A Knight’s Quest is a brand new RPG by Curve Digital and Sky 9 Games. At first, it reminds us of the classic RPG games which we used to have back on PS1. As much as I loved those early generation RPG titles, A Knight’s Quest is a welcoming title that reminds us how simple RPGs used to be in the early days. This is our review of A Knight’s Quest in which we will tell you why it fails to last long as a memorable RPG title. For our review, we were provided a copy of the game and we played the game on Xbox One.
A Knight’s Quest puts you in the shoes of Rusty, who is a simple adventurer but ends up putting everyone in the world at the risk of annihilation by a silly mistake of trying to find some treasure. After unleashing a powerful being from his long and deep slumber, Rusty is bestowed upon the quest to find the three Guardians of the world and bring them together to save Regalia. However, the plans are never simple and they never go according to the plan.
The narrative of A Knight’s Quest is pretty fun however it’s not very deep. As far as I’ve seen, A Knight’s Quest does not want you to take it seriously. It is filled with humor of the type we can expect from such games. The story will take around a decent chunk of your time initially as you unlock additional powers of Rusty such as powerful flame bracers, better sword and shield, and Tornados spewing out of Rusty’s left arm. To me, the narrative was a major factor that kept me going and wanted me to end the complete story of the game.
Apart from the main quest, as you explore the world of Regalia, you will meet a large number of colorful NPCs. You can interact with these people and get to know more about them. Some of them will even give you side quests that you can complete for some extra rewards and more exploration of the world of the game. The main quest does not cover all areas of the game so these side quests and activities provide a decent diversion from the main game and let you explore more of Regalia.
The enemy design is pretty good as you would come across a different number of enemies throughout your journey. Depending on the area, you are present it, you will come across a diverse selection of enemies such as skeletons, slime, octopuses and skeleton wizards. During the normal bunch of enemies, you will often come across some heavies which will slam and punt you round the match. Another fun aspect is the sudden ambushes during which an arena is formed around you and you cannot leave the arena until you defeat all enemies. This is pretty similar to the arenas we used to fight in Guacamelee!.
The level design is also pretty decent. The world of Regalia is pretty colorful and you will travel a large number of different areas which look pretty cool and give a good change of environment. You will explore fiery lava-spitting mountains, beautiful waterfalls, dark caves, and icy peaks. Each location has a large number of collectibles hidden in their corners and nooks as well which gives you a chance to explore the areas completely and not miss anything. Each location comes with many locked areas that you can only access with special items and gear so you will need to return back to these locations once you have acquired the required items and gear to explore their secrets.
As you kill enemies and explore the world, you will also find tons of useful items that you can use in various ways. You will find health potions, bandages, bombs and fruits. You can also mine some ores which are used to upgrading your equipment and make it better. Since your inventory space is limited, you will also need to keep a balance between the items you need the most and discarding the items that you do not need in the game. Inventory management is a very important mechanic here because certain items must be in your inventory at all times. For example, you must have healing potions and bandages with you at all times because the bandages only heal your wounds and the healing potions can only refill your health. This gives you an added challenge as you try to balance your inventory with items.
Coming to the gameplay, Combat is not the strongest suit of A Knight’s Quest. It is just pointless spamming of the attack button and gradually stopping completely in the middle of combat to press the dodge key to roll away from harm’s way. The dodge mechanic could have been better however it is not completely useless. Most of the times dodge only worked for me when I had waited for a second after I landed an attack on the enemy. It is not the most effective dodge rolls I’ve seen in an RPG however it still does the job.
Most of the time, I preferred staying back myself because I did not want to rely on the dodge to roll out at the last moment because I always ended up getting hit by the enemy because Rusty simply refused to dodge. If you continue to roll around, it works just fine but somehow during combat, after landing at the attack, it is not very instant and wants you to wait for a little before you can dodge away from enemies. Apart from the poor dodge mechanic, combat overall feels dull and boring. Boss battles are pretty fun though.
You do get the option to switch between the three unique elemental attacks which grant you an edge in the battle but get surrounded by a large number of enemies and the lock-on mechanic turns the combat into hell. You can also charge up your attacks to land more powerful jabs at your enemies and also parry ranged attacks to throw back the enemy attacks to make combat easier for yourself however you must always give yourself enough time to roll out of harm’s way because unlike most RPGs, the roll is not instant and requires some time after an attack.
Platforming is yet another big aspect of A Knight’s Quest and that too sometimes fails to impress. Rusty would get stuck and won’t move around a specific plant because it is a little higher than the ground and Rusty would get stuck in it. This would cause me to move out immaturely thus resulting in falling down and failing the platforming section. This is not all, sometimes the game would simply respawn me in the same area where I died and it would end up in a continuous loop of me dying and respawning again at the same location.
However, it is not as bad as combat. It is still fun most of the time as you skate around wires, which sort of reminds me of Ratchet and Clank, wall ride and jumps around different tricky platforms and planks. A Knight’s Quest has a lot to offer however a few bugs and glitches here and there take away the charm of the game. The combat could have been much better as sometimes and the platforming glitches certainly ruin certain sections. Apart from this, I have a really fun time playing the game.
Final Verdict
A Knight’s Quest has its fair share of problems at this point and I think that it is trying to be a lot at the same time. It combines platforming with RPG mechanics along with a decent narrative. The RPG mechanics are not too deep however you certainly feel their presence in the game. The narrative and the RPG mechanics are pretty fun whereas the game suffers when it comes to combat and platforming which makes it hanging in the middle. If you are looking for a decent RPG title that combines platforming with RPG mechanics, A Knight’s Quest is a great title for you to play however do not expect too much when it comes to combat.
Final Score: 7/10
