Queen's Crown Review

Creating a big time mobile RPG requires walking a delicate line. You can have nice graphics, but not so much that you sacrifice length. You can have a ton of characters, but not so many that you can't tell one from the other. You can also have quests in abundance, but the key is to not have so many that you dilute the game's story. At the end of the day, an RPG is really just an interactive book. They typically follow the same plot structure, have roughly the same amount of characters, and always lead to shocking conclusions. The length of the book, or the RPG for instance, should only be long if the story is consistently progressing. Add too many side stories and you quickly forget what is going on, which is the main problem with Queen's Crown.

The story of Queen's Crown, not to ruin anything, is about long lost dark forces coming back to take over the world. You play as the not-so-regal princess who, as far as you know, is the last surviving member of the royal family - and of course it is up to you to save the world. You make your way from town to town in SNES era graphics glory (which I love), following the story as best you can. Throughout your quest, though, you'll find people all over town that need little missions accomplished. Some want you to deliver things, some want you to kill things - the usual RPG fare. In Queen's Crown, though, these side quest don't come one after the other, as just about every person you run across needs you to do something. Before I even got to the second town I had already completed around 10 quests, and eventually I just about forgot what the point of the game was. Unlike the RPG greats that have come over the years, there is really no driving force to make you progress. The fate of the world is at stake and you are literally delivering lunch to a girl deep in the woods who is supposed to be collecting wood (don't worry, she'll pay you off later for collecting the wood for her).

The lack of urgency in Queen's Crown is really quite maddening, which is a shame because the game pretty good otherwise. The story (once you get around to it) works, the characters are all likable, the combat system is spot on, offering character level ups and weapon type level ups, and the graphics and sound are just what you want to see in a retro-ish RPG. The inventory/item management system could use a little (maybe a lot) of streamlining, but eventually I got the hang of it.

If you are looking for a fun Com2uS RPG to play while waiting for Inotia 3, Queen's Crown may just do the trick. It's certainly not the best RPG in the App Store (probably not even in the top 10), and It may just be a 75 page book wrapped up in 900 pages of fluff, but as far as mobile RPG's go, it gets the job done.