Knight Crawlers

A title like Knight Crawlers would quickly set the scene for this game; a medieval fantasy dungeon crawler with sprinklings of action roguelike mechanics. If that's what you initially guessed, then spot on. Knight Crawlers takes what players enjoy the most out of their action RPG games and attempts to throw it all into one melting pot of fun, bringing a more casual dynamic to combat-based gameplay.

It's all good to say your game will deliver explosive entertainment, but whether it does so is a different story. Knight Crawlers, by expectations, shouldn't be too different from any other action roguelike or dungeon crawler out there. So what's the incentive to give the game a whirl? We must play the game to discover why players must take arms and battle these fantastical foes.

Crawling in My Skin

Knight Crawlers is all about the combat, no if, ands, or buts. You're not given much of a narrative to work with. Apart from that, you are a knight tasked with destroying hordes of enemies from the Corrupted Realms. That'll be good enough for most players as they traverse these casually constructed dungeons and prepare for a colorful array of combat.

So let's focus on the primary gameplay factor, the battles. Are they as fabulously entertaining as they give off? Despite initially a slow start, players' real incentive to play is to discover and unlock a mammoth tree of skills and weaponry to effectively take on the mass amounts of monsters that get in your way. Battles become epic as you wield your swords, axes, magic, and more to take them on.

You'll find yourself sinking a surprising amount of hours for a game without any real narrative and direction. Taking on enemies gets harder, combat gets more challenging, and skill sets become more intriguing. Not to mention, Knight Crawlers looks excellent visually, despite some of the physics looking a little silly at times.

The right angle of Knight Crawlers is that it's a medieval fantasy action roguelike that lets players play how they want to if they wish to create problems for themselves to get out of or tactically take on their enemies a step at a time. The overall lack of objective and repetitiveness may bother some, but somehow, you hardly notice as you break boundaries with your combat creativity.

Good Knight Out

Knight Crawlers feels like a more casual version of Path of Exile, where the dark, serious auras are replaced with colorful battle nodes aimed at entertaining players rather than immersing them. Anyone who plays can feel surprised at how long they remain interested in slaughtering hordes of enemies in procedurally-generated dungeons in weird and wonderful ways.

Round-Up - Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Refined combat that encourages creativity
• Casual visuals make the game accessible to a broad player base
• Plenty of customization options

Cons:

• Not objective-driven
• Little narrative to tie the game together
• Gameplay does eventually get repetitive