Crown Trick (Nintendo Switch)

NeXT Games and Team 17 have joined forces to become Roguelike royalty, delving deep into the world of procedurally generated dungeons and progress wiping deaths, is this power duo capable of being King of the Hill or are they just simply parlor tricks? Read on.

Crown Trick is the latest Roguelike in a long line of Roguelikes, initially quite a niche genre it has now expanded so far it seems there is a new one every day or a title with similar elements, referred to as a Roguelite.

Crown Trick places you in the restless shoes of Elle, she is having a literal nightmare and in the process meets The Crown while exploring the realm of Nightmares. The two form an uneasy alliance and thus forms the basis of the narrative, throughout it you’ll uncover the reasons as to why Elle is in the Realm of Nightmares and why The Crown is secretive and willing to help out.

The writing in Crown Trick is as entertaining as it is intriguing, the mystery will carry you throughout the story and you can’t help but feel for Elle as she battles through literal nightmares with a rude and sarcastic Crown for company. 

Visually Crown Trick nails the dream/story book vibe perfectly. Elle cuts an innocent and scared shape while The Crown nails the smug look. The monsters range from cute to downright bizarre and everything in between, there are also alot of variations so you’ll have a smorgasbord of foes to dish damage to throughout the tale. The Familiars which are the bosses are brilliantly varied too and have show stealing designs, this is one fantastic looking game. 

The dreamworlds all follow a certain theme and that manages to break them up well. Due to the nature of randomly generated dungeons you don’t get insanely well crafted stages but they all work well and the themes are always worth working towards, though being this is a tough cookie of a title you may spend quite some time staring at the same scenery in the early days. 

So as we mentioned Crown Trick is a Roguelike (or possibly a Roguelite, I always get confused but bare with me!), the aim of the game is to explore the Nightmare dungeons, beat the bosses, die, improve slightly, learn from mistakes and make it that little further. 

Dungeons are randomly generated which means each run is completely different but this isn’t a new thing, as I said in the intro, the “rogue” genre has seeped into gaming and Crown Trick is one of the more “pure” titles around. 

You have a few cheeky “Tricks” to help you get through the dungeons of doom in this one, Blink in particular is a treat. Blink allows you to teleport to another square, this is great for avoiding attacks, traps or just repositioning yourself. The game is a turn based affair and you use this to plan and react to enemy movements or attacks, skip a turn and let the foe come into range of your attack then profit. 

Naturally you can find items throughout the dungeons that improve your chances and affect your builds. There are also several NPC character in the HUB world which will help you start off with the upperhand. Another ability involves taking the powers of defeated Familiars which give you even more options and is an incentive to keep on doing runs so you can get the whole lot.

Finally the game has a “break” system, the more you attack a foe you’ll drop their shield and stun them, you can combo this between the same enemy types and really do some MASSIVE DAMAGE, this is ideal for the more aggressive of dungeon explorers out there.

Crown Trick is quite a raw Roguelike experience, the early hours are tough and if you ain’t thinking about that build from the initial weapon choice you’re destined for death. Visually it’s a treat and it comes with all the addictive “one more run” feel the genre is known for. Crown Trick is for those fans of the genre who are a little harder than the rest and want that pure experience over the “lite” refreshment.