LifeisXbox’s Death Crown review | … Pssst, I’ve got to tell you a little secret of mine… I’m not proud of it but, I just, have to tell you, you know? Okay… Ready? I … Secretly love tower defense games, I’ve played countless ones. There. I said it… Phew! Wait, where’s everyone going? Hey! I didn’t mean it! Come back… Please? And there I sat, on my throne. Alone. Wasting away, swiping at my screen. Raking in 1000’s golden coins per minute. But who to share it with? No one. That was until I heard the eerie laughter that could only escape from a she-hag or witch. I looked up and saw… Maui. Dear sweet mother of god. I’m doomed. -End scene-. This ladies and gentlemen is how the intro of Death Crown would sound like if it had narration. Yes, today we are diving into the unknown waters of CO5MONAUT’s minimalistic RTS called Death Crown. Are you interested to find out how it plays and how it feels? Then hold your water no longer, get your pixel counters out and get ready for this review!
We played Death Crown for 3 hours the Xbox Series X. This game is also available on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
What we liked!
- Minimalism to its finest | <-. This. Nothing more than this. Visually, Death Crown doesn’t underdeliver on its promise. Its visual minimalistic art style grants itself the opportunity to look great, by looking like a dotted drawing. The in-game cutscenes are surprisingly smooth and impactful, while not even having voice-overs or anything of the sorts. It promotes itself as a 1-bit game and delivers this like a charm!
- Surprisingly difficult | Programming a decent A.I. is something that a lot of developers (even AAA) are having a hard time with to this day even. But not for CO5MONAUT. You could say that the A.I. is mirroring you, and, to a certain degree? It does, but not for long. Death Crown is all about tempo. Lose a fraction of a second or lose sight of what is happening on the enemy side? And you’ll be starting at that ‘defeat’ screen before you could even blink. Your opponent doesn’t hold back on its punches, so you would do best to keep a wary eye open and never lose track of your resources, your barracks, and your towers.
- Super simple, yet strategy is mandatory | Trust me when I tell you that you won’t be winning the game by solely just plopping buildings down on the battlefield and just overwhelming your opponent. While this may be so in some cases? Other times you’ll have to be keeping track of your building their health bar, where to expand to first. At other times you’ll have to take a few punches and leave one of your flanks open, so you could do a race towards a crystal. These crystals are very important as well because they buff your soldiers, soldier. So, it’s up to you each round to surmise the most optimal starting strategy, every round again.
- Soundtrack | Yup. I’m saying it. This game’s soundtrack is actually pretty fun. Again, very minimalistic, yet enjoyable to the key. Nothing more to be said about it except that!
Somewhere between
- Nothing like the trailer! | Yeah, don’t think that those slipped by without me noticing there, CO5MONAUT. Your trailers were filled with epic music, thus making me think that the in-game soundtrack would be the same. Such a disappointment… But I liked the original soundtrack either way. But for anyone out there? Please. Do not go thinking that the game has music such as in the trailers. You’ll be highly disappointed if you do.
- Controls | The controls could be a little bit more, how do I put this? Coherent. While it’s easy to understand, the management system could be a tiny bit better. This isn’t helped by the high pace of the game either. I just would’ve wished for a “double-tap” option to place your rally point on a certain square, coming from the closest barracks. But oh well, I’m not complaining!
What we disliked
- Absolutely NOTHING | Nope, nothing. Zilch. Thank god! You know how I hate RTS games on console, and this didn’t even phase me!
CONCLUSION
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