Familiars on the other hand grant you potent active abilities and spells. Relics provide Elle with passive boons, such as an increased health pool, or bonus damage should certain criteria be met. This made everything else feel like a chore, more than a legitimate option for consistent success.Īlongside weapons, you can collect various relics and familiars. Not every weapon is created equal, however, and I found that spears and axes, in particular, were easily the most reliable weapons on offer. Weapons come in a variety of rarities, with the harder to find variants of each weapon packing extra damage and passive effects that can define your run and playstyle. The brutally efficient axe can cleave through every enemy around you, whilst the rifle can pluck away from a distance at the cost of a risky reload every few shots. Each weapon changes how Elle can attack, and therefore opens up new avenues for engagement. Whilst the game only gives access to two weapon types at first, it quickly opens up to a whopping nine. Thankfully you aren’t just punching the various foes that stand in your way. Combat, as a result, becomes an intricate dance and is all the more interesting for it. Stun enough enemies in quick succession and your damage will increase exponentially. Hit them enough times and they’ll be stunned and left somewhat vulnerable. Enemies have a health pool which works exactly how you’d expect, and they also come packaged with a break meter. The most obvious method of defeating an enemy would be to simply kill it until it was dead, however, Crown Trick has an ace up its sleeve to make this process a bit more complicated. If you go to boop a dragon on the snoot, be prepared to be beaten to a bloody pulp if you fail to position yourself correctly. Combat is turn-based with every enemy in a given room moving and attacking every time you move or attack. Unlike most modern roguelikes which typically take a more action-orientated approach, Crown Trick aims to be more traditional. To survive the game’s smorgasbord of challenges, you will need to engage with the combat system. Rooms can contain enemies, loot, vendors, challenges and other lucrative things so exploration is certainly encouraged – even if doing so risks an early demise. Your goal is to make your way to the Boss, ideally without dying along the way. Each floor is composed of a random selection of rooms in a mostly unknown formation. The Nightmares you are trundling through are actually procedurally generated dungeons. It’s a brisk setup that thrusts you into the action long before you get the urge to hammer the ‘skip’ button. Her goal – to kill the mysterious Vlad and save humanity in the process. After a heated debate on the value of the human experience, Elle forges a pact with the fancy dome piece and sets off on a daring adventure.
She wakes up in the Realm of Nightmares and promptly bumps into an omnipotent Crown. My interest was piqued, my e-wallet was lighter and my desire to die had reached new heights. NExT Studios had dropped their line, and I gobbled up the hook like a lobotomised goldfish. It promised me hand-drawn visuals and content that would satisfy my cravings for hours on end. It wooed me with talk of traditional roguelike combat set in a unique dream themed world. During my rumination, Crown Trick caught my eye. I had well and truly exhausted my back catalogue – my pile of shame if you will – and needed something fresh. I was perusing my local e-shop looking for something to sink my teeth into. This review of Crown Trick is based on my experience playing the Nintendo Switch version of the game.