Crown Gambit

A great narrative game, with sharp snappy combat and excellent worldbuilding.

i dont even know where to begin praising this game. The amazing art direction? The nifty noir-romantic narrative? The compelling combat? The dsgustingly deft design? played through the demo twice, bought it, fully enjoyed the same demo content and am amazed at what lay beyond.

Beautiful art, beautiful sound design, beautiful music. 10/10 I adore the character designs very much for the paladins, and the world is so rich. Wonderful worldbuilding lore-wise as well! I also think this game did a wonderful job of making you feel like any decision you make is bad, haha. Politics do be like that, in which you are supposed to choose the lesser of all the evils. Each decision I made felt very much weighted which I find many games fail to do. I'd spend minutes staring at the fact that I *had* to make a choice and there was no middle path to take. Just a hard yes or a hard no. I quite like that. --spoilers and yap session!-- I had a very hard time deciding who to side with, by the end of the houses chapters I still felt that each one of them was very much corrupt in their own way. After meeting Karv, I also really didn't want to give the throne to him either. Which gave me no choice but to side with Havrok even if I didn't like that he was aligned with a crime organisation. Karv seems like a hyper "religious" man that would eventually kill all who oppose his beliefs, I thought he was spreading peace and love when he let the commonfolk in despite them dissing the temple but wow. I don't think if he really honored the gods he'd commit mass murder in their temple either. The princess seemed pretty scummy just off of being friends with Aliza's abusive older sister. That and she was holding a whole banquet while the kingdom was actively being submerged was giving "let them eat cake". She also just blatantly does care about the commonfolk. Noamored while maybe having good reason with the prophecy and whatnot seemed to have acted out in fear instead of proper diplomacy or planning which lead to all this chaos in the first place. Don't even get me started on how messy the Houses are. Bloodcrest is all on their narc ♥♥♥♥ and "keep the bloodline pure" bs, Thulder is full of warmongers, the commerce house has some freaky basement and the scholars?? How is man gonna care more about talking politics when the lady is actively giving life into the world. And I get thrown out for telling them to shut up and let the woman give birth????? SON. Illiose was barely a house when I got there. There are some nice people from each houses of which I hope fled and are safe. It seemed that only Havrok had the people of Meodred's interests in mind of all the heirs. He'd also been sent to the front lines and wandered the world which I would think are qualities that could make a good leader. Someone who has also toiled with the common folk would be able to empathise more. I only wonder if Aliza's nice sisters fled to a different region and if the good people of House Illiose survived by fleeing as well. After all, another reason why I chose to side with Havrok was that he was bethrothed to Celeste (even if it was against his own will lmao). Celeste died before I got to meet her in my run, I am unsure if she does if you pick their house first. Somehow, I still think this was the most morally just path and am happy to see that Havrok didn't just pretend to care about the commonfolk just to use them for revenge of being cast out. It was also nice to see him personally help with the rebuilding of the city. You don't see that often with fictional kings.. or real ones really.