For the King

A simple tactical roguelite game.

This might not be a fair review since I got bored halfway through the storyline on my first playthrough.

Overview

For the King is a strategic RPG with roguelike elements. You have three characters in your party and you explore the world to solve quests and fight monsters to gain items and experience. There is a strategic map to explore, and encounters are handled on a simple tactical screen.

The Good

The interface is pretty simple and the game is easy to get into. It's fun to kill stuff. There is a slight innovation over the typical 2-tier strategic/tactical maps mechanics in that your characters can explore independently but still participate in fights if they are close enough. This lets you do things like give all your gold to a fast character to run to town while the other two explore the area.

There seems to be a lot of replayability. Perhaps not as much as a true rogue-like, but you can unlock classes and items to be used in future playthroughs. 

The Bad

Combat is not challenging. Most of the decisions are obvious. Map exploration is fun to some extent, but not enough to hold interest. 

My Bias

I'm a long-term roguelike player. I've spent countless hours on Nethack and still play Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup more than any other game. I find roguelite games to often be shallow. Sometimes one will hold my interest, like FTL, but mostly I find them too simple and clunky. For example, in a 20 hour game of Dungeon Crawl I might make 10,000 decisions. Most of those decisions are obvious, but there are still hundreds of fun and meaningful choices to make. In a game like For the King I will only make hundreds of decisions and there might only be a dozen of actually interesting choices.

Recommendation

For the King wasn't for me, but it might work for you. I think the tactical roguelike itch is better scratched by actual roguelike games, but if you prefer an accessible game with intuitive interface and decent graphics, feel free to give this a try.