Heart of Crown PC Review

Player(s): 1-4
Platform(s): PC (Via Steam)

“In a brutal time, still ruled by sorcery and sword, there was an empire that unified the land and brought an end to a long era of strife. However, before he could cement a new era of peace, the great Emperor Hellard fell ill and died. He had not named his successor.
 
Something must change, or else the land is destined for war again! As a dignitary of the great Empire, you must find a way to preserve the peace and unity of the land.
 
The Emperor had no sons, but he has seven daughters, two of whom are imperial princesses, and all are possible successors. The time has come to back a princess, and get her on the throne! Whether she can gain the support she needs from across the nation and crush her rivals depends solely on you!”

Not a bad intro for a card game, wouldn’t you say? Heart of Crown, the deck building game from everyone’s favorite publisher: Japanime Games. Here they have created a PC version of that very game, with the help of a few backers, publisher Culture Select, and the all-powerful Steam platform.
 
Heart of Crown PC is just like the card game itself, and that is true of all expects of the game. It is a straight forward and simple PC version. All you have are two choices when it comes to playing on the first screen. Campaign and Versus. You also have Records for overseeing your online matches in both ranked and unranked. Config to adjust your settings. But they were kind enough to add the Steam Forums where you can report bugs or download the PDF on how to play the game. They even put a Discord link, so you can talk to other people and find others to play with.

There isn’t too much to the Campaign mode. After your matches, you’re awarded support points in which, when you collect enough of, you can draw a card and get a random cutscene involving said card. Not much else to that part of the game. It’s a small distraction and might give people the incentive to play more matches, but any follower of deck building games keep coming back to these games for a reason.

Speaking of, lets go into the ‘Heart’ of the game itself; Versus Mode.

You get three options when it comes the Versus menu:

Free Battle is the unranked part, allowing your host a room or join a room to play online. There has been some small trouble with the multiplayer function, so if you find yourself having issues, make good use of the Steam Forums link.

​Rank Match is to fully test your wits and skills against anyone willing for a strong Challenge. As Kalm-Kalm explains, it’ll record your results.

Vs CPU is to take on the game’s AI which is surprisingly a decent challenge, but then again, they know how to use every card fully.

Heart of Crown PC still allows you to pick out what cards go into the market with either a choice of the preset, making your own, or even throwing caution into the wind with a random deck. And for those wondering, the PC version does include the Far East Expansion pack, with more princesses and market cards to put more replay value into the game.

As said before, there isn’t too much to the game. It still carries the beautiful artwork that the card game had to offer, and the controls are smooth and responsive. Not hard to screw up for a simple game, but there are other games out there that have managed that.

However, there isn’t anything in terms of story or character building other than the skits you get from the Campaign and the monologue that sets the mood. Which you have read at the start of this review. The game was made just for the sole purpose of playing and enjoying a deck building card game.

While it can be a drawback on expanding what might be going on in this kingdom, its also refreshing to see the creators pushing the focus on what the game is, not what it should be about. Who knows, if they do decide to go crazy, next thing you know there’ll be girls on motorcycles wanting to play a deck building card game, and we all know where that dark alley leads to.
 
There really isn’t a whole lot more to say about the game. The readers who have an interest in these deck builders should check it out. For a price of $24.99, one really can’t go wrong with the kind of entertainment it can bring. It occupies little hard-drive space, so you can always come back to it when you feel like playing a relaxing game against the AI or some of your friends. If you’re not expecting a 4k cutscene, this is a game that should be tried out for the avid card player.

Card Game Site: https://www.japanimegames.com/
Steam Store Site: http://store.steampowered.com/app/476420/Heart_of_Crown_PC/

-MCV Driver

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Gameplay: A+
Graphics: C
Sound: B-
Value: B
 
OVERALL: B

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Disclaimer: This game was provided to us by the publisher for the purpose of this review.