Square Enix, a company that strikes fear into the hearts of many just by the mention of their name (unless they make a new Final Fantasy game), have been one of the most prevalent and noteworthy video game companies that have been making many memorable titles for decades, but back when they started out, it wasn’t quite the same. Back before Square and Enix combined into one, Squaresoft was most well known for their early, influential Final Fantasy series, but even ALL the way before that series would catch the world’s eye, they were just a humble game company who made few noteworthy titles, such as with Rad Racer, and… uh… Rad Racer! None of their earliest titles were too successful or noteworthy, aside from the original Rad Racer, but one title that has been somewhat fondly remembered over time from them would be their first big title to release over here in the states, King’s Knight.

Back when I reviewed the A Boy and His Blob set of games, I had criticized them heavily for being games that had pretty creative ideas, and a clear vision behind them, but a terrible execution of said ideas completely ruined any chance of those games being enjoyable. The same sentiment can easily be applied to King’s Knight as well. For what we got here, there are some pretty creative (albeit very familiar) ideas at play here, especially with the combination of a medieval setting with the genre at hand, but due to plenty of factors, it falls flat on its face, ending up being a frustratingly mediocre experience that should’ve had more time spent brewing in the pot it came out of. Sure, it definitely doesn’t fumble the ball as horribly as A Boy and His Blob did, but when you play this particular misfire, you don’t feel anger, but moreso disappointment, and that, in some circumstances, can be even worse than pure, concentrated rage.

The story is every story ever that takes place in a medieval setting, but what can you expect from a game called King’s Knight, the graphics are… alright, albeit pretty generic for the system, the music is ok, with the tracks themselves being good, but none of them are really gonna stick with me after playing the game, the control is good enough, but in some terrain, it can be a bit of a hassle, and the gameplay is what you would expect with a game from the 80s, but it is mixed with a bunch of other elements and means of bullshit that ruin the experience.

The game is a vertical shooter mixed with some RPG elements, where you take control of four different characters through several stages, shooting up plenty of enemies and the terrain around you to proceed forward, gather many different items and power-ups to level up and get yourself stronger, go into dungeons to take out the same exact boss over and over again, and use spells to get an advantage over the hazards you will come across (but only in the final stage, because fuck you). Now, on paper, and just by glancing at the game, you wouldn’t think that this would be a bad gameplay system, and the ideas present here are pretty interesting. Taking control of all these different characters, powering them up in plenty of different ways, finding these items to help you out along the way, it all sounds like it could work well. Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t, and to explain why, I introduce to you…

THE BULLSHIT WAY TO BEATING KING’S KNIGHT! Explained to you by Mega.

So, in order to beat the classic game King’s Knight that nobody likes, you have to get all four of your characters to the final stage to beat the final boss. Seems simple, right? Well, no, it isn’t. You have to make sure you keep all your characters are alive at all costs, because this game has no lives and no continues, meaning that if all of your characters die just once, that’s it, game over. Basically, you need to play through the entire game flawlessly, which doesn’t sound too bad, but then we get to the game itself.

This game is extremely hard, but not in the way that feels manageable like Ninja Gaiden or Castlevania, and not in a way where you feel determined to thwart the challenges presented like with Ghosts ‘n Goblins or Battletoads. It feels as if every single element of the game is out to make sure you fail, not only with the sheer amount of terrain and enemies that is thrown at you that you need to take down, but the game itself is against you. Every single level of the game is an autoscrolling level, which makes sense, given the type of game it is, but when you pair these types of levels, coupled with the enemies and obstacles that you need to get through, it gets way too unfair way too quickly. You will barely be able to pick up any of the items that can be found throughout because of this system, and it will definitely make you underpowered when you reach the end of the game.

But hey, there’s nothing wrong with that, right? I mean, you don’t really need these items in order to be beat the game, right? FUCK NO. You need a LOT of the items that the game throws at you, not only to make yourself strong enough to face the harder enemies and challenges later down the line, but also in order to cast spells and deal more damage, and trust me, you will NEED these buffs in order to even have a chance of beating the game. I sure as hell didn’t know all this, as when I reached the final stage, I had all four characters, but I didn’t have all the items I needed to cast spells, and I was severely underleveled as well, meaning that not only could I actually not beat the final stage due to a specific obstacle that requires a spell to get past it, but I also died in about one or two hits, because this game hates everything good in the world.

Basically what I am saying is, in order to beat this game, you need to have the abilities of a GOD, getting almost every single item, defeating so many enemies at once, dealing with the bullshit terrain, and making sure that you get all the characters to the end of the game WITHOUT DYING A SINGLE TIME. Needless to say, that is way too much to ask from a player given what you are forced to deal with, which I why I didn’t even bother trying to beat the game after I learned all of that info. Granted, I still don’t completely hate the game, as again, I admire what they are trying to do here, and you don’t see many other games like this out there, but all of that is thrown right out the window when it comes to all of the bullshit that I just brought up, making it a game I would much rather just watch rather then touch again.

Overall, while having some good ideas, and being impressive for one of Square’s earliest titles, this is probably one of the most unfair and unenjoyable games that I have ever played for the NES, and maybe in my entire life. If you are even considering trying this game out, I beg of you, DO NOT DO IT, because it is not worth it at all, unless you just wanna see what it was like, but anything more then that isn’t worth it……….although, with that being said, Square Enix did make a remake of this game over 30 years later called King’s Knight: Wrath of the Dark Dragon, and they released it for mobile devices. I’m not sure what that version has to offer, or if it fixed any of the problems the original had, but if it actually did do that, then try that version out if you are curious enough. Not sure how you would do that, considering the game has most likely been delisted by now, but if you know how to get by that regardless, then go ahead and give it a shot.

