A Knight’s Quest wears its inspirations like a big badge of honour, though that badge is undoubtedly in the shape of a Triforce.
Like most adventures, A Knight’s Quest begins with the protagonist making a big eff up that sets some world-threatening events in motion. Typical, right? Thus, you head out on a grand adventure where you’ll have to take down some big nasty baddies in order to save your kingdom. It’s a tale that feels like it doesn’t take itself all that seriously at times and it certainly isn’t shy with its references to other games (namely The Legend of Zelda), but it still has a lot of heart and makes the journey all the more enjoyable. Plus, some of the humour is genuinely funny, so it’s got that going for it too.
Gameplay-wise, A Knight’s Quest feels like your typical third-person adventure: you follow quests, solve puzzles, do some platforming, and beat up some baddies.
One of the game’s strongest elements comes with its exploration. The world itself is pretty big with plenty of different areas to explore, and whilst your objective is always made clear, the path there encourages the player to scour around and take their time to explore every nook and cranny. A lot of this involves platforming too – whilst A Knight’s Quest plays like a third-person adventure a la The Legend of Zelda for the majority of the time, it also has its moments where it feels more like your traditional old-school platformer. It’s good fun.
Combat on the other hand feels a bit less enjoyable… think The Legend of Zelda’s combat, but a lot less intuitive (yeah, I’m referencing Nintendo’s classic series a lot). Rather than partaking in fun little showdowns with enemies, I constantly felt like I was just mashing the attack button with minimal thought – regardless of what weapon I was using. You can defend attacks if you want, but even that is automatic as long as you’re locked onto an enemy. You do unlock additional abilities that can spice things up a little, but never to the point where combat begun to feel particularly exciting.
Those abilities can also be used in some of the game’s puzzles, which are a bit more imaginative than the combat is. Don’t get me wrong, they’re never tough to solve and the solution is typically straightforward, but using your new found abilities to open up new pathways or bypass an obstacle in your path was enjoyable for the most part. These abilities also give access to all new areas in previously visited areas, so it makes backtracking (which you’ll have to do often) a bit more bearable.
Everything comes together to make for a pretty decent adventure for the most part, but there are a few technical hitches that come in here and there. There’s nothing game breaking, but rather things like a drop in the frame rate, some visual glitches, or the controls temporarily just halting (which was weird). There’s nothing that’ll stop you from seeing the game through to its conclusion, but it was a shame that there were quite a few faults to be found along the way.
Summary
A Knight’s Quest is a decent little game, with its charming narrative and fun world proving to be the highlights of the adventure. It’s just a shame that the combat was lacking and that there were quite a few technical glitches to be found on the way.
Neither of these issues do enough to make A Knight’s Quest a bad game though and I had a good time seeing the adventure through to its end. It’s just a shame that it didn’t hit the mark in all areas of its design, because this quest could’ve been something special.
Developer: Sky9
Publisher: Curve Digital
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
