[Review] A Knight’s Quest – Nintendo Switch

A Knight’s Quest
Nintendo Switch

Developed By : Sky9 Games
Published By : Curve Digital
Category : Action, Adventure, Puzzle, Platforming
Release Date : Oct 10, 2019

I’ve always found that games which stamp the word “quest” into their title are generally trying to imbue some sense of bigness. Whether it’s in the size of the game itself, or the importance of the journey the character[s] are about to experience. A Knight’s Quest for the Nintendo Switch is one that looks to bring a big adventure and lots of purpose, to an unlikely hero.

The game begins with our main character, Rusty, traversing inside a cave. At the end of a cave lies a chest with a note on it, a note that seems to taunt him into opening it. Rusty does so, and ends up unleashing the contents contained within the case to the outside world. The cave begins to collapse on itself and Rusty makes it out alive, but barely.

Outside, he returns to his village where the mayor (who is also his father) and everyone has witnessed the threat of the purple crystal hovering in the sky. Rusty’s friend and partner tries to convince the mayor to let the two of them go out and fix the problem. However, the king has other ideas of tracking down the legendary trio of knights who might not even exist, and call upon them to set things write in the world.

Your journey will take you through many 3D generated areas across the entire map of your land. You’ll visit various caves and the treacherous paths to get to them in order to fulfill the mayor’s wishes and look for the knights of legend. The world as a whole is pretty big, but the areas you will be in are more limited. Once you reach the extremes of these places, you’ll automatically travel to the next place.

Most of the places you’re in, you’ll be dealing with plenty of enemies. Which is fine, because Rusty is outfitted with his trusty sword and shield…made of wood. (Don’t worry, they get upgraded to real weapons pretty quickly!). Whack away at all the blobs and skeletons that get in your way and collect the coins or items that they drop to fill your adventurer’s purse.

Of course dealing with the small enemies can only lead to dealing with bigger enemies, and that’s very much the case here. As you visit each area you’ll encounter one massive boss that will test your skills. The three fabled knights were each masters of a specific element : Wind, Fire, and Ice. Through their temples you will also gain elemental abilities which you’ll need to use to help take down the big boys.

Fighting won’t be the only use for these skills. A Knight’s Quest pits you up against a great number of puzzles, and the elemental powers you gain will be absolutely necessary in the solution process. Use your wind power to activate spinning switches, or your fire power to light things. There aren’t an overwhelming amount of puzzles to deal with in the game, but they are pretty in depth and you can expect to use at least a couple of brain muscles.

To use these skills, you’ll need Rusty’s magic bar, which is represented by small images of fire near his health bar. This fills up as you attack enemies, and using it will invoke your current elemental power. Again, they can be used both in and out of combat, and have their strong points in both situations.

Items you pick up will sometimes come from enemies, but you can also find a good amount of things naturally in the game, as well as kept inside of chests. If you do find a chest, expect to work for it. These will be hidden by a quick puzzle, or guarded by a few enemies, so they are far from just being a gift for you. The items you find will include healing items, like potions and fruit, or collectible items like doodie (yup…you’re reading that, and I’m writing it) that can be sold for currency. Naturally, the coins you find will pile up until you decide to spend them…or horde them for all eternity.

As soon as I fired up A Knight’s Quest I could tell this game was going to fit right in on a Nintendo platform. I instantly got strong vibes of a Zelda-esque game. The world as a whole felt reminiscent of Breath of the Wild while the exploration and combat had me right back in Ocarina of Time.

Speaking more specifically to this game, though, it does a great job pulling inspirations and imitations. What it doesn’t do a lot of though is find it’s own voice. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as this is a very fun game to play. I just had been hoping for more of being itself instead of being dangerously close to the ease of a Zelda clone label. The graphics are great, all the scenery is beautiful, and the music fills the atmosphere beautifully.

Despite it’s clone-like features, I can’t express properly enough how fun this game was to play. It has a bit of everything, and it’s all so well done. The puzzles are well thought out, the combat is exciting, even more so when you step into the big league boss fights. One thing I personally enjoyed was the facial expressions on some of the characters. When they needed to express any sort of an emotion, the eyes and mouth took on a sort of pasted-on appearance that reminded me of Robot Chicken.

In the end, you might not find an overwhelming amount of originality, but A Knight’s Quest is for sure a game that should be in your library and played frequently. So grab your copy from the eShop and go off to save the world!