanse them of Chaos Energy in order to restore the world.

In order to achieve this the game is divided in two sections which are managed seamlessly. As the Leviathan you manage the city that is being build on your back; In this city building mode you're expanding your city to produce more gear and amnesties so that you can woe adventurers and tourists to your cause. These adventurers are then used in the RPG / RTS part of the game, where you visit various islands to explore and exploit for resources. The adventurers themselves are only indirectly controlled by means of so called "Bounties" the leviathan can offer, for example for killing a group of NPC's or guarding a set area. This will in turn allow the adventurers to loot resources they can sell in an trading system, which the Leviathan can access in order to purchase resources that can expand the city.

The main loop of the game is centered around the interaction between these two game modes: Your adventurers act as semi independent agents that provide resources for your city, and in turn your city expands and produces gear and other amnesties for these adventurers to take on ever stronger islands and foes.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the game is the sheer amount of systems the developers squeezed in that are used to improve your town and adventurers.

You can have your 50+ adventurers run around your city and have them equip themselves with gear and armor (Purchased from your shops using their quest reward payouts) but it is equally possible to micromanage this if desired. For each adventurer you can manage their individual gear pieces, skills, bloodline, mount and essentially everything else that defines them as a combat unit. While not at all required this level of control can help make a city feel truly "yours" by having a group of unique adventurers as opposed to a bunch of predefined combat units that are carbon copies of each other.

Aside from managing adventurers the game also features a research system, crafting system, collection system and a bunch of other options that allows you to stack ever more bonuses on yourself and your adventurers. In practice i found there is pretty much always something to improve in the town or the games systems while your adventurers are busy cleaning a island. The balance between city builder and RTS feels quite well done. I find myself being relatively free to choose what to focus on at any given time: Either by expanding the city and have the adventurers work in the background on a set of bounties, or by managing my adventurer in detail and have the city chug out material in the background.

Something i also rather appreciate, is that the game ties city decorations to in game bonuses. This means that there is actually an incentive to beautify a city, rather that it being mere fluff (Or worse: A drain of resources for no benefit). And for those who don't enjoy working on decorating: Plonking them down wherever you fancy also works just fine.

A somewhat special mention is the games chat system. As part of the gameplay your adventurers are constantly chattering in a MMO inspired chat that you as the leviathan can listen in to. Part of these conversations are set pieces that can be interesting to listen to (Though they eventually start to repeat), but more useful part is that the adventurers comment on the state of your city and your actions. Building a new shop or production building has the adventurers comment on it. Equally they will start conversations about the lack of entertainment, beds, the great food or anything else that catches their fancy. It's a rather immersive method to communicate the state of your city and buildings, rather than using UI elements to display some numbers or charts on how your city is doing (Though the UI also contains elements to diagnose your cities state). It's not a stellar game system, but i rather enjoy the immersion it creates.

As with all games there are negative aspects to remark upon, and with The Leviathan's Fantasy it will be the myriad of bugs that are in the game. In the 75 hours i played the game the amount easily reached a double dozen that were fairly easily noticeable, and i am sure i would find plenty more if i were to start looking in detail at the numbers the game is running. In no particular order i found:

• The occasional translation issue.
  
• Adventurers getting stuck or falling trough the terrain.
  
• Costs for roads being incorrectly calculated.
  
• A situation where the camera gets stuck outside the games boundary and cannot be moved back inside.
  
• A situation where the games "City / Island" button stops switching between the city and island view.
  
• A hard crash where a quest is completed after switching to another island.
  
• Messages displaying part of text in Chinese or referring to elements using text such as "#Param0"
  
• Height map issues where all buildings are suddenly floating.
  
• Issues with town statistic calculations (Either these are incorrectly calculated during gameplay or after loading a save).
  
• ... And so on and on.

For the most part saving and reloading solved these issues, and the developers are actively updating the game to solve these. Even so the sheer amount of issues warrants mention. Aside from bugs i've also noticed some rather odd behavior in the game, as it appears every single UI element is tied to the main game loop. For example, if paused the game will briefly unpause in order to load and display an adventurers info screen every time you click on them. (Suggesting that this part of the game is somehow dependent on the main loop of the game running).

After playing the game for 75 hours i feel i have certainly got my moneys worth, especially since i am still playing it. I consider the game well worth the full asking price, and doubly so if you can find it at a discount. The developers are still expanding the game with new content and fixing bugs, both of which are to be commended.

A potential buyer should consider their tolerance for bugs and janky behaviour though, and probably treat the game similar as they would an early access title. If you can stomach issues there is a lot of fun to

An unique game that blends many different aspects.

Nice looking, a good amount of content, plenty to do, a bit niche, and a massive time sink.
A little rough around the edges with some quirky English translation (which gives it some extra charm, IMO).

Was previously delisted. Can confirm that the devs do indeed provide replacement keys, so you don't have to rebuy the relisted game.