9 Kings Review Summary

Addictive, fun, and replayable gameplay: The game is praised for its addictive gameplay loop, fun mechanics, and engaging content. Players enjoy experimenting with different strategies, discovering powerful combos, and breaking the game. Many reviewers mention the "just one more run" feeling, indicating high replayability and enjoyment.

Unique genre mix, charming aesthetics: The game is frequently described as a unique and enjoyable blend of genres, often combining roguelike, tower defense, deck-building, and autobattler elements. Reviewers appreciate the game's simple yet deep mechanics, strategic choices, and the satisfying feeling of progression. The charming pixel art style and engaging sound design further enhance the overall experience.

Diverse Kings offer varied gameplay: The variety of Kings significantly impacts gameplay, with each King offering unique abilities, playstyles, and strategic possibilities. Reviewers enjoy experimenting with different Kings, discovering new builds and synergies, and adapting their strategies to the King's strengths and weaknesses. This diversity adds depth and replayability to the game.

Extensive build variety and customization: The game offers a wide array of builds and playstyles, allowing players to experiment with different strategies and create overpowered combinations. Reviewers enjoy the flexibility and customization options, as well as the ability to test their builds in the endless mode. This build diversity contributes to the game's replayability and long-term engagement.

Strong core concept, high potential: The game has a strong core concept and a lot of potential, with reviewers praising its basic feel, flavor, and intuitive gameplay. The game excels at simplification, making it easy to get into and fun to play. The game's concept is great and has a lot of interesting ideas.

Frequent crashes and bugs: The game is plagued by frequent crashes, bugs, and performance issues, especially in later stages or with specific builds. These issues can lead to lost progress, frustration, and an unplayable experience. Many reviewers specifically mention crashes occurring with large numbers of units or high damage output.

Unbalanced difficulty scaling: The game's difficulty scaling is unbalanced, leading to either an experience that is too easy initially or spikes that are excessively difficult later on. Many reviewers feel that success relies too heavily on luck and specific builds, limiting strategic options and player agency, especially on higher difficulties.

Lacks content and replayability: The game suffers from a lack of content, variety, and replayability. Players desire more cards, kings, game modes, and events to keep the gameplay fresh and engaging. The limited content leads to repetitiveness and a feeling of having experienced everything the game has to offer too quickly.

Poor explanations and UI/UX: The game lacks sufficient explanation of its mechanics and provides a clunky user experience. Reviewers suggest more transparent tutorials, clearer card descriptions, and better UI/UX to improve player understanding and navigation.

Grindy, slow progression system: The game's progression system feels grindy and unrewarding, with slow leveling and limited perk options. Many reviewers feel that the meta-progression system requires excessive grinding and doesn't significantly impact gameplay, making it feel like a chore.

Unique blend of genres: The core gameplay loop involves turn-based kingdom building on a grid, card drafting, and real-time auto-battles. Players strategically place cards representing units, buildings, and spells to defend against waves of enemies. The game uniquely blends deck-building, tower defense, and roguelike elements.

RNG-heavy card draw system: The game relies heavily on RNG card draws, which can lead to inconsistent runs. Players draw and play one card at a time, which some reviewers feel limits deckbuilding strategy.

Multiple difficulties, endless mode: The game features multiple difficulty levels and an optional endless mode. The endless mode allows players to test the strength of their builds. Turns are calculated in years.

Buildings and decrees influence strength: The strength of troops, buildings, and abilities is influenced by buildings and royal decrees. Scaling is primarily achieved through buildings that buff units at the end of each round. During each year of reign, options include shop purchases, royal decrees, and declaring war/peace with other kings.

Acquire cards from defeated kings: Beating enemy waves allows players to acquire cards from the defeated king's pool, influencing the player's build. Players need to actively choose which lords to attack to get their cards as drops after defeating them. Kings focus on different aspects of the fight and the board phase, creating varied experiences.

Bug fixes and active updates: Some players report experiencing minor bugs, but the developers are actively addressing them with frequent updates and patches. Recent patches have improved game optimization and stability.

Good performance on various hardware: The game runs well on a variety of hardware, including the Steam Deck, Linux, integrated graphics, and low-end PCs. Some reviewers specifically praise the game's flawless performance on modest machines.

Excessive stat values/calculations: The game exhibits extremely high numerical values for stats like attack speed and damage, sometimes displaying incorrect values. These high values may contribute to performance issues.

Low resource utilization: The game client doesn't fully utilize available RAM and CPU power, which may contribute to performance bottlenecks.

Match start and stutter issues: The game sometimes gets stuck on the versus screen, failing to start the next match. Stuttering can also occur, creating the illusion of teleporting opponents.

Worth the price; Recommended: The game is highly recommended and considered worth its price. Reviewers highlight its addictiveness, replayability, and potential, often rating it highly and encouraging others to purchase it, citing it as a great value for the entertainment provided.

Anticipating future content/updates: Many reviewers are looking forward to future updates and content additions. They acknowledge the game's potential and express excitement about its continued development, hoping for improvements, new features, and a more complete experience in the full release.

Consider price and early access: The game's Early Access status and price point are significant factors in purchase recommendations. Some suggest buying it on sale or before a price increase, while others advise waiting for further development or a full release before investing, especially if the price is too high for the current content.

Recommended for genre enthusiasts: The game is frequently recommended to fans of specific genres like roguelikes, strategy, and deck-building games. Reviewers often draw comparisons to popular titles like Slay the Spire and Into the Breach, suggesting it appeals to players who enjoy similar mechanics and challenges.

Strategic, deep, and engaging: The game is praised for its potential, strategic depth, and engaging mechanics, blending city-building, card-based tactics, and roguelike elements. It rewards creative thinking and offers a unique experience, with reviewers recommending it to players who enjoy experimenting with builds and pushing their limits.

Discovered game, acknowledges potential: The reviewer discovered the game through a specific channel and acknowledges the developers have stated they will continue to update the game. The reviewer expresses a willingness to check on its progress in the future.

Distinct pixel-art visual style: The game features a distinct visual style, often described as pixel-art with a retro-medieval aesthetic. This style contributes to the game's overall atmosphere and charm.

Desire for mod support: Reviewers suggest adding mod support to increase player engagement and allow for custom content. This feature is seen as a way to extend the game's longevity and provide more variety.

Run time is 15-30 minutes: A typical game run lasts approximately 15-30 minutes, depending on player skill and game speed. This relatively short playtime makes the game accessible for quick sessions.

Need more in-game information: Reviewers would like more information available to the player, such as stats for enemy units and player towers. This would help players make more informed decisions and strategize effectively.