Bucket Knight review for PS Vita, PS4, Xbox One, Switch

Despite what you may think from the name, Bucket Knight is in no way affiliated with Shovel Knight. Sure, they?re both retro-y platformers, and sure, both feature knights defined by objects, but that?s the extent of what they have in common.

Unfortunately, this goes for quality too. Where Shovel Knight was a brilliant homage to platformers of days gone by that still offered more than enough to players to stand on its own two feet, Bucket Knight…exists.

That?s really all that can be said for it. While the game officially features 25 levels, for the most part you?re just running through the same dungeon again and again, with slightly different layouts and a few more enemies here and there to mix things up. There are the odd levels where the game switches things up — a rising floor of spikes here, a level comprised entirely of floating platforms there — they happen so rarely they?re barely worth mentioning.

What?s more, there?s little in the way of a challenge here. You have infinite lives, so there?s no penalty for dying again and again (not that you will, for the most part). Just about the only thing that makes Bucket Knight hard in any way is that there are no checkpoints in any level, so if you run out of hearts in a level, you have to go back to the beginning and start over — but again, these levels aren?t very long.

There?s really nothing here that you haven?t seen or heard before. The music sounds like it could come straight from the ?80s, and they play the same song over and over and over until you get sick of it. The graphics are equally well-worn, and the fact all the levels are so similar means you see the same assets used innumerable times.

Just about the only good things that can be said about Bucket Knight are that it?s short, it generally works (though the jumping physics occasionally seem a little wonky), and it has an easy Platinum. It?s far from the worst game I?ve ever played, but there?s really nothing here that makes it worth recommending.

Sometimes You provided us with a Bucket Knight PS Vita code for review purposes.