Info about Crown Wars: The Black Prince:

Official game description:
SACRED EDITION
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About the Game
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Release date: 23 May, 2024

Categories: Turn-based Strategy, Tactical Combat, Base Building, Resource Management, Character Customization, Weapon Customization, Squad Management, Single-player Story


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Similar to X-COM, medieval setting (weight 0.75): 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 (weight 0.52): 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 (weight 0.27): 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 (weight 0.26): 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 (weight 0.26): 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.
- Developers actively patching and improving (weight 0.18): The developers have actively addressed bugs and issues, improving the game's stability and playability. Patches have fixed game-breaking bugs, control issues, and balance problems. This ongoing support enhances the overall player experience.
- Good voice acting and story (weight 0.07): The game features good voice acting, particularly the French voiceovers, which some reviewers prefer. The story is well-told, and the soundtrack enhances the immersive experience. These elements contribute to the overall quality of the game's presentation.
- Promising and strong start (weight 0.07): The game has a promising start with enjoyable initial progression and a strong story. Reviewers are delighted with the early chapters and find the game increasingly interesting. This positive initial experience sets a good foundation for the rest of the game.
- Appealing Hundred Years' War setting (weight 0.06): The game is set in the Hundred Years' War, which many reviewers find appealing and fresh. The medieval setting enhances the overall experience and provides a unique backdrop for the gameplay. This setting is a significant positive for many players.
- Classes are unique and diversified (weight 0.06): Each class offers unique abilities and roles, adding variety and strategic depth to combat. Reviewers appreciate the distinctiveness of the classes and the ability to experiment with different team compositions. This diversity enhances the tactical possibilities in battles.
- Death and wound systems add depth (weight 0.05): The game incorporates mechanics that support the idea of units dying and needing replacement, fitting the setting. The wound system prevents permanent character deaths, adding a layer of depth to combat. Boss fights require strategic thinking due to their high health.
- Cool and satisfying finishing moves (weight 0.04): The game features cool and satisfying finishing moves. Reviewers enjoy the brutal cinematics and the option to skip them. These finishing moves add a unique element to the combat experience.
- Late-game improvements and features (weight 0.04): The game includes special weapons that alleviate late-game tedium. The final story chapters introduce significant changes to the gameplay, improving the overall experience. The shared equipment system is convenient for managing a large number of characters.
- Stable and playable (weight 0.03): The game is stable and playable, with reviewers experiencing no crashes or game-breaking bugs. This stability ensures a smooth and enjoyable gameplay experience. This is a basic expectation, but important for overall satisfaction.

Common complaints:
- Unbalanced and artificial difficulty (weight 0.88): 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 (weight 0.68): 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 (weight 0.39): 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 (weight 0.27): 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 (weight 0.25): 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.
- Unoriginal and disappointing gameplay (weight 0.21): The game fails to stand out in the tactical RPG genre and is often compared unfavorably to other titles like XCOM and Wartales. Reviewers express disappointment with the game's lack of originality and overall quality, especially considering its price.
- Limited character customization (weight 0.16): The game offers limited options for character customization, with a lack of variety in armor, weapons, and cosmetics. This makes it difficult for players to create unique characters and feel a sense of progression.
- Clunky movement and controls (weight 0.13): The game features clunky and frustrating movement mechanics, including slow character movement, restrictive controls, and a lack of quality-of-life features. This makes navigating the game world and positioning units in combat a tedious experience.
- Excessive status effect stacking (weight 0.06): The game features excessive status effect stacking, leading to significant health loss and requiring players to focus on healing. This, combined with limited potions and overwhelming enemy numbers, creates a frustrating and unbalanced combat experience.

Gameplay feedback:
- Medieval XCOM-like gameplay (weight 0.24): 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 (weight 0.22): 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 (weight 0.2): 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 (weight 0.15): 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 (weight 0.11): 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.
- Squad customization and management (weight 0.08): Players can customize their squads with cosmetic options, manage their inventories, and upgrade their soldiers. Injured characters require recovery time, encouraging players to manage multiple squads. The game offers a decent level of customization without excessive micromanagement.
- Competent, but inconsistent AI (weight 0.07): The game's AI is generally competent, flanking players, targeting weak units, and using abilities effectively. However, some reviewers note inconsistencies in how the AI adheres to game mechanics compared to the player. Mission difficulty can vary significantly, with some missions being particularly challenging due to enemy spawns and positioning.
- Flexible action point system (weight 0.03): The game uses a one-move/two-action point system, which provides flexibility in tactical decision-making. This system allows for the development of diverse combat strategies. Tactical combat is a core element of the game.
- Squad composition and unit types (weight 0.03): Players start with a squad of four soldiers, which can be expanded to six later in the game. The game features a variety of unit types, including archers, crusaders, tamers, and assassins. Players form parties to complete randomly generated missions.

Performance notes:
- Stable performance for some users (weight 0.11): 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 (weight 0.03): 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 (weight 0.03): 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 (weight 0.01): 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.

Recommendations:
- Needs polish, fixes, balancing (weight 0.93): 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 (weight 0.78): 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 (weight 0.73): 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 (weight 0.11): 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 (weight 0.04): 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.
- Dislike timers, reinforcements (weight 0.01): Some reviewers dislike the arbitrary countdown timers and unlimited reinforcement waves, especially on medium difficulty. They suggest removing or limiting these features to improve the gameplay experience.
- Mod support would help (weight 0.01): Some reviewers believe that mod support would greatly enhance the game, allowing players to customize their experience and address some of the game's shortcomings.
- Camera controls cause fatigue (weight 0.01): One reviewer mentions that the camera controls cause fatigue, suggesting that improvements to the camera system could enhance the player experience.
- Unprepared for 6v50? Don't buy (weight 0.01): One reviewer recommends against buying the game if the player is not prepared to play 6 against 50, and advises anyone over 21 not to purchase the game. This point shows signs of review bombing and lacks specific details.

Other player notes:
- Unfinished, but developers responsive (weight 0.08): 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 (weight 0.04): 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 (weight 0.03): 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 (weight 0.02): 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 (weight 0.02): Tooltips explaining buffs/debuffs and how to increase domain level are missing. This makes it difficult to understand their effects and game mechanics.
- Insufficient player guidance (weight 0.02): The strategy guide is more of a manual, lacking mission walkthroughs or information about chapters/bosses, and the tutorial is lean. This suggests that the game may lack sufficient guidance for players.
- Inspired by strategy games (weight 0.02): The game draws inspiration from XCOM, Battle Brothers, Darkest Dungeon, and Othercide. The player leads a Crusade-like organization against enemies infiltrating five factions.
- Families and unlockable content (weight 0.02): Players choose from four families with unique starting bonuses that impact the adventure. Unique weapons and new unit types unlock as the game progresses.
- Replayability through random battles (weight 0.02): While the story and some battles are scripted, random battles and class selection can make playthroughs different. This adds replayability to the game.
- Bears can't use stairs (weight 0.01): Bears have difficulty navigating stairs. This is a specific bug.
- Resembles WarTales (weight 0.01): The reviewer feels the game is a rehash of WarTales with similar art and models. This suggests a lack of originality.
- Camp is the player headquarters (weight 0.01): The player's camp serves as a headquarters where they can launch missions, buy units, heal wounded soldiers, imprison enemies, and craft weapons; the camp evolves as the main mission progresses.
- Character appearance customization desired (weight 0.01): The reviewer noted the presence of women in heavy armor and with heavy weapons, viewing it as a nod to modern social trends, but expressed a desire to alter their appearance in-game.

Emotions:
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