Crown Wars: The Black Prince Review Summary

Similar to X-COM, medieval setting: The game is frequently compared to X-COM, with reviewers noting similar tactical gameplay and strategic elements. The medieval setting is a welcome change for many, enhancing the experience. Many reviewers who enjoy X-COM or similar turn-based strategy games will likely enjoy this title.

Fun, engaging, and enjoyable gameplay: Many reviewers express general enjoyment of the game, highlighting its engaging gameplay, interesting mechanics, and overall appeal. The game is often described as fun, addictive, and well-rounded, with a solid core concept and setting. These points indicate a positive reception and a satisfying player experience.

Appealing graphics and detailed animations: The game has appealing graphics, a pleasant art style, and detailed animations. Reviewers appreciate the visual polish and immersive environments. The kill animations and character models are particularly well-done, enhancing the overall experience.

Challenging and strategic tactical combat: The game features thoughtful and challenging tactical combat with a balanced difficulty curve. Unit positioning and strategic thinking are important for success. The AI is competent, making the game feel fair and engaging.

Extensive character and weapon customization: The game offers extensive options for customizing characters, weapons, and armor. Reviewers appreciate the ability to create unique companions with tactical gear and visual identities. This customization adds depth and variety to the gameplay experience.

Unbalanced and artificial difficulty: The game's difficulty is inconsistent and often feels artificially inflated. Players report unbalanced encounters, overpowered enemies, and frustrating mechanics like turn timers and excessive reinforcements, leading to a frustrating experience.

Repetitive missions and grinding: The game suffers from significant repetition due to limited mission types, enemy variety, and map reuse. This leads to a monotonous gameplay loop focused on grinding resources and upgrades, diminishing long-term engagement.

Frequent crashes and bugs: Players have reported frequent crashes, freezes, and game-breaking bugs that disrupt gameplay and can lead to lost progress. Some reviewers also mention a lack of developer support in addressing these issues.

Weak story and presentation: The game's story and presentation are weak, with unengaging plots, wooden voice acting, and a lack of compelling visual effects. This makes it difficult for players to connect with the game's world and characters.

Flawed combat mechanics: The game's combat mechanics are flawed, with unrealistic scenarios, poor pathfinding, and a lack of tactical depth. This results in uninspired and repetitive battles where strategic decisions have minimal impact.

Medieval XCOM-like gameplay: The game is frequently compared to XCOM due to its turn-based tactical combat, base management, and strategic elements. It successfully translates the XCOM formula to a medieval setting, incorporating elements of low fantasy and historical warfare. The core gameplay loop and mechanics strongly resemble those found in the XCOM series.

Varied, but repetitive missions: Missions consist of both story-driven and procedurally generated content, including objectives like rescue, assassination, escort, and defense. Some reviews mention repetition and limited variety in mission types. Some missions have turn limits, requiring efficient tactical planning.

Base-building and resource management: The game incorporates resource management, base building, and character progression systems. Players upgrade buildings to unlock better equipment, recruit higher-level characters, and improve research capabilities. However, some reviewers find the base-building aspects uninspired or lacking depth compared to similar games.

Varied classes and weapon skills: The game features a class-based system with six distinct classes, each capable of wielding various weapon types. Weapon choice significantly impacts a character's skill set, offering diverse career paths and squad compositions. While the classes offer variety, some skill choices within each class may be less viable than others.

Simple weapon skill progression: The game features a skill system tied to weapon proficiency, requiring players to invest resources and grind to unlock new abilities. Weapon and armor upgrades primarily increase stats, without significantly altering combat strategies. This system is considered simple, and some find the grind repetitive.

Stable performance for some users: Some players report a smooth and stable experience, with good performance and no crashes. These positive experiences often correlate with mid-range to high-end PC configurations, suggesting that the game's performance may vary significantly depending on hardware.

Framerate capped at 60fps: The game's framerate is capped, with some reviewers noting a 60fps limit. This may be a deliberate design choice, but it's worth noting as it can affect the perceived smoothness of the game, especially on higher-end systems capable of higher framerates.

High resource consumption: The game appears to be resource-intensive, drawing a lot of power and heavily utilizing the GPU, even in less demanding scenes. This could lead to increased power consumption and potentially higher temperatures, especially on less powerful systems or handheld devices like the Steam Deck.

Lag during combat calculations: One reviewer described an issue where the game attempts to calculate damage or animation details prematurely, resulting in lag. This suggests a problem with the game's combat calculation or animation system.

Needs polish, fixes, balancing: Many reviewers feel the game needs more polish, bug fixes, and rebalancing before it can be recommended. Some suggest waiting for patches or sales, while others advise against purchasing it in its current state, even after multiple updates. Several reviewers directly compare the game unfavorably to XCOM or Wartales.

Similar to/inferior to XCOM: The game is frequently compared to XCOM, with some reviewers recommending it to fans of the XCOM series or medieval-themed strategy games. However, some reviewers suggest that XCOM or similar games are better alternatives, while others find that it scratches a similar itch but doesn't innovate much beyond the XCOM formula.

Overpriced; wait for sale: Many reviewers suggest the game is overpriced for its current state and recommend waiting for a sale or discount before purchasing. Some provide specific price points they believe are more appropriate, while others suggest that the game is only worth buying at a significant discount.

Enjoyable despite shortcomings: Despite its flaws, some reviewers find the game enjoyable or promising, particularly for fans of the genre. They appreciate the setting, tactical gameplay, and potential for future improvements, but acknowledge that it may not appeal to all players.

Alternatives: King Arthur, Wartales: Some reviewers recommend King Arthur: Knight's Tale or Wartales as superior alternatives, citing better combat, performance, and overall quality. These games are seen as better options for those seeking a similar medieval tactical RPG experience.

Unfinished, but developers responsive: The game is considered unfinished with some bugs, but the developers are actively addressing feedback and releasing patches. This indicates a potentially promising but currently flawed early access experience.

Hundred Years' War setting: The game is set during the Hundred Years' War, which provides an informative historical context. This setting focuses on the conflict between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of France.

Magic detracts from accuracy: The game is set in a dark medieval world where magic is rare and specific, but its inclusion detracts from historical accuracy. This may be a point of contention for players seeking a historically authentic experience.

Steam features supported: The game includes achievements, cloud saving, overlay screenshot capture, and mostly compatible controller support on Steam. It also supports ultra-wide resolutions (5120x1440).

Missing tooltips hinder understanding: Tooltips explaining buffs/debuffs and how to increase domain level are missing. This makes it difficult to understand their effects and game mechanics.