Portal Knights advertises itself as a cooperative RPG, mixing the gameplay of Minecraft and Zelda. With several post-launch updates been made and Switch platform, is Portal Knights worth the price of admission?
A blend of The Legend Of Zelda and Minecraft is exactly what you’ll be getting. You’ll create a character between three classes, Warrior, Ranger & Mage. Each one of these contains their own fighting strategies and set of items to craft. Right after, you’re always given the free choice of playing by yourself or with others online & off, then jumping right into your procedurally-generated worlds.
The main objective is simply making your way to the next worlds from either building a portal or finding one hidden in these landscapes. Hidden might be subjective since these worlds tend to surprise you of where is what, sometimes having your objective be a brief cake-walk, other times locked away in dungeons, on distant platforms or underneath layers of water.
Like Minecraft, these environments are made of breakable blocky materials that can be crafted into various things, whether it involves house building & decoration or personal enhancements for your adventuring. Combat and level design takes cues from Ocarina Of Time, locking onto enemies and taking them down with your attacks while dodging theirs. The depth out of what I’ve just stated results in the different weapons each of your classes can equip.
Otherwise, everything retains to be simple, maybe too simple at times. Every world drops you in a land filled with monsters, shops, dungeons, key structural areas and caves, but hardly any civilians. When you do see an NPC, they’ll either give you a tip on playing the game, sell you something, or give you an optional fetch quest.
You’ll travel through many environments, from deserts, canyons, plains, forests through several seasons and much more, but your goals remain simplistic, for better or worse. Thankfully, the sense of adventure, building up bases, sometimes taking on special worlds and timed missions. Each world will have a day & night cycle, with the night spawning special creatures to fight.
Unless you decide to rush through the game by getting through each portal quickly, by which you’ll also have a roadblock in the form of a boss battle for every 10/30 worlds to see, Portal Knights isn’t a very hard game at its default difficulty. Every foe will have their own attack patterns, but nothing is enough to take you down quickly so long you’re in the right level and can counter everything.
Health and stamina can have recovered easily. I would say the boss fights, once your arm yourself well, aren’t the most challenging. For me personally, I hardly mind this at all since I love venturing through these lush worlds, but I don’t think there’s as much enjoyment to have playing solo. Since I was reviewing this on PS4 with no PlayStation Plus subscription and there are no local buddies to play games with, I’m at a huge disadvantage.
Really, Portal Knights, Minecraft, especially Terraria are games meant to produce the fantastical imaginative experiences with buddies. I’ll say, Portal Knights is that nice in-between these sandbox crafting games. If you aren’t into either N64 Zelda or Minecraft, it’s likely this game won’t appeal to you because it is simple to the point of being repetitive in terms of what you’re doing and occasionally, who you’ll be fighting.
However, if this is a crossover that interests you, you’ll have a blast playing this, most so now on Switch, where you can take user-made levels on the go. I can’t go full Recommended for its shortcomings, but Portal Knights is a “Good” indie to spend 10+ hours on by yourself, more so with 3 others!
Pond's Press 