I had a wonderful time with this game, but it was far from perfect.
The concept and world alone are extremely gripping in their own rights. Each act of the game offers new places and characters to discover, and each one has its own distinct flavor profile to enjoy. The pitch of the game is to collect a colorful cavalcade of quirky knights to be a part of your roundtable, and the game delivers on that promise splendidly. Each knight is compellingly different, unique, and brings their own charm and depth. However, not every knight is treated equal in this department, and I felt some of them to be favored quite strongly over others. For example, [spoiler] for a late game addition, Edith's bit is really interesting. A weird lady who is obviously beholden to a cursed sword. But this concept isn't really taken anywhere further than her becoming possessed by the sword. I haven't seen any kind of special reactivity post her possession, so it just feels like a way to flatten out the character and not explore that narrative. There's little you can do to discourage her obsession or cure her possession, so it just feels a bit cheap. Contrast that to Arron who has two distinct paths of narrative, each with their own drawbacks and benefits. And with Edith being a relatively easy knight to encounter like Arron, it feels odd that her story flops while his flourishes. [/spoiler] Obviously, it would be impossible to make every NPC in the game having several branches to their story, but some more emotional depth and stakes to some of the knights would be appreciated. This doesn't warrant a negative review or anything, but there's just so much potential oozing from the pores in this game that it's a tiny bit frustrating.
The gameplay was fine enough. The game wasn't particularly hard at any point, and I found it to get really tedious as I was ending my first and second playthroughs. The thing I want the most out of this developer's next game is a stronger focus on making it a fun game, as well as a fun story. The writers at Wild Wit Games clearly know how to make fun, unique characters. That alone carries the experience, but the game part just feels like set dressing. There's a lack of clarity with certain choices, some knights are hidden behind seemingly random Unexpected Outcomes, and the loop encourages you to just sort of skip over half the dialog, specifically with the NPCs who consistently return with busy work to pad out your play time. With that said, the game is just long enough that it isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's certainly tiresome and makes me not really want to keep playing to see different interactions.
All in all, though, there is quite a lot of good in this game. It's hard to talk about without spoiling too much, but I found the over-arching narrative to be pretty cool. A bit ham-fisted, but really interesting nonetheless. Sovereign Tower takes a legitimate stance on how to view political systems, especially ones with unilateral power like monarchies. The meta-narrative also becomes more interesting the more you play, especially the more you choose to participate with the world and mechanics. It's not as strangely intimate like Slay the Princess, but there's a good bit of fun analyzing your own role as The Sovereign in this game and unpacking it.
I'd say the game is for sure worth your time and you should check it out if you don't live for the gameplay. As a visual novel that's meant to be replayed at least twice, I'd say it does a great job of staying interesting through those two playthroughs if you're willing to skip some dialog.
8.5/10 Story
5/10 Gameplay
7.5/10 Overall
Also, I highly recommend using your special power for your first playthrough. You'd be robbing yourself of some of the fun if you refused to use it because of some weird gamer pride.
