Judgement: Recommended
View review on Steam
(This game was a gift from a friend)
Before I begin the review, a word of warning to Completists: "The Explorer" achievement is broken in the current game version. There are several instructions on how to download previous versions of the game on the Crowntakers steam forum, but if you don't feel like jumping through hoops then give this game a skip.
As for the game itself:
Crowntakers is a very simple game. Your adventure takes place on a hex grid where you walk from location to location usually searching buildings. There are a lot of unique blurbs and situations at these locations, but due to its roguelike nature it's inevitable (especially with how many times you have to play through it) that you will see the same ones multiple times.
Fights are always visible on the maps (save for location fights) and you have the option to bribe your enemies to get past without fighting, although it's inadvisable to do so unless you're playing on Easy and have already maxed your mercenaries' levels.
The game's RNG can be absolutely brutal though:
• It tends to run in the enemy's favor: 95% chance for you to hit? Too bad, the enemy dodged both attacks. Your attack does 4-7 damage and the enemy has 5 health? Minimum damage.
• More often than not, your ranged units will spawn directly next to enemy melee units, forcing you to either move away or attempt to attack a unit farther away, both of which incur attacks of opportunity, OR use up either an invisibility potion or a teleportation potion in order to move away without an AoO.
• Stat points on level up are also random, you get Health, Strength, Crit %, and Dodge % but you only get two choices and which ones you get to choose from are random.
There are also some balancing issues. Want to absolutely wipe the floor every battle? All you need are Theogal with Taunt and Zoe. Bonus points if you arm Zoe with a weapon rune where her attacks never miss and a ring rune where her abilities don't cost AP. Bam, everything's dead in the first two rounds.
As for the game itself, the graphics are cute, the music is fairly enjoyable, and the story is... okay. There are two different endings depending on when you arrive at the castle, and the journey itself has several random encounters, but it gets tedious chasing after every achievement. The game itself is really only 5-7 hours long, but that can stretch ad infinitum if you're unlucky. It took 33 hours to complete "The Philanthropist" simply because whichever quests I was missing hadn't spawned in prior runs.
As for bugs, other than the aforementioned broken achievement, there's also an issue in the battles: when you kill an enemy unit with a debuff on them—like stun, bleed, or poison—the animation for the effect stays even after the unit disappears. Otherwise it's a fairly bug-free experience.
Overall, I'd recommend it to someone who enjoys Turn-Based strategy games, but warn against it if you're an achievement hunter.
Before I begin the review, a word of warning to Completists: "The Explorer" achievement is broken in the current game version. There are several instructions on how to download previous versions of the game on the Crowntakers steam forum, but if you don't feel like jumping through hoops then give this game a skip.
As for the game itself:
Crowntakers is a very simple game. Your adventure takes place on a hex grid where you walk from location to location usually searching buildings. There are a lot of unique blurbs and situations at these locations, but due to its roguelike nature it's inevitable (especially with how many times you have to play through it) that you will see the same ones multiple times.
Fights are always visible on the maps (save for location fights) and you have the option to bribe your enemies to get past without fighting, although it's inadvisable to do so unless you're playing on Easy and have already maxed your mercenaries' levels.
The game's RNG can be absolutely brutal though:
• It tends to run in the enemy's favor: 95% chance for you to hit? Too bad, the enemy dodged both attacks. Your attack does 4-7 damage and the enemy has 5 health? Minimum damage.
• More often than not, your ranged units will spawn directly next to enemy melee units, forcing you to either move away or attempt to attack a unit farther away, both of which incur attacks of opportunity, OR use up either an invisibility potion or a teleportation potion in order to move away without an AoO.
• Stat points on level up are also random, you get Health, Strength, Crit %, and Dodge % but you only get two choices and which ones you get to choose from are random.
There are also some balancing issues. Want to absolutely wipe the floor every battle? All you need are Theogal with Taunt and Zoe. Bonus points if you arm Zoe with a weapon rune where her attacks never miss and a ring rune where her abilities don't cost AP. Bam, everything's dead in the first two rounds.
As for the game itself, the graphics are cute, the music is fairly enjoyable, and the story is... okay. There are two different endings depending on when you arrive at the castle, and the journey itself has several random encounters, but it gets tedious chasing after every achievement. The game itself is really only 5-7 hours long, but that can stretch ad infinitum if you're unlucky. It took 33 hours to complete "The Philanthropist" simply because whichever quests I was missing hadn't spawned in prior runs.
As for bugs, other than the aforementioned broken achievement, there's also an issue in the battles: when you kill an enemy unit with a debuff on them—like stun, bleed, or poison—the animation for the effect stays even after the unit disappears. Otherwise it's a fairly bug-free experience.
Overall, I'd recommend it to someone who enjoys Turn-Based strategy games, but warn against it if you're an achievement hunter.
Review posted on 14/12/2020, 18:06:00.