Can you guide the caravan to safety?
Settlers are prepping to go East on a perilous continent through a number of troubles and threats. A group of heroes are tasked to guide the caravan safely through the dangerous terrain. The goal of the game is to choose the right paths, to make the right decisions while the best of your resources can help you pass the country safely. The game gives players many more challenges than they can try to complete.
Royal Frontier is a mixture of turn-based combat, decisions and is ultimately a roguelike experience. You are presented with a map showing what encounters are coming up and you have to select them to push forward. These can vary from battles, shops, places to rest up, treasure and so on. Some have question marks on them so it’s a mystery which event will occur on these spots till you go on them. Pushing through as far as possible is simple but you do need to be careful and not overconfident in your decisions or you’ll end up back at the start.
It’s simplistic in design and there’s no vast exploration or quests other than pushing through each spot on the map, but there’s something nice about that. There’s nothing complicated going on here, just simple turn-based battles and pushing forward to the end. It’s minimalist but it works well, plus I think there’s a good space for it in the market where there’s nothing but complicated quests and exploring.
The visuals are simple too but feel more like a throwback to classic RPGs with its charming pixels. The soundtrack also has a nice retro feel to it. Framerate is consistent as you would hope, and I didn’t come across any bugs during my playthroughs.
The Verdict
Royal Frontier is a simple roguelike that has a decent level of charm to it. It’s nice to have a simple turn-based combat game for a change and the game itself is literally only under £6, making it a steal for what’s on offer here.