Alright folks, gather ’round. So, Crown of Shadows. Heard some buzz, saw the screenshots, thought maybe it’s worth a shot? Yeah, downloaded it this morning. Coffee in hand, ready to see what the fuss is about.
Fire It Up
Installation was pretty standard, nothing weird. Fired up the game, menus looked slick enough. Character creator was… okay. Not super deep, but decent. Picked my class, jumped into the starting zone.
First Blows & Impressions
Right off the bat, the combat felt… a bit janky. My character swung, but hitting enemies didn’t have that satisfying ‘thunk’, you know? It felt floaty. Killed a few wolves, got some starter gear. The skills looked cool visually, but using them felt kinda disconnected. Like, I press the button, flashy animation happens, but the actual feeling of impact is missing.
Pushed through the starting quests, getting a feel for it. The world itself? Pretty enough. Some nice moody forests, dark castles, what you’d expect. But the textures? Ugh. Up close, some things looked like blurry messes. Distance stuff? Mostly okay. Pop-in was noticeable though.
Digging Deeper & The “Hook”
The big selling point seems to be the gear progression and skills. Found a couple of blue items, the stats were alright. Did a tiny dungeon. Grouping up was easy, just clicked a button, got matched. Good there. The dungeons have this gimmick with shadow portals, jumping between planes briefly. Sounds neat? In practice, it made things a bit messy and disorienting. Teammates kept getting lost.
Performance & Rough Edges
Oh man, performance. I’m not running a potato PC, but the frame rate was all over the place. Busy town? Chugging. Busy fight? Stuttering. Lowered settings, helped a bit, but still not great. And the UI? Super clunky. Managing inventory, checking skills – it felt sluggish, buttons didn’t always register right away. Super annoying.
- Combat Feels Floaty & Disconnected: Hits lack weight, skills feel flashy but not impactful.
- Visuals Are Uneven: Some vistas look good, textures up close are poor, pop-in exists.
- Performance Issues: Frame rate drops and stuttering even on decent hardware.
- Clunky UI: Navigating menus and managing stuff feels laggy and unresponsive.
- Gimmicky Mechanics: Plane-shifting in dungeons feels confusing rather than exciting.
The Wrap Up
Look, I pushed myself to play for a good four hours. Wanted to give it a fair shake. Did the core loop work? Yeah, technically. Kill stuff, get loot, level up. But none of it felt particularly fun or compelling. The combat is the heart of this kind of game, and it just didn’t land for me. It felt sluggish and unsatisfying. Add in the performance woes and the clunky UI?
My honest take? It’s not broken. The servers worked fine while I was playing. But man, it’s rough around the edges everywhere you look. For a game asking for your time and probably your money down the line with microtransactions I saw hints of… it just doesn’t bring enough to the table. Doesn’t do anything really new, and what it does, it doesn’t do well.
So, is Crown of Shadows worth playing? Based on my hands-on run-through? Honestly? No, not really. Unless you’re super bored and okay with a game that feels clunky and unfinished, there are better options out there right now. I fired it up hoping for something solid, ended up feeling disappointed and frankly, a bit tired from squinting at weird textures and dealing with the lag. Uninstalled it right after writing down these notes.