Have you ever thought what the round table would be like if it was filled with derpy little egotists more consumed with their shiny armor than actually doing noble deeds?
Add in a demonic time-travel mechanic and you have Sovereign Tower.
It’s a resource management game where you are the sovereign, charged with protecting your quirky little kingdom, seeking resources, and defeating evil – or really just pesky dragons and the occasional cheese festival. Of course, you’re not the one doing the work. Leadership is all about delegation, and you’re giving the dodgy jobs to the knights in your employ, a rag-tag group of goths, psychopaths, and mummy’s boys.
Sovereign Tower is fun. It’s the kind of gameplay loop you get caught up in, sending knights on missions, then winding back time to see if you can alter the outcome. I tended to play the game in short bursts; micro-manage a few days of activity, then take a break. But I kept being pulled back into the world, wanting to see what happens to my knights. Either that, or a demonic lock has been pulling my strings again.
The writing here is solid; each character has their own voice, identity, and motivations. It’s a powerful lesson for game writers, that each character needs to have its own voice. Sovereign Tower is a great demonstration of this in action. While there’s no voice acting, you can almost hear the snooty voice of Gwendolen demanding rights for nobles, or the harried messenger dropping off letters then rushing for a snack.
Of course, I have my favourites. My little duo of rizz knights, Gwendan and Gideon, who between them probably have more hair product than my entire bathroom, found a special place in my heart as I watched them banter through the tower’s halls. Or the dinky tin-can of optimism, Goberto, and his, ahem, alter ego…
In fact, it’s fascinating to see how your choices play out in Sovereign Tower. The game actively encourages you to make different choices on every playthrough; to be a different kind of ruler each time – whether that’s kind or tyrannical, wise or audacious. Through these choices, you attract different types of knights, and you can also fulfil their dreams and understand their histories.
While you might think that the dialogue itself would get repetitive, looping back in time to do it all again, with foreknowledge comes different options; sometimes opening up new quests or skills earlier in the game. There’s also a fast-forward button if you’ve had the conversation before.
The game is divided into three distinct sections, but each is clearly delineated in the game. While there’s a large variety of missions within each, the chapter takes a similar structure; it’s not too much of a spoiler to know a big bad shows up, and you need to build up your knights and resources to meet the crisis (or wind back time and do better). While I found the story structure a little repetitive heading towards the end of the game, part of me wants to play it again and pay more attention to the missions. I’m so curious about the stories I missed. My desire to dive back in again can only be a good sign.
I really enjoyed Sovereign Tower. The writing is polished and often hilarious, the characters are memorable and endearing, and their tales become an addictive mechanism to finishing the story. And maybe, I just might be persuaded by a little demonic lock to do it all again.
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