Sovereign Tower Review: Crowns and consequences

The Sovereign Tower doesn’t really care whether you’re ready to be a ruler, it just throws the crown on your head and expects you to figure things out as you go.

From the moment the gorgeous menu song hits your ears, you’re thrown into decision-making as the ruler of Bretania, only to learn that you're walking in the footsteps of someone else, and that someone didn't exactly end well. It's not really the most comforting start to a reign, but it's good for setting the tone for what follows.

There is a lot to figure out, how to rule, who to trust, and how to actually be good as this ruler of a kingdom without a manual to help out. It's an overwhelming start, but the good kind of overwhelming that makes you want to keep going rather than putting the controller down and exiting the game.

The crown you didn't ask for

The Kingdom of Bretania didn’t have an easy start, as it fell victim to the invasion from the Empire, which came after a long stretch of peace. As your village was attacked, you barely escape the soldiers and end up in front of a large, locked tower. 

The tower is locked behind a spell, and for generations it has been waiting for someone with true sovereign blood to unlock it. As it turns out, that’s you.

You're sitting on the throne after Ermen the Wise, a previous ruler beloved by his people, but also someone who apparently wasn't wise enough to stop the Kingslayer, a ominous entity, from ending his reign. 

Your subjects know you only as the Sovereign, as your identity is hidden for the entirety of the game, for your own safety. The tower itself has some magical properties which will come in handy as the story unfolds.

It’s the legacy you’ve inherited, and now you have to roll with it.

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You're throw into the seat of the kingdom's new sovereign.

From there onward, Sovereign Tower is telling the story through the characters, the people around you, the dialogues, reactions and relationships, as much as it is through any grand plot. 

Right from the start you’ve got your trusted advisor, Sir Alin, who can help you navigate the chaos while you gain more and more additions to your Round Table. You’ll meet different knights, all with their own quirks, relationships and also baggage. Angelica has a cat, Goberto loves to read and write letters, Gwendal has a dark secret that will come into light later on, all of their characteristics make the Round Table feel like an actual group of people and not just a bunch of stats.

You’ll need to make sure they like you though, because if a knight dislikes you, they could leave your table for good.

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In Sovereign Tower, you'll get to meet all kinds of people.

The kingdom itself might as well be called the Kingdom of Problems, as that’s what you’ll get once you open the tower. And a lot of them. How you want to solve these problems is up to you, and the game is more than happy to allow you to lean into kindness or tyranny, depending on what you want to do. I was fair, kind, and generous, because apparently I couldn't be a bad person even if I wanted to (I tried in Red Dead Redemption 2, and failed).

While ruling the kingdom, you will encounter serious issues, but there will also be a bunch of goofy problems to solve, and that tension between weighty, serious moments and genuine humour is one of the story’s biggest strengths. Oh, there is an invasion planned? Okay, but there is also a scary goose that doesn’t want to let people in the public baths, so solve that too or risk everyone smelling like death.

The Sovereign Tower clearly knows that being a ruler to a kingdom is serious stuff, but it also refuses to take itself too seriously while telling that story.

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All the bosses you meet are unique and interesting characters.

Narratively, the game unfolds in three acts, each of them having their own boss fight that you need to pass in order to move on. Each of these bosses has their own story, motives, and reasons why it wants to take you down, and they are all carefully designed, both visually as well as their dialogues. As the acts progress, the quests get tougher and tougher.

Oh, and there is also a demon hidden in the crypt, because what would be a medieval kingdom without a demon that can offer you its power, with consequences of course.

Quests, issues, and egos

The Sovereign Tower runs on a daily cycle, where you have different tasks you need to perform and decisions to make. While it might sound boring, it is not in the slightest, and once you get into it it becomes the backbone of the whole experience.

First you got your audiences in the morning, where you listen to requests, updates, quests, and make some of your decisions. In the afternoon, you jump to prepare your knights to go on the quests you’ve got. Some of those quests last one day - or one cycle - and some of them last more, and there are also deadlines and quests you can miss, although the game will warn you about those before your knights head out for the day. Outcomes will come, whether they are good or bad.

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Your knights are your bread and butter, always ready to go on quests in the kingdom.

