Platforms: PC
Review code provided by PlaySide Studios.
“Once a loyal knight, betrayed, and banished to the Abyss. A desecrated corpse inside reanimated armour. You rise to an eternal death. Branded KILL KNIGHT, you have one purpose – KILL THE LAST ANGEL.“
KILL KNIGHT (from PlaySide Studios in Australia) is a stylish, fast-paced twin-stick shooter with a laser-focus on delivering tight, satisfying gameplay and fluid, responsive controls. Taking cues from classic arcade game design, KILL KNIGHT tasks the player with conquering five hand-crafted arenas designed to challenge their skills. There’s no levelling up, no skill trees, and very little narrative – it’s a very raw and focused experience.
Battling through each stage is a frenetic and visceral experience. The brutal and minimalist aesthetic paired with harsh, meaty sound design give the game a very immersive and stylish feel. It’s an exciting game to look at, and even more exciting to play.
KILL KNIGHT delivers a very appealing ‘easy to learn, difficult to master’ style of gameplay. On the surface the mechanics are quite simple and familiar – you run and dash to avoid enemies while striking them down with a combination of ranged and melee attacks. However, the more you play, the more the game’s intricacies reveal themselves. There’s a very evident and satisfying learning curve that becomes clear as you improve and progress deeper into each stage.
Succeeding in KILL KNIGHT demands more than just dodging and shooting – you’ll need to balance your resources carefully to ensure you’re not caught without heavy ammo or bogged down by your low Kill Power (which increases your movement speed and attack strength) when the going gets tough. While these mechanics can be distracting at first, the intuitive design means that keeping track of your resources and mastering the flow of the game quickly becomes natural.
Each of the five pre-designed stages encourages you to practice and hone your approach by repeating the process and learning from each attempt. KILL KNIGHT rewards aggression and precision, creating a rhythmic dance of bloodshed as you weave between intensifying opposition and stage hazards while returning fire.
Completing each stage for the first time is a challenge in itself, but the game also has online leader boards and ranking systems for those looking to refine and prove their skills. There’s also Master Mode, which delivers the ultimate test by combining all five stages into a single marathon run.
KILL KNIGHT comes with three difficulty settings, adjusting how sturdy the player is and how aggressive the enemies are. The default difficulty feels harsh but ultimately fair, and while it’s easy to die quite suddenly on any difficulty setting, I never found myself getting frustrated with the game. Even when I was especially stuck, the addictive gameplay loop kept me coming back for one more crack at things.
The game also contains a brief tutorial that runs players through the core mechanics one-by-one. While it’s easy to gloss over the details on your first time through, the concise and clear explanations are easy to go back to when you need them later.
As well as simply beating each stage, KILL KNIGHT offers a number of bonus objectives which unlock new weapons and armour to evolve and personalise your playstyle. Each option feels significantly different and meaningfully impacts how you play. I favoured a loadout with a large, slow-swinging melee weapon, which was excellent for generating heavy ammo. This strategy let me lean on my heavy weapon of choice to deliver formidable damage output throughout the entire stage. On the other hand, another player might favour a more nimble melee weapon to let them cut through enemies in a pinch without exposing themselves.
However, if you find these challenges too tricky (some of them are very strict, and may not be enjoyable for every player), the game lets you unlock all of the gear with a currency gathered by simply playing the game. Although it can be a bit of a grind to do so, this does mean that you won’t get stuck without new options for too long. I think it’s a generous system, and one I was happy to take advantage of.
All in all, KILL KNIGHT delivers an excellent and highly polished product without much to complain about. It’s a game with a tight and narrow focus on its core elements, ensuring that the end result sets a very high standard. It’s an exemplary game in a genre that, due to mechanical simplicity, can often be plagued by sub-par offerings (usually involving zombies).
The game can be somewhat unforgiving and may turn away less ‘hardcore’ players, but I think it does a good job of being challenging without feeling unfair or frustrating. Some of the latter stages can feel a bit long, but it’s very satisfying to finally overcome them. It helps that the game is also an audio-visual treat, with a distinct and stylish aesthetic that stands out among the pack while remaining very readable even during intense battles.
If you’re looking for fast-paced, frenetic and skill-testing gameplay, then I would thoroughly recommend giving KILL KNIGHT a look. Its demo was a stand-out during one of the earlier Steam Next Fest events, and the full release more than delivered on my high expectations. It is, without a doubt, one of the best games I’ve played this year.
The post KILL KNIGHT – Review first appeared on Waifu Watch.
