Crowntakers

Crowntakers (CT) is a short rouge-like game, where you traverse 8 different quasi-hex based maps, building a party of up to five members along the way. Each map is comprised of various nodes, where you will search for loot, upgrade your gear, recruit new members to your party (one per map), and of course fight battles. You are tasked to storm the castle and rescue the king in 18 days (yes you are timed even though this is a fully turn-based game).
Pros:
* There are 10 different different classes, and each class comes in three different flavors (you pick one "archetype" at the time you recruit each member). These classes are fairly diverse given the streamlined stat system set-up.
* The tactical battles are good (not great). You are pretty much forced to nuke what you can with ranged, turtle up, withstand the enemies frontal assault on their turn, and then clean up. Battles are a tiny bit repetitive in this sense but still enjoyable on the whole.
* The stat system is simple, which is appreciated for a quick game like this. That said, on level-up you are offered a choice of two between dodge, strength (i.e. damage), %crit, and health, with the preference almost exclusively being to take these in that order for all characters. (Ranged may start to pick strength over dodge late-game).
* The game is short and easy to pick up for quick runthroughs at about 2.5-4 hours.
* You can equip (and unequip) a small variety of runes for attack and defense. This flexibility works well with the randomness of each playthrough. Some runes are better on some characters, which makes for nice strategy in builds.
* There is a nice selection of items and potions.
* Game can be bought on sale for cheap.
YMMV:
* This game is timed. In order to rescue the King you only have 18 days. Further, your enemies get stronger over time as well (I guess they are in their own in little RPG as well?) Time passes every time you move your party from one node to another. Often you must traverse the same stretch, which burns more time. Some searchable locations offer the choice for a full (9h) or reduced (2h) search. Time also passes when you rest, which you must do as a penalty for every full turn taken in battle. I didn't like this aspect as I play these sorts of games to find the best possible loot and pimp my characters out. I don't like being punished for making my party stronger. Fortunately, you can still defeat the end boss even after 18 days. In fact I have won 7 times and have never rescued the King, which is fine with me.
* You unlock characters one at a time on progressive playthroughs, which is fine. However, the last 3 characters you unlock all kinda suck. The only way I lose now is if I am forced to play without the characters you unlock right away.
Cons:
* Inventory is a bit tight, especially since you need 7 spots for potions. A minor complaint but still worth mentioning, since I never ever find inventory management fun in games and am puzzled by devs who still force it upon me.
* Game is a bit too easy. I will only ever die on the first few fights (if I fail to find an armor rune and get unlucky) or if get stuck without one of the three usable ranged characters. In fact, each level gets easier and easier until you reach the boss fight which is the easiest of all.
Overall:
I must say that I never expected to play this game so many times after beating it once or twice. You fight the same enemies on the same maps, and follow the same recipe for success. However, it is super easy to get into a run and a run doesn't take too long. Most importantly, the whole of the package comes together nicely as just plain fun.
Rating: 8.0/10

A nice little tactical combat game with some great ideas and a better combat system than most in it's genre.

Crowntakers, a game I would better describe as risk takers because playing it is a risk of worthwhile time that will probably be better spent playing something else. That being said this game isn't awful, it was likely made by a smaller team and considering I got it on sale (with it already being a cheaper game), for what I paid I think it was more than fine even if I got bored quite quickly.
For a turn based rpg the mechanics are fairly straight forward, at least, once you actually get them explained. Even reading all the dialogue the starting NPC vomited onto me I still had things I didn't figure out until further runs, like being able to click on any character to take their turn when I thought it was in a set order. There are also just things that go unexplained that you learn to accept, like why certain enemies get attacks of opportunity and others just don't.
The balance of the game is also all over the place. While you can do some interesting combinations of parties from the existing mercenaries, some are just easily better than others. The DLC is also kinda pay to win because it introduces items that completely circumvent the archetypes system by letting the according mercenary have access to all 3 of their class abilities at once, even if you hadn't unlocked them yet. It also adds an arguably strong character that you otherwise wouldn't have access to.
I think if the game had more depth to it and didn't feel as shallow, with better accessories like more music (turned it off really fast cause it felt annoying and bland), more interesting story other than obvious things you can see coming a mile away, and rather generic designs in general, it could be a very good indie game. As is, I think the scores and feedback it has is pretty fair and deserved.
Even though it seems like most of what I had to say was bad, I think if you have some extra cash and want a quick detour of a game, giving this a few chances isn't the worst thing in the world so I can recommend it as is.
It could definitely be better, but there are definitely much worse games out there, ones that even cost more than the pittance you'd spend on this one!

Fun, accessible, and challenging roguelike (roguelite?). Easy to dip in, do a run or two. Turn based combat is satisfying and challenging.