A locked door, opened suddenly. Many have tried, one has found their way into A throne left empty for too long, now finds itself a Sovereign. The people are desperate for a leader, one that will make the tough choices, put together the Round Table, and…romance the statue found inside? Good thing that the new Sovereign is you, with a realm full of possibility. Things don’t go right? Nothing some good old time rewinding can’t fix.
Sovereign Tower, the new management RPG from developers WILD WITS GAMES, is instantly intriguing. Your role as the Sovereign is essential to the hopeful success of a city that’s been left without a leader for far too long. Your decisions make or break relationships, treaties, and the will of the people, each day split into sections that have you making choices one after another.
Each day kicks off with an Audience, a morning filled with subjects, each with their own worries and issues. Whether it’s something as simple as a maniacal goose blocking the entrance to the baths, or as complicated as a multi-day hunt for a mysterious creature killing farm animals in the countryside. Choosing whether to help or not promises to have lasting effects, but how those play out remains to be seen in the full game.
“Balancing the right mission with the right knight is half the battle, with things going in unexpected ways at times.”
All of your choices change your affinity with different groups, including Merchants, Nobles, Scholars, Mystics, People, and Treasury. Some options will be locked depending on your standing. At one point, a representative of the Scholars came to me complaining of too much oversight from the Nobles. One choice gave the power to the scholars, another to the nobles, and a third that let them figure it out. I opted to side with the scholars, raising my affinity with them at the cost of lowering my standing with the nobles. I can’t imagine they’ll be happy about it.
Once you clear through your audience for the day, we move to the afternoon section where you dispatch members of your Round Table to tackle missions. Different potential knights will arrive during the Audience, and it’s your choice whether to accept them or not. Saying yes is easy, but then you need to worry about keeping them happy. Upsetting them enough means they can leave the Round Table entirely, costing you a knight.
Each knight has their own strengths across six stats, including strength, agility, charisma, magic, luck, and wit. Every quest requires different strengths and personality traits. Where a quest fighting a monster may be better for a knight with high strength and a clear bloodlust, another might need a charismatic talker to deal with a dispute. If you pick the wrong knight, they can outright fail the mission, taking damage and lessening your relationship with them or dying entirely.
Lady Ursula, for example, is stronger in wit and magic, interested in weird and esoteric missions. Sending her on other types of missions can upset her, lowering your relationship with her. Gwendan, on the other hand, is an impressive all-rounder from nobility with the personality of spoiled milk, more interested in glory and power with missions that make him look good.
Balancing the right mission with the right knight is half the battle, with things going in unexpected ways at times. At one point, I sent Angelica, a young and optimistic knight who loves animals, to deal with a monster that’s been terrorizing a neighbouring city. Rather than killing the creature, she befriended it, netting me an adorable Wolf as a new knight at my round table. At another moment, I let a group of refugees into my castle walls, which upset Gwendan greatly for letting “dirty, thieving” people inside. It pissed him off, which, frankly, is for the best; he sucks.
At one point, a giant Dragon Knight came during audience, threatening me and my people. He’d return in three days time, challenging my best knights. This would also mean I’d need allies, and by helping a neighbouring city with their issues, I locked one down within a few days. The Dragon Knight returned, I sent my best knights, and we managed a victory, with the Dragon Knight happily giving me a legendary sword as a boon for besting him.
“So far, Sovereign Tower is incredibly promising.”
And if things go wrong? Well, it’s simple: go talk to the Demon in the Crypts and rewind time a bit. You can use the power to go back days earlier, choosing different options and potentially finding new audience interactions. It also gives you unique dialogue options for situations you’ve already seen. Every time you do it, though, it adds to a tracker. I’m incredibly curious as to the consequences of using or abusing time travel, with an answer eluding me in the preview section.
Sovereign Tower also includes a romancing system, with options for flirting with not just your knights, but a statue called the Lady of the Tower. How relationships can play out, we’ll see, but the Lady of the Tower can also add new rooms to your castle. Helping a blacksmith unlocks a forge that holds new weapons for your knights, while calling in a witch introduces a witch tower that grants temporary bonuses to stats.
So far, Sovereign Tower is incredibly promising. Each of the audience interactions was hilarious or strange in the best way, and I’m curious to see how they change and evolve the longer your rule reigns. The preview offered a tantalizing taste, one that instantly made Sovereign Tower one of my most anticipated experiences coming this year. The throne beckons, and I’m ready to rule when the time comes.
