This is the second game I’ve reviewed in the span of just a few weeks that is based on an old book. While the first was a historical account of the Vikings attempting to settle Iceland, this game is based on Krzyżacy, a Polish novel from 1900 that is set against the backdrop of the Teutonic Knights who controlled large parts of the Baltic Sea before getting their arses handed to them by the kingdoms of Poland and Lithuania.

Like the book, the game’s story follows Zbyszko of Bogdaniec and his uncle Maćko as they face off against the German knights. Along the way, there are friends, allies, politics, drama and a hint of romance, all wedged into a deck-building, turn-based RPG that features scantily clad anime ladies and pixelated battles. An odd combination, but does it somehow work?

By the end of the 6-8 hour story, I had largely forgotten most of the plot, the various places and characters melding into a giant blob of meaningless. Zbyszko has no personality of his own, his interactions with others are dull and the game never manages to properly set up an antagonist, though it does try several times to introduce bosses that appear only to get their butts whooped.

The overworld map is where you get dropped off between fights, free to pick where you want to head next. Well, kind of. What you can actually choose between is a handful of side missions, or embark on the next main quest. Each one has a star rating that signifies the difficulty, and sometimes you’ll even have one or two main missions to choose from, one of which is usually a touch easier in case you are struggling. Your decision can also impact the story in small ways, too.

There’s also a camp where you can pay coins to heal up, recruit new team members, buy relics that provide strong effects or even pay someone to reduce your minimum deck size. There’s even an option to go up against previously defeated bosses.

Whatever mission you opt to tackle, you and your party of four are going to be going up against a batch of enemies. Each turn you have a handful of cards to play, from straight attacks to magic and defensive abilities. The amount of cards you can spew onto the battlefield is dictated by the energy you have available which can be modified in a few different ways. A simple strike may cost 1 energy, for example, while single-use cards are typically free.

Instead of controlling your entire party directly you only control Zbyszko. It’s the combination of cards played during a turn that will dictate what your friends do. A few red attack cards and a blue magic spell can trigger a wave attack that hits the frontmost two foes, while a combination of greens and blues typically activates support moves such as healing. Adding a little more nuance is that some characters will buff others. Since characters take their turn from right to left, that means deciding where in the lineup a companion goes can make a big difference, too. One of my regular teammates could power up the attacks of the rearmost member of the group, so I put her 2nd to last.

It’s a decent system with a hint of depth, but it’s let down by a lack of variety in the cards you can play. After battling every boss and completing as many character side-quests as possible, I’ve not stumbled across anything particularly exciting – it’s all just stuff like dealing X damage, drawing some cards, applying a basic effect and so on. As for the effects, they’re all the same: burning, poison etc, it all just amounts to some damage at the start of every turn. It’s a lacklustre selection of stuff to mess around with. And your companion’s ultimate abilities aren’t exactly spectacular, either.

I also rarely found it to be worthwhile to play fewer cards in order to activate specific abilities. Most of the time, it was far more effective to empty my hand of as many cards as possible rather than try to get my companions to use a certain skill, outside of the occasional mass healing.

As much fighting as you do, the game really needed more depth and variety to keep it entertaining. The boss battles could have been the highlights but are actually the least enjoyable fights in the whole game, largely because of the grind involved in beating them. They come with a raft of minions, probably because on their own they are just a giant health bar. The real danger of the bosses is the constant buffs they apply to their pals, adding on heaps of armour and blessings, forcing you to slowly chip away. These boss battles drag on and on, even when you switch it to the lowest difficulty.

The lack of variety impacts the other big gameplay aspect: deck building. There’s some thinking required when it comes to assembling cards, mainly so that you make the most of your teammates, but because there aren’t many types of cards throwing a deck together isn’t very exciting. There are also quite a few examples of cards just being straight-up better than others, like why use a strike that does 8 damage when you can use slash, which costs the same, does 8 damage and then adds 2 stacks of Bleed as well?

There’s a little more variety in the companions you can pick up. The story will occasionally add story-specific characters to your party of four, but you can also stop by the camp to recruit allies from a good-sized pool. It is kind of fun and satisfying to aim for a specific build, like finding a combination of friends that all trigger off of magic and support cards, and then just filling your deck with only that type of card.

Remember toward the start of this review I used the term “RPG”? Well, that’s how the game describes itself but the reality is far from that being true. You and your companions can level up but all of your pals are automatic, while you get a few points to stick into completely dull skills that do nothing except change a few stats that are unnoticeable. And there’s really no room to actually roleplay as Zbyszko The closest Krzyżacy – The Knights of the Cross gets to being an RPG is the occasional character-based side-quest but that’s it. Don’t go looking for a deep and engaging roleplaying game here.

If the anime visuals aren’t your cup of tea then the game does offer a Western visual pack that alters all of the character designs. The result is pretty nice looking, with the biggest effect being on the female characters who go from skimpy outfits and heaving bosoms to sensible clothing and considerably less heaving. I appreciate the thought and effort that went into this, and I bounced between the two a couple of times. All in all, the Western style seemed to match the historically inspired story far more, but the allure of boobs is always strong.

Check out these two comparison images: the first is with the standard graphics, and the second is with the Western option enabled.

Whichever way you decide to go, Krzyżacy – The Knights of the Cross is a good-looking game. The character sprites have a lot of personality, the colour palette is vibrant and rich, and it all runs rather well. I never ran into any problems, which in this day and age is a freaking miracle.

Krzyżacy – The Knights of the Cross falls squarely into the “yeah, it’s okay” category. The foundation of the turn-based combat is solid but the lack of variety and grindy battles really kills the enjoyment, and the poor localization makes the story hard to get into. If you’re heavily into this kind of game it might be worth a buy, but otherwise, I wouldn’t bother.