You’ll spend most of your time managing your Round Table. All of your knights - Angelica, Ursula, Goberto, Gwendan, and others - all have their own strengths and weaknesses, and their attributes range across strength, magic, agility, charisma, luck, and wit. You might not have all stats of your knights right away, as some you’ll unlock as you play.

You can find out more about your knights through dialogue, by taking certain choices and answers, or by sending your staff to eavesdrop, whatever floats your medieval boat. Depending on the decisions you make and the quests on which you send your knights, they will like you or dislike you. I've managed to get a few dislikes myself, however none of my knights left, so it seems that you need to make a lot of bad choices for your knights to abandon you. Naturally, they can also die. 

Besides chatting with them, you can also train your knights to level up, buy potions to make them stronger, buy horses for them and give them items to enhance certain stats. When they’re sent on a quest, you can watch them move over the map, which is a fun little detail.

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Each knight has their unique attributes and preferences.

All of your choices have consequences, and some of them might not even be visible right away. Quests can succeed, fail, and even have unexpected outcomes, which are a bit rarer to get but a fun treat nonetheless.

You’re constantly balancing coin, but also the favour of your merchants, scholars, and the general public, trying to keep everyone as happy as possible. 

The boss fights that you’ll encounter can be a bit tough, but they’re fair. They never feel cheap, and if you find yourself thinking “Well how the hell do I defeat you?” that mostly just means you need to change your strategy. And if you fail, you’ve got your trusty demon from the crypt who will turn back the time and give you a chance to try again…Ominously. You can go back as many days as you need, giving yourself enough time to think of a new strategy and prepare for the battle.

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In Sovereign Tower, you can succeed, fail, or get an unexpected outcome.

As you play, and depending on the choices you make, you’ll expand your kingdom and form alliances, or you’ll have people rebel against you if you neglect them for too long, such as for example scholars who can send enchanted beasts to torment you. 

There are also romance options, but those felt kind of out of place in this game, and on top of that, it didn’t make sense to me that every single character you get the romance option for, just falls for you instantly. It even happened for one of the bosses, but I chose to live blissfully in ignorance and ignored it, refusing to believe that a boss - someone who came to kill me - would get starry eyes for me. That’s for you to find out for yourself when you encounter him. 

Art fit for a sovereign

Right from the start, from the first time I opened this game, I was sold. Sovereign Tower makes an amazing first impression, that opening menu song alone is so gorgeous that it sets the tone of the game before you even start playing it. It shows how much love has been put into the making of this game. 

Visually, it’s absolutely stunning, I couldn’t get enough. It’s been a while since I felt this addicted to a game, I just needed to see more of what it had to offer visually. The hand-drawn art gives every scene a distinct quality, vibrant and colourful as if it just fell off the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Every character you meet is visually distinct, and you won’t get the chance to utter “asset reuse” once. The world has a real sense of warmth and individuality, and it carries through it entirely.

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If you make a mistake, the tower's demon offers you some help.

The UI is clean, intuitive, and it never gets tedious or in the way of your ruling. There are a couple of systems that you need to juggle as you play, but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy.

While playing the game, I didn’t encounter any issues, it ran as smooth as butter. 

A crown worth wearing

In the Sovereign Tower, you’ll get to rule a kingdom seriously but you’ll also have a lot of fun doing so. Between invasions, hidden identities, knights and servants, every decision that you make will have some weight to it. And at the same time, you’ll also have fun even with the consequences of those decisions.

The game is highly addictive, to the point where I couldn’t put it down. From the opening to the end of the game, it is a game with real stakes, real charm, and a cast that is worth getting attached to. The more you play, the more you care about your knights, about your kingdom, and that’s an important part of the experience. You don’t want anyone to suffer and you don’t want to be a disappointing ruler (or maybe you do, if you’re into that, but you get the gist of what I am saying).

I’ve spent hours playing this game as the ruler Bretania needed, a fair, generous, and patient sovereign. After finishing the game, I’m already thinking about taking it in the opposite direction for my next playthrough (or at least attempting to) and that’s the highest compliment I can give this game.

It’s fun to have some power, and Sovereign Tower gives you plenty.