Crownbound - Fantasy Kingdom Sim

Janky. Heroes get stuck often (so much that an "unstuck" button has been added to them, then a 10 countdown starts and idk if it's a cooldown or a timer for when they get unstuck). Their behaviour is erratic - they'll go "running towards target", but then they decide to "explore" for no reason. Also they're greedy AF - if there's a fight going on and they take one target down which gives them enough money to buy something, they'll run all across the map to the market to buy it, leaving their comrades to handle whatever monsters they're engaged with. But if there's a big bounty on them and they get resurrected by the shrine, god forbid they'd first buy some healing potions...no, straight to the target to die (knight scenario boss fight). Then there's the golem quest where you are told to pay 5000 for a golem, but then when you do, you get a 15 min timer that you didn't know you'd have, so if you rushed the golem, well tough. Also there's optimization issues. On one of the maps I had about 40-50 heroes and my FPS was dipping below 50 and felt like the game was stuttering a bit. Anyways, miles to go to get towards Majesty's quality, from which it obviously drew a LOT of inspiration. Props go to the Heroes of Might and Magic III easter egg in one of the quests where the artifacts you find are named after the assembled artifacts from that series.

Game isn't developed enough. All the game 'types' are just themed after other popular RTS games like 'Empire of Ages' --- its all just flavor text over a core gameplay of build building, buy upgrade, put cash bounty on enemy to influence your heroes (whom you cannot control) to go in a particular direction. My advice to dev is to stop copying shtick and make original ideas. Give this game SOME kind of story to follow. Make Heroes much stronger but fewer and add weaker 'regular' units that you can control, let heroes keep their independence but we need more control of whats happening to get invested. The game isn't bad its REALLY mediocre and needs more cook time.

Dudes code is AI generated lads, I advise you to skip it.

If Majesty is an RTS with RPG elements put on top of its heroes, Crownbound feels more like an RPG with RTS elements put on top of it. Heroes act more organically; ranged units will kite enemies, warriors will hit more than one unit at a time with a broad swing attack, and mages will blink around the map unleashing huge aoe attacks. Ranged attacks from both your heroes and enemies can (and unfortunately often) miss, and retreating heroes often pull the enemies they were fighting back to your base as they run. After playing both Majesty games and Lessaria, it's refreshing to see heroes act a bit more than simple RTS units. That said, heroes don't have the greatest self presevation instincts, often diving into large crowds of enemies or teleporting away from your base towards more enemies when low on health. By the time they decide to leave, there's a good chance it's already too late. This is extra obvious with the mage characters, who fill the classic glass cannon role; their XP requirements to level up are relatively high for how often they'll actually hit an enemy (see the part about missing above) and even a lvl 5 or 6 mage which has access to all the spells (if you've bought them) can get one shot by the more powerful enemies. However enemies don't seem to scale as the level goes on, so for the most part you don't lose too much aside from the gold spent hiring the hero and the time that hero spent levelling. Building and hiring are both instant as long as you have the gold, and while gold is painfully slow at the start it quickly becomes less of a factor as the game progresses. I would love for heroes to be a little bit more cowardly, especially as towers have guards that will happily fight to the death on your behalf should things get overwhelming. The required starting strategy for each level does seem to be pretty consistent especially on the harder difficulties, with warriors and thieves dying too quickly rangers become the only viable start. Once you get momentum going the game quickly turns from hoarde survival to gradual steamroll. If you enjoy that turtlely progression, then I'd recommend checking this game out. Keep in mind the list of scenarios are short and each takes only around 20m to beat, so hopefully the dev adds more or bigger levels, or you may want to hold off for a sale. This game is not Majesty 3, but if you go in looking for a majesty-lite experience I think you will enjoy it. Just keep in mind it's length - I've already beaten all the scenarios on Normal and Hard difficulties and I'm only 5 hours in.

A Fun little Majesty type of game..Lets give the developer time to correct issues way to many trigger happy negative reviewers. That does not help the game with sales. The developer is fixing issues as fast as he can and as long as he is working on the game we should hold off hanging him on a cross.

This is a fun, albiet fairly easy game. Its got just enough to it to make it interesting, with varied unit types and a range of different stratgies to win. But it isnt going to keep you going for months, this is more of a rainy day, scratch the gaming itch sort of game. I didnt encounter any bugs, the rare occasions where a unit got stuck there is a useful 'unstick' option. Its hero-management, to an extent.. .once you have a pretty good hero you will want to keep them with you for the game. Actually there's a good chance that hero will carry the campaign! Combat is fairly intelligent and the upgrades available are worthwhile, though you do need to repeat them each level.. only your hero carries anyting between levels. By intelligent I mean your units behave well in battle — ranged units seem to kite enemies and mages teleport themselves out of range, though you will probbaly need to throw a few heal spells at them, they can be pretty weak at low levels. Buildings allow recruiting units and also provide ability and equipment unlocks that ANY hero can purchase (which is cool) For example Rogues get backstab, but also unlock poisoned weapons that any unit can buy. DIfferent unit types unlock other things liuek elemental weapons etc, but I didnt play too much with many unit types as the upfornt costs for soem are a bit high, so you tend to use Warriors, and Hunters for quick troop numbers. The campaign plays through in about 4-5 hours, but there are other options to eke out a bit more gameplay, and of course you can always replay it and trry to build a different main hero! The game skips the tedium of building construction, its place and go! Your heroes explore on their own, and the gold just rolls inb as they fight and as they buy equipment from your store. Better valoue than a movie ticket , more engaging than an idle game. I think this is worth it.

Very unbalanced. It could be good, with balancing but right now, its a hard pass. Developer and players suggest building a shrine and a market with healing potions, at start of a mission. I did that, and then recruited heroes. They all died within 1-2 minutes of being recruited. They have zero self-preservation and attempt to flee far too late. And as heroes can cost like 1/3 of a guildhall for some of the later guilds, this is totally unacceptable. There isn't a graveyard or mausoleum, so when they die, they are gone for good. Enemies move too fast, have too much range, and hit too hard, for heroes to survive any length of time. They are too numerous, they spawn too frequently, and you just don't generate the kind of gold necessary to place reward flags or to cast spells, like the trailer suggests. The maps are all small, the challenge at "normal" difficulty is Majesty 1 equivalent of Master, and the developer isn't taking concerns seriously and his solution is that instead of fixing problems, he created a "baby / this game is about to make you its b1tch" difficulty called "chill". I think this one could be really good with balancing. Until then, I'd hold off on buying it and I've refunded it. I'll put it back on my wishlist, and check on it in 6-12 months. If it improves, I'll change my review.