- Publisher: Andrew Brophy
- Release Date: Nov 22, 2023
- Critic score
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- By date
- Unscored
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Nov 27, 2023Knuckle Sandwich revives a lost genre while sparking a whole new one. It's uniquely clever and effortlessly funny.
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Nov 27, 2023Andy Brophy’s Knuckle Sandwich will likely go down as the year’s strangest and most endearing video game. It takes the framework of past icons such as Mother and Earthbound and injects a little bit of ocker into the mix to create an off-the-wall roleplaying game that’ll play to both the nostalgia harboured for our sunburnt country as well as the genre’s decades-long history.
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Nov 30, 2023Knuckle Sandwich is clearly a love letter to classic 8-bit role-playing games but with a twist. Bright City has some interesting characters and interactions (I particularly love the washing machine save points). The story goes places. And the core mechanics are easy to learn and varied. The biggest issue is how difficult and repetitive combat can be, even with the many mini games thrown in. I genuinely think players should activate the Skip option as soon as they hit a roadblock and then use it liberally. Knuckle Sandwich is weird enough to be worth experiencing, even if its battle sequences aren’t always worth playing through.
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Nov 23, 2023Knuckle Sandwich is a charmingly absurd and lovingly crafted RPG adventure that delights in surprise. Its wonderfully nostalgic, SNES-like glitchcore visual and audio design constantly shifts style, and its rollercoaster of a plot happily sets up player expectations, subverts them, and then subverts them again. Unfortunately, the game is let down by a frustratingly restrictive inventory and some game balance issues leading to lengthy, repetitive boss encounters. However, Knuckle Sandwich’s charm and dry humour shines through at every step and is sure to leave you chuckling.
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Nov 23, 2023Knuckle Sandwich is a unique and stunningly vibrant and gorgeous pixel-animated RPG that will test your resolve with its mini-games and turn-based sequences.
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Edge MagazineDec 28, 2023Too erratic for its own good. [Issue#393, p.119]
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Nov 27, 2023Knuckle Sandwich is at its best when it goes off-script. It’s just that when it finally has to go back on-script, we find that the script is a rather tedious one. I spent 15 hours to see the ending in hopes that all the boredom I experienced was building to some sort of pay-off. That there would be some tremendous punchline at the end that brings reason to all my suffering. There was none. Just a fading bruise.
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Nov 22, 2023Despite some initial misgivings and a few frustrations, there’s a lot to latch onto and love here. Though the battle system is in need of some heavy tuning, frustrations can mostly be mitigated with accessibility options, and the game that ultimately comes together is more than the sum of its parts. It might buckle under its own weight at times, but Knuckle Sandwich is an endearing and wild ride worth going on.
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Nov 23, 2023It's a real shame that Knuckle Sandwich's combat is beyond frustrating, because it's a huge part of uncovering the mysteries lurking within Bright City. If it gets rebalanced later down the line, then it would undo a lot of why I'd hesitate to recommend the game right now. I simply don't think the kooky residents and wonderful visuals can make up for fights that'll raise your blood pressure to dangerous levels. Here's hoping things change.