Castle Conqueror

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 that game’s title including “EX” to reflect the newly-upscaled visuals and improved enemy AI.

This game 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 three (with a fourth unlockable) 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. It 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.

Then of course there’s the biggest reason why not to get this game on Nintendo 3DS, the one I started with – this game now sits on the eShop next to its marginally-improved “EX” version, which costs $1 less than this game does. And while there may be some enjoyment to be had in this game, it just doesn’t make any sense to spend $1 more on an inferior version of the game, and this is on top of it being an extremely simple Real-Time Strategy game that’s more chaotic than it is strategic. In either case, the original Castle Conqueror just isn’t worth bothering with.

tl;dr – Castle Conqueror is a 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 what’s worse, it costs $1 more than its improved “EX” re-release. With this being the case, there’s little reason to bother with this game at all.

Grade: C-

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