Crown Gambit is a narrative tactical game by Wild Wits where you follow the story of three novice paladins. On their first mission to escort royalty, things quickly go bad and only get worse. The three paladins must band together, forge their bond, and interact with the political landscape to survive. Different factions take advantage of rising water levels to enact their agenda. Only the three paladins can help a faction stop the danger and thus rule the land.
The story in Crown Gambit weaves a political narrative with a choose-your-own adventure that brings serious consequences. Combat is tactical and not hard to pick up, allowing you to choose how you develop your characters. However, the narrative can be difficult to understand and there are bugs that can halt your run. While Crown Gambit puts you in the hot seat with its narrative, you must give it a chance.
You follow three novice paladins: Aliza, Hael, and Rollo. Initially strangers to each other, they are all assigned a mission to guard royalty. After things quickly go from bad to worse, the three find themselves on their own. Caught up in a web of political and supernatural intrigue, they find out their homeland is at risk of flooding. They must work together to help one of the factions reverse the flooding, though there’s no easy answer.
Crown Gambit does a fantastic job with its worldbuilding, creating a kingdom and political narrative that draws you in. Everything about the setting is new, but you quickly figure out what everyone’s goal is. The three paladins are the only “neutral” faction at first, though they must choose a path to save the kingdom. However, making a choice means refusing other options and that doesn’t please everyone.
Your choices matter and the consequences don’t always present themselves immediately. Some decisions look great but have terrible results that haunt you later, while others may look shady but turn out to have fantastic benefits. Siding with a faction isn’t easy because doing what you think is right may go against their goals. Whether you can bury your feelings for the kingdom’s sake or push ahead with what’s right is up to you.
This also applies to combat as well. You have weapons known as Ancestral Relics that give you a great advantage on the battlefield. Tapping into Ancestral Grace lets you power up your moves at the cost of removing them from the battle. However, using Ancestral Grace lets your inner power run amok, potentially ruining crucial decisions as your character’s emotions take over. Using Ancestral Grace to give you an advantage knowing it could hurt you later is a tricky balance. It’s fun to experiment with or completely ignore if you are afraid of the consequences.
Balancing the political needs of the factions, your moral sense, and Ancestral Grace is a unique challenge. It’s possible to get through the game without using Ancestral Grace at all outside of the tutorial. However, it makes battles easier and whether it’s worth risking the narrative is up to you. Integrating combat decisions into the story adds another dimension of narrative consideration that truly makes the game stand out.
The art style is also great, capturing the medieval kingdom atmosphere. Paladins draw on a variety of powers, enemies have various appearances, and settings are beautiful yet dated. Cards also have various designs that stick with the setting. It immerses you in the world and makes you feel like you are an actual player.
However, the political narratives are difficult to follow. Crown Gambit has a glossary of families and terms that you must know, but memorizing it is a must; several names are thrown around and it’s not always obvious who or what is the subject of discussion. If you don’t remember the individuals, deities, or place names, the story will be dry. The narrative is genuinely engaging and it forces you to make complex choices, but without spending time on it or giving it a chance, you might not appreciate its finer points.
Combat is done through a turn-based card system. You have character cards on a grid and three miniature hands. Each hand corresponds to the three paladins. Aliza has blood-based powers, Rollo is a physical attacker, and Hael can heal. However, you can make your characters specialize in certain aspects to develop certain skill sets. You can make Rollo more supportive in battle or turn Aliza into a Bleed-based fighter.
Every character gets a certain number of moves per turn. Once all three are done taking turns, the enemy takes their actions before you start again. Various status effects influence damage taken, the amount of turns, or damage-over-time. Experimenting with your favorite strategy is enjoyable and there are few wrong answers. Your strategy is also bolstered by giving characters Ancestral Relics that you pick up.
Powerful enemies or other paladins drop these relics, allowing you to use their effects in combat. But the game-changer is Ancestral Grace that gives a card a great power-up in exchange for removing it from battle. This is temporary and it comes back when the battle ends. Using Ancestral Grace seems great but it does raise your character’s Ancestral meter. It doesn’t raise problems in battle but the meter may influence your paladins in the narrative.
You can set the difficulty of the game at the beginning and you don’t need to use Ancestral Grace to win. There are some battles that push you or seem difficult, tempting you to use Ancestral Grace. Fortunately, there are methods to lower your Ancestral meter, preventing Ancestral Grace from being too awesome to use. With the right balance, you can restrain your characters while benefiting from the awesome effects.
Combat is genuinely enjoyable because of how varied it can be. While you don’t need Ancestral Relics, they are useful. Thinking about combinations, boosting character stats, and duplicating cards is more important for victory. Balancing short-term and long-term needs while keeping it front of mind is something Crown Gambit does well. The result is tactical combat that makes you think about your decisions long after the battle ends.
However, combat also tends to be the area where bugs occur. The game can crash after battles, during card usage, or because an effect didn’t properly trigger. While it’s not major in terms of disruption, it is inconvenient. It doesn’t help that some effects aren’t immediately clear until you use the card. That makes it hard to tell if a card functions properly or the effect didn’t trigger correctly.
Crown Gambit is a great narrative tactical game that perfectly melds the two genres together. Making difficult decisions and living with the consequences of your actions is painful yet hard to give up. Combat pushes your risk-reward mentality beyond the confines of the battlefield. It’s not perfect and it does need some patience to really enjoy the game. But if you give the game a chance, it will impress you and stay in your mind long after you finish it.
Victor reviewed Crown Gambit on PC with a provided review copy.
