Crown Wars: The Black Prince Review – Not a Hundred Years In the Making

Turn-based games can be quite the challenge, with their diversity of units and skills providing many ways of approaching the battlefield. And a true battlefield it is in Crown Wars: The Black Prince, a game set in medieval times where the Hundred Years’ War is revisited but with a supernatural twist. In theory, this is a recipe for some interesting skirmishes where steel and magic collide, but ultimately this game is brought down by some issues that are impossible to ignore.

Bears and Dogs

To start with, Crown Wars doesn’t do too badly in terms of introducing the atmosphere and the basic mechanics. It’s fairly competent in this regard, as you try to reach the castle doors while being attacked by enemy forces. Any fan of XCOM or similar turn-based games is going to dive into it headfirst, no real issues with movement and attack points, understanding how the six different classes work, from the Gunner to the Beastmaster, among others. The latter is an interesting one, something of a personal favorite, as they bring a pet that acts as a secondary unit you can control, either a bear or a dog, so its value is quite noticeable.

The story… well, the introduction is interesting, the intro cinematic highlighting the conflict between England and France, with the potential of this mystical side to make it even more exciting. However, as the game starts, there isn’t really any big focus on this aspect, the whole thing pretty much settling for a medieval tone and some markers on the map of France, forsaking any sort of depth regarding this period. It could be called something else and inspired by anything medieval, as the Hundred Years’ War influence is very loose, with little that affects the actual game.

That being said, we’re gladly here mostly for the atmosphere and the turn-based excitement, and it’s good to see that the units have a somewhat dynamic way of approaching the battlefield. Running, vaulting, climbing… they often take the shortest path instead of wasting precious moves going for the longest route. Unfortunately, we can’t order other units to start moving until the previous one reaches their destination, which somewhat messes up the sense of urgency for players who want to speed up their moves.

There is a thought of having some stealth added into the battles, but somehow it doesn’t work correctly, or I couldn’t find the right way for it to perform flawlessly. The enemy units have these squares where they will detect your soldiers if you step on them; however, even using a bow from a distance to take out one unit results in said enemy to somehow “spot” you and instantly react, companions included, which defeats the purpose of taking out someone silently and from a distance. This seems to work contrary to what a silent kill should mean, and I quickly started to disregard any idea of a stealthy approach. Together with some questionable maneuvers from the enemy AI such as just standing out in the open waiting to get hit, this may leave you wondering just what is happening on the battlefield.

Crown Wars also has other surface issues that somehow confused me. An arrow shot, for example, doesn’t hit a party member that is straight in the line to the target; however, there seems to be friendly fire since heroes can swing their weapons and hit their colleagues.

But the worst of it all is how the environment hitboxes are flawed, as a player unit can directly hit an enemy who is around the corner, both with a melee or ranged weapon, and they can do the same to us, sword or arrow merrily clipping through the solid wall.

I’m also not a fan of the turn limit per encounter, adding some extra pressure into a game where battles seem to be fairly unbalanced – meaning that you may jump into one early battle only to find it extremely tough, while later on you may find a few battles that are surprisingly easy. Furthermore, since the Beastmaster’s bear and dog simply respawn after each battle, completely disregarding the penalties of death, these are good fodder units to use before sending your actual, “human” soldiers into the fray.

Basic Castle Lords

Outside of the battles, there is a whole subset of systems that is far from in-depth. As you win battles, some additional areas of your kingdom are unlocked to heal wounded units, create some concoctions to use in battle, and such. You can also recruit new mercenaries for your team, allowing you to have a few more to send into battle as other squads are returning, which is a nice touch, although speeding up time is one of the things you’ll be doing the most. Units level up, you can unlock new skills and equip items, everything is very familiar in this regard.

Ultimately, the battles in Crown Wars: The Black Prince end up being extremely long, somewhat dull, and worrisome due to some of the issues described above. It’s not necessarily a bad game and the gameplay loop can be interesting if you stick to it, but it lacks polish and fine-tuning, resulting in a flawed offering that will quickly make fans of the genre start looking elsewhere for better alternatives.