Mad Crown is a roguelike RPG set in a post-apocalyptic dieselpunk world, With many similarities to the now famous Darkest Dungeon, but is it as good?
When you start up the game, you are greeted by a warning message describing the game’s difficulty and unforgiveness, telling you to not to become angered by the consequences of dwelling into the dungeons of Mad Crown, I was then surprised to find out that the game isn’t that difficult at all. So i’m not sure about the relevancy of this message.
Unlike Darkest Dungeon, Mad Crown has a bit less depth, it throws you into the game without explaining any of the mechanics and the game’s limited explanations feel like the game needs more work on the translation from Japanese (Update: seems like translation issues have been fixed).
On Mad Crown you have many things to consider at any given moment, this game tries to feel scary and maybe too challenging but actually presents a really simple combat system that from a UI standpoint is very easy to understand . Each hero has it’s own skill level which also represents its class, the buff skill from each class grants for example 50% damage reduction and a each hero is represented differently by its class.
Mad Crown includes an equipment system in which you can equip your hero, from what I have seen however this system doesn’t matter much and changes nothing, not cosmetically and not in the combat system itself, I found myself equipping a rifle on my warrior just because of the stats and benefits that the rifle had, maybe a game that takes pride in being difficult should not have such an easy way out in regards to equipment managing?
In Mad Crown you will collect a whole bunch of items, most of the times though your heroes super strong abilities will be enough to finish the job, each map is filled with traps, you can find an item that reveals the traps making the traps a bit redundant.
Mad Crown does have an interesting vibe to it, the hub where you manage your party and return to after every dungeon you clear is beautifully drawn and the inhabitants of the town look mysterious and fishy, the monsters that plague the dungeons have interesting and creepy designs and the heroes themselves do feel like thought has been given to their look.
The game is available on PC through steam.