A great "Gabriel Knight" style horror/mystery adventure, but... the... slow... pacing... kills... it...
Lost Crown shows all the promise of being a modern GK, but unfortunately some mechanics of the game cause it to fall short.
The good:
1. Atmosphere -- It's a wonderfully creepy, yet still charming, environment that you spend your time in and around. Music, sound effects, and little visual touches are all immersive.
2. Story -- It's actually a very good, compelling mystery. Your brain twists and turns to try to guess at the twists throughout, and you are drawn in slowly but surely.
3. Characters -- There are quite a few people to interact with. The interaction is a bit shallow, but even then it beats the Myst-alikes where you wander about with no one around.
4. Audio -- Some folks didn't care for the voice-overs, but I found them to be between capable and good. Your main character's dialog delivery is definitely stiff, but workable. Music is sparse, but appropriate. Sounds affects are hit and miss, but again, workable. Overall, not great, but good.
The bad/iffy:
1. Pacing -- Everything in this game unfolds at a frustrating pace. No, I'm not looking to dart about constantly, and I can handle slow scenes for dramatic emphasis. But your character does...everything...really...slowly...all...the...time. This includes walking, talking, short transitional animations (e.g. putting your coat on/off as you enter/leave your rental house)... everything. Sometimes I just want to go from point A to point B quickly.
2. Animation -- This is really related to the pacing issues, but everything is very clunkily and sluggishly animated. Things look very puppet-like in their movements, while visually (if you took a still screen shot) they look great, so that's a frustrating inconsistency.
Looking at the above, you'd think I'd be pleased as all the important aspects of an adventure game are in the "good" list. However, the pacing is horribly frustrating, and I found myself bored waiting for something to happen, or when wandering to a far off locale, getting there was amazingly tedious. The story unfolds in a rather slow pace, largely due to cases where the game wants you to find or do one more VERY specific thing before advancing to the next morning, and you're stuck wandering at mind-dumbingly slow pace to figure that one thing out.
Overall, I _really_ wanted to love this game, but about half way through I found myself annoyed and bored as I wandered about looking for the next clue. Just having your character walk or move at double pace might've been enough. But as it is, this is definitely an "almost, but not quite" title.