From the Doctor's Office: Knightfall

Gather round, peasants, as I tell ye the tale of Knightfall. Front-paged on Kongreagate about month ago, Knightfall is a real gem that shouldn’t be passed up. The fine folks at Megadev poured their hearts and souls into this game, and it really shines through. Knightfall beautifully combines small aspects of each game genre, and could probably be considered a genre of its own (Puzzle/RPG/Strategy doesn’t quite roll off the tongue).  The game itself is really quite simple, once you do a bit of learning through trial-and-error. Essentially, you break blocks in a Tetris style puzzle, guiding the Knight ever closer to the key. Along the way, you’ll have to position yourself to avoid (Or better yet: Kill) baddies, until you reach the inner chamber of hell to fight Satan himself. Now… on to the review!

Gameplay: 5/5  The mash up of several different genres works great for Knightfall. You’re also timed, so to speak. Our unnamed hero only has a set amount of Action points per level. Once his stamina runs out, you’ll lose one life every time you make a move. This challenges the player to be conservative with moves. Don’t let it discourage you from grabbing some loot though. Some extra damage won’t matter if you can snag a free potion!

Visual: 4/5 I’d love to give this a perfect score, but the game gets in the way of itself. Literally. Knightfall has some wonderful backgrounds, but the puzzle itself is opaque. You can’t enjoy each well-drawn background since the puzzle itself is a visual barrier. However. The puzzle is bright, colorful, and have some well drawn enemies. The falling animations and attacking animations are superb too.  You can feel the Knight’s pain when the Minotaur lashes out to get him.

Audio: 5/5 In my opinion, Knightfall’s music is not only good, but it adds to the game experience. The music will get more and more ominous as you progress through the story mode. And once you launch into Purgatory mode, it follows a cycle, so you aren’t stuck with the same song. For those of you who listen to your own music, there’s a mute button for the Music and the Sound Effects. The sound effects are great. When you kill an enemy, the Knight’s drill lance makes a Power Drill Noise. Even the enemies sound great. Each baddie has its own death noise and description noise. My favourite is the Mandrake.

Difficulty: 4/5 I’m seeing a lot of comments about the game being too hard. Personally, I feel just the opposite. Knightfall’s blocks are randomly laid out in each level, so the game can be simple or difficult depending on how the game lays it out for you. Once you delve deep into Purgatory mode, the game gets pretty easy. That doesn’t make it any less playable though. I guess Knightfall’s difficulty is a mixed blessing at best; if you don’t like your board, you can kill yourself and try again.

Overall 4.5/5 No game is perfect, but Knightfall doesn’t fall too short of perfection. I urge you to at least give it a try. If you get sucked in, you’ll most likely find yourself loading it up to play a few boards weeks from now. If you don’t get sucked in, then that’s fine too. You’ll remember the experience, even if it was a bad one. Knightfall doesn’t have badges. And it’s been up long enough that it might not ever get them. I’d love to see it with some though. You’ll love helping the Knight even more with some points at stake.

Kong Score: 3.75/5

~DoctorAutopsy

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