Game #256

Much like Lester The Unlikely, I learned about King's Knight thanks to a Youtuber I no longer watch for various reasons. However, unlike LTU, which is a subpar game that wouldn't exactly benefit much from a thorough revamp also the fact I still watch AVGN, King's Knight is a game that could've been decent or perhaps even good if it wasn't for a few flaws hampering its potential. I will say though, it's kind of funny this is the game I chose for an early, non-Final Fantasy Squaresoft title, and not the one I'm actually interested in, Cleopatra no Mahou on the Famicom Disk System. Anyway...

In a "don't judge a book" case, KK plays more akin to a shmup than that of a standard RPG of the era, having you play through four characters in their respective stages before using them all for the final one. Enemies either come from off the screen or hidden within the terrain that you're uh, destroying, for some reason, and also tucked inside are various power ups or one power down. The manual details their individual uses, but even then you can make the safe assumption of "everything but the down arrow is fair game", and honestly it does a commendable job of making you feel the upgrades... with one, though really four, exceptions, but I'll get to that later. Each character starts off slow alongside average bullet power and range, but before long and with enough pickups they start to hold their own very well. In terms of enemy patterns and positioning, it's not too frightful, since there's generally enough distance between you and the targets to safely scoot by, although the hidden encounters from them can be a bit hit-and-miss. Sometimes it's nothing too daunting, often times there's so many coming out of a column that it feels overabundant for the sake of difficulty. There's also caves and one or two secrets to unveil for bonus goodies, though do keep in mind that it could be better to forgo them and instead hunt for the powerups around it. With that said, if you're more than likely gonna play this via emulation, I'll make note that you should just stick with the turbo button on software such as Mesen - more specifically on my end, Mesen 2 - since mashing the crap out of the fire button can get really old, and it's not like it affects the bout too much. I'll also give kudos to the presentation, while not exactly a standout amongst the console's library and admittedly having two cases of garish greens, overall it's rather cute and the rather pitiful amount of tunes are at least nice on the ears, not bad for one of the very earliest Nobuo Uematsu compositions.

To reiterate, the four characters' trials are enough to put this as an enjoyable treat, but the last stage severely brings the package down, accentuating the problems while bringing in two new ones. Because all four characters are now in a diamond formation, this expands your hitbox to a degree that enables you to consume pellets, enemies themselves, and even getting stuck on walls or repeatedly jumping in/out the damn water to an obnoxious degree. That alone is bad enough, but this is also when the game pulls out all the stops and bombards you with enemies and attacking statues, with some cases such as this section being particularly devilish since you have to either avoid the ghostly enemies in the tightly packed walls, or accept the brunt damage and pray you still have enough health to continue on - which, by the way, you have no way to recover on your own, instead having to rely on sparse powerups throughout the stage. You'll notice on that custom-made map by a GameFaqs user that at the end of the ghost barrage, the walls are closed off. See, what you're supposed to do is use the thief's spell to burn them down. You obtain the element necessary to unlock them by playing through the trials, except you don't get the element by simply picking them up with their respective spellcaster, no every single character must pick them up for them to be viable. Doesn't matter if just one ally is missing something despite the designated individual having it, you have to reset or game over, press Select at the title screen, choose the character(s) missing the element(s), then train them all over again. Oh yea, and you can't free swap between each character at will, you gotta rely on arrow panels that, once again, can be accidentally stepped on due to the oversized hitbox of your formation, and some arrows being a crapshoot on landing on the exact person you need. I get what they're trying to do here, especially since its hinted at with each statues during a particular stretch being weak to a certain person's attack, but the way they went about it adds unnecessary tedium and frustration to what's already the most aggravating level in the entire game.

It just saddens me, I was genuinely having an alright time as my nightly endeavor before bed until that stage happened. I'm not exactly one to really get up-at-arms or feel remorse for falling back on rewinds and/or save states, but the amount of time I've used either one at that point compared to everything else beforehand is appalling, even to the point I sincerely thought about throwing my hands up and using the same invincibility code the YTer I talked about ended up relying on at the end, but I decided to buckle down and do it """""legit""""" regardless. There's only three notable things worth talking about in this relic: it was the first game on the Famicom/NES that Hironobu Sakaguchi worked on, the previously mentioned factoid regarding Uematsu, and in some weird cross-promo for FF15, it received a revitalized reimagining... as a free-to-play mobile app, that then shut down just 9 months and 13 days after. Truthfully, I wouldn't mind an actual stab at giving this a proper refresh, but that also means having a suitable platform with ways to give it a nice longevity, and I don't see Square doing that any time soon.

not really my first time playing this, though it might as well be. anyhow, it's a vertically scrolling shooter with a hook: survive each of the 4 heroes' stages, finding their unique spell tokens along the way, and then deploy said spells at a specific moment (you'll have to figure that out) during the final stage, where the heroes form a unit. if you fail to find any one of those spells or allow even a single hero to die - with a single hit - you're hosed. it's a game that demands mastery, and while it may be unlikely that most people today are going to put that kind of energy into a nes game with a dodgy reputation, well... that's fine. it's still a neat little game to pop in for a few minutes and see how you fare. it's pretty fun blasting everything in sight (including the scenery) in search of the power-ups you'll need. a pad with autofire would be highly recommended. don't stress... unless?