The Knightling

tl;dr: A fun but flawed open-world platformer with some nice movement tech. Not really worth the full asking price (30 USD), but well worth what I paid for it (8 USD). [h1]The Good[/h1] [list] [*] Movement controls are reasonable (on a controller) and teching is both possible and fun, though somewhat tricky to pull off. [*] The art is colorful and about what you'd expect from an indie Unreal/Unity 3D title that's not using art as the USP. [*] Combat can be a bit dull at first, but improves as you unlock moves. And if you still don't like it (or it's too difficult), there's an "immortal" mode and easy mode doesn't lock off achievements. [*] Finally, while the plot twist was predictable, it was still enjoyable and played well into the "people with power are terrible" theme. [/list] [h1]The Bad[/h1] [list] [*] It's blatantly unfinished: They finished the main quest and fleshed out the first area, but each later area only has 2-3 side quests. The part that annoyed me the most is that one quest has you gathering feedback from the citizens about the queen, but there's never any follow-up. [*] It's lacking consistency polish: Saving/reloading can break things, the camera freaks out occasionally, and movement glitching is common. [*] It's lacking performance polish: I rarely experienced slowdowns, but I'm playing on a fairly powerful PC. As other reviews have pointed out, FPS tanks on any mildly-complicated scene. [/list] [h1]Refutation of the Bad[/h1] All 3 of the above points are indicative of an indie team rushing to get a game out before they run out of funding. So it's remarkable how well put-together this game is considering the flaws. There's a complete plot, gameplay works reasonably well, and I never encountered any game-stopping bugs (one crash, but that's to be expected these days). Unlike so much Early Access slop out there, [i]Knightling[/i] is actually a game, and Twirlbound should be congratulated on getting that much done. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] I can't really recommend it at full price, but it's definitely worth picking up on sale. For the content available, I'd say it's worth a good 15-20 USD. I'm giving it a 5/7: a good example of the genre and it brings a bit of novelty to the table.

Starts out at 90-110fps through out the tutorial at medium-high settings and by the time you hit town struggles to play at 1080p and medium-low settings at 55-61 fps and my computer by no means is a slouch and a HUGE upgrade over recommended hardware... but what I play is REALLY fun minus performance drops. Refunded, I'm through paying for games that can't seem to find a stable framerate especially when my PC is monumentally more powerful than the recommended specs.

This game starts out as a fun and simple 3D action platformer but over the course of it's playtime the small cracks become chasms that suck all fun out of the experience. The combat is a mess and poorly designed. Attacks are slow and it has no targeting system but you're often surrounded by 5+ enemies that just hit you over and over again. This is compounded by the fact there are fast enemies that dodge every attack and fat armored enemies that act like sponges and will heal all other enemies near you. So every fight is trying to kill the armored ones first while avoiding the others until you rip its armor off and kill it. Then it's slowly dodging and getting a couple hits in on the fast enemies until you kill them. It's so tedious and repetitive. By the end I was avoiding all combat unless it was required. I can't express how bad every fight feels by the halfway point. It's baffling the designers thought this would be fun. The exploration is amateur hour. The map is loaded with points of interest and collectables, but many don't disappear from your map once you get them, so you don't know what you've gotten and what you haven't. There are not enough fast travel points and traversing the map is MISERABLE until you get a boost glide upgrade. Once again this is compounded with god awful layout that doesn't really tell you were to go half the time. Just a few other things. Why do all enemies respawn, why do the plant enemies get knocked out only for like 5 seconds, why is the performance in the city so poor, why isn't the constellation puzzle explained at least once, why is the door puzzle and final area with the towers that shoot you so poorly laid out? I liked this at the start but HATED it by the end. Awful game that I got on sale and still want a refund for.

Starting out this game had some strange direction, but by the second half everything clicked into place and it felt special. Combat is solid, art direction is phenomenal, music is banging, and everyone's head is a thing. It's a good game.

Combat is horrible. It is clunky and awkward. Really disappointing considering the open world is "PS2/GCN" gorgeous (in the best way).

A fun game, old school style made where you have to "♥♥♥♥ around and find out" there aren't many hints as how the mini games work so you have to run around and try everything. Its a gem in the sea of slop we are being forced to.. Keeps your brain in good shape , looks fun , play's smooth so far.. ( Some minor issues with by default unlimited frames - best to limit it to 60 ; and a few crashes i believe its because of NGreedia drivers)

A wonderful little adventure, cannot recommend enough