A Knight’s Quest review for Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One

It turns out that, despite what I said a few weeks ago, I don?t like all Zelda clones, but instead only the good ones. I can say this with certainty because A Knight?s Quest copies from the same action-adventure formula pretty directly, and I didn?t like it much at all.

In fairness, of course, the better comparison for A Knight?s Quest might not be Zelda, but rather Darksiders. A brightly-coloured, kid-friendly version of Darksiders, but Darksiders nonetheless.

Whatever you want to compare it to, the unavoidable truth is that A Knight?s Quest is the definition of mediocre. The world is thoroughly uninteresting, with all those bright colours unable to hide the fact that there?s not a lot going on. You occasionally come across other people, but they don?t move around much, and they mostly feel like they?re there in this sparsely-populated space because convention calls for it, rather than because the developers wanted to create a world.

The combat is equally uninspired. It?s almost all hacking and slashing at nondescript enemies, with the occasional use of your shield to deflect flying objects back from where they came from. You pick up powers along the way, but none of them are all that interesting. The boss fights are easily-beaten but take forever, making them the definition of long slogs.

The game?s performance is also a bit of an issue. While I never came across any game-breaking bugs or anything, every so often the resolution would plummet and I?d find myself looking at some grainy green blur. It wasn?t tied to anything, either — I?d turn around in a green field, for example, and everything would suddenly look terrible.

What?s shocking, however, is that despite all these flaws — despite everything else in A Knight?s Quest being as generic as it gets, right down to that thoroughly forgettable name — this game has surprisingly funny. The dialogue is enjoyably sarcastic, and it blends in political commentary in an impressively unobtrusive way, getting the point across without feeling like it has to slam you over the head with it.

It?s still not funny enough to make it worth your while to play A Knight?s Quest, though. There are numerous games that do the same thing but in a much better, more interesting way, and you?d be better off playing any — or all — of them than wasting your time and money here.

Curve Digital provided us with A Knight’s Quest Switch code for review purposes.