Queen’s Domain is a throwback action RPG that bests its inspirations
We generally do our best to not compare one game to another in a review. There are references, ideas, sure, but when we talk about wearing our inspiration hearts on our sleeves we usually leave it at that.
That’s not going to be so with Queen’s Domain because it clearly and intently wants us to know that it is paying homage to FromSoft’s King’s Field, those classic ands often brutal Action RPG games that were the predecessors of the “Soulslike” genre. I’ll do my best to focus strictly on this new game, but we have to keep that knowledge of its firm intent in the back of our minds when first engaging with this product.
Because, oh boy, is this game that brutal and that good.
Freshly Baked’s game is a PS1 era throwback, and it goes out of its way to honor that era and pay homage to it, way more than just dipping its toes in stylistically. It goes all-in, modernity be damned.
It presents a very classic RPG plot:
We’re the prince of a once-peaceful Kingdom, now on the brink of destruction as the evil witch Queen stirs. Our father the King has disappeared on an island while looking for a solution, and it’s up to us now to find him and save the Kingdom in the process. And like all RPG tropes we end up on the island, shipwrecked, penniless and weaponless, with only our wits and basic attack abilities at our disposal.
And then that’s it for the story.
The game immediately becomes really focused on action and exploration and grinding. It’s purposefully slow, forcing us to make every second meaningful even when it doesn’t seem like it is. The game kicks us off with just a rusty sword, so taking on a huge island and its inhabitants is fairly daunting. Even the first enemies we face, ladybug-like creatures, take several hits and are extremely, EXTREMELY dangerous. It’s important to grind it out, then, to learn the enemy attacks and patterns, and to slowly, did I mention slowly, SLOWLY, level up ourselves and our weapons.
I really love this aspect. The GRIND. While our capabilities and stat numbers improve as we move up in experience, the different weapons we get, from swords to spears to axes and everything else, can also be leveled up the more we use them. Many even evolve and change once they hit certain requirements. It makes it easy to get attached to a weapon that’s deep in growth and then have to figure out what to switch to when something more powerful comes along. That little internal battle is so classic that it’s fun, reminding me not just of mid-90s gaming but even all the way into the early PC and NES and tabletop RPG days when we would apply development and progress and customization to everything.
The game also leverages things like stamina for jumping movement and attacks, charging attacks and alternate weapon abilities, and puzzles that have us running from one end of an area to another, from one part of the island back to something we can now access if we got the right key or ability.
That grinding and forced traversal can really screw us if we don’t find a save point because as soon as we die we’re sent all the way back to a shrine. We don’t keep any gained experience, any of the progress or items or story beats we completed. It’s just BOOM, we start all over again. It’s necessary to remind ourselves that this is how games were back then, none of this “save anywhere” kind of quality of life improvement stuff. The world is huge, too, with a lot of secret areas to find, different paths, cool enemies, little shops and NPCs we can run across. It’s very classic, and very easy to miss something or lose track of it when we have to retrace our paths because we lost three or four hours of progress.
The game hates us and I love it for that. It’s tough, and it can be frustrating, so we absolutely have to know that, yes, it’s our fault we died because we’re definitely not ready for a specific battle/area. There goes that afternoon’s worth of work! I can’t tell if the game is 40 hours long because of the design, the grind or my own stupidity. Likely a combination of all three.
Queen’s Domain sets out to make 1996’s ultimate action RPG and it wholeheartedly succeeds. It’s a fantastic tribute to simplicity in design, letting the rough edges become the perfect details. It’s easily the best time possible getting trapped in a dungeon, with low health, a rusty sword, and a giant monster in our way.
It’s a modern port of a 1996 Game of the Year winner that never existed, but it’s now deservedly getting its flowers.
4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Great
This review is based on a Steam copy of the game sent to the Editor by the Publisher/PR. Read about how we do our reviews here.
