Castle Conqueror EX

Genre: Real-Time Strategy

Players: 1

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Review:

The Castle Conqueror series began in 2010 with the release of the first game on the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service. In addition to porting that game over to the Nintendo 3DS eShop, developer Circle Entertainment opted to remaster the game and re-release it on the Nintendo 3DS in 2014, with the game’s title now including “EX” to reflect the newly-upscaled visuals and improved enemy AI.

For those who missed the first release of Castle Conqueror, this is a touchscreen-centric Real-Time Strategy game where the player and AI controlled opponents both possess castles, and must draw lines from their caste to neutral or enemy castles to send troops to capture them. Both castles and troops have numbers designating their strength, with the strength of castles growing over time. Meanwhile, combat depletes these numbers, as does sending troops away. The winner is the first one to stamp out all opposing castles.

As such, the core gameplay here boils down to judging the numbers to see where you can spare some troops to attack a vulnerable position without leaving yourself too vulnerable yourself. However, to keep this from being purely about math, players will control one of a few different commanders, each with special abilities they can charge up and use to tip the battle in their favor.

While there is definitely some strategy here, much of the gameplay feels chaotic, and while that can be fun in its own right, definitely don’t expect this to be a particularly deep Strategy game. Also frustrating is that this game’s simplicity seems like it would lend itself well to multiplayer play, but no such option is present.

I should take a moment to say something about the game’s presentation and… well, there’s not really much to say. While it features improved visuals over the original release, it still makes use of simple hand-drawn 2D visuals that work well enough, but aren’t anything special, along with vaguely Medieval-sounding music that fits the theme well, but also isn’t especially noteworthy.

Okay, so there’s not very much to Castle Conqueror EX. It’s an extremely simple Real-Time Strategy game that plays well enough, despite the at times indecipherable menus. It’s not especially deep and the lack of multiplayer is disappointing, but for a mere $4 ($1 less than the original release), it’s entertaining in a lighthearted chaotic sort of way. If a simplistic take on the Real-Time Strategy genre sounds interesting to you, this game is definitely worth a look.

tl;dr – Castle Conqueror EX is an upscaled port of the DSiWare Real-Time Strategy game that has players drawing lines between castles to send out troops to conquer territory. It’s a chaotic and not especially deep entry in the genre, and the lack of multiplayer and inscrutable menus are both frustrating, but it’s fun enough to be worth the $4 price tag.

Grade: C+

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