Spiral Knights

 PC
  • Publisher: Sega
  • Release Date: Apr 4, 2011
User Score
7.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 216 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 118 out of 216
  2. Mixed: 66 out of 216
  3. Negative: 32 out of 216

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  1. Shotgun-rayne
    Jan 20, 2013
    2
    This game is good, until it turns into a giant **** grind fest. Like, when you get to level 3+(maybe 4, not sure), you need to grind for long amounts of time. This game also punches you in the **** face with all the pay to win stuff. Nuff said'
  2. RedBen
    Aug 1, 2012
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Spiral Knights is an RPG overhead game similar to The Legend of Zelda, but with online play. It's fun at first, but then you will run out of energy. Unless you cough up some money to buy more, you're done for the day. While you can trade coins for energy, you need a lot of coins to get even a little. Another way to temporarily get around this issue is to play with friends, who can use their energy to pay for the elevator, but that's almost like a backstab to them. The boss battles, if you can get far enough to get into one, are fun because they require skill. Not much to say about them other than this: the only boss I've battled is the Snarbolax, which is an awesome boss, but I can't fight any farther because of a lack of energy. I wish I could talk about this game more, but the energy is such a problem, I can't keep off it. Almost any subject in this game leads to the energy problem. I would explain the dungeons, which are simple, but still, you eventually have to leave due to a lack of energy. The weapons and armor are good looking and work well, but a lack of energy prevents you from getting past anything with a 2 star rating. You can revive yourself if you die in game, but only if you or your friend has energy. I wish I could stop talking about this problem, but almost everything in this game revolves around energy. It's energy that makes the Clockworks go round in Spiral Knights. Overall, Spiral Knights is fun, but only until you run out of energy.… Expand
  3. czaczaczar
    Nov 14, 2012
    3
    This game has good graphics, controls, & gameplay. The only thing that is annoying is the energy. You have to pay a big sum of money to refill your energy or pay real cash. The monsters drop very little money.
  4. austenite
    May 23, 2011
    0
    This game was on course to become bigger than World of Warcraft...Then the developers decided to get greedy and tripled the real world cost of in game items. That mistake will cost them. Severely.
  5. Dracorat
    Jun 25, 2011
    2
    You can get

    A misson or two

    Done before

    You have to pay

    or wait until the next day

    to have energy to

    play another dungeon or two.

    Or pay ... a lot

    Of course, levelling up also requires this same "energy" that you only accumulate until 100 (even though some items cost lots more than that in energy to even craft in game>
    This game is a pure example of greed fail.
  6. Crazyflames
    Jul 25, 2011
    2
    This game is fun, thats why I gave it a 2. After that it all goes downhill. As said before you are limited by energy, it is posible to get endgame in 2 weeks without buying it also said below. After a while the replay value drops significantly. If your rich you can buy the best equipment in the game (by buying solid energy then selling it) before fighting a boss. And no leveling systemThis game is fun, thats why I gave it a 2. After that it all goes downhill. As said before you are limited by energy, it is posible to get endgame in 2 weeks without buying it also said below. After a while the replay value drops significantly. If your rich you can buy the best equipment in the game (by buying solid energy then selling it) before fighting a boss. And no leveling system equipment is the only thing that maters so you can basicly buy your way to the top. The maps constantly change provides some interesting points which is nice. I would really like to play more but you basicly get a couple of hours of playtime a day unless you buy it. Most other games that do this don't give such insain advantages as this game if you have money, take it from league of legends where you can't really buy advantages.… Expand
  7. stinky
    Aug 19, 2011
    1
    just not worth it. the interface is terrible (it tries to do everything with just left and right mouse), the game itself amazingly boring with repetitive, blocky levels and only re-skinned enemies. latency is a big issue (at least in Australia) and despite being "free", you very quickly run out of play, as many actions (like changing level) require up to 10% of daily energy. spend a lot ofjust not worth it. the interface is terrible (it tries to do everything with just left and right mouse), the game itself amazingly boring with repetitive, blocky levels and only re-skinned enemies. latency is a big issue (at least in Australia) and despite being "free", you very quickly run out of play, as many actions (like changing level) require up to 10% of daily energy. spend a lot of money on this "free" game, or not worth playing… Expand
  8. Pomornik
    Jul 23, 2011
    3
    My suggestion: Download this game and do that damn achievement to get the soldier hat in TF2, then uninstall the game. Its horrible, but the hat is nice.
  9. Zenkel
    Apr 4, 2011
    1
    It's like Gauntlet Legends meets Zelda. How could this possibly go wrong? The dungeons are randomly generated, but since they're basically large blocks pasted together, so it doesn't take long before you'll find "new" levels that look just like previous levels. Enemies have slide dodges and can use them repeatedly, which means that they'll be sliding ALL over the place (Who needsIt's like Gauntlet Legends meets Zelda. How could this possibly go wrong? The dungeons are randomly generated, but since they're basically large blocks pasted together, so it doesn't take long before you'll find "new" levels that look just like previous levels. Enemies have slide dodges and can use them repeatedly, which means that they'll be sliding ALL over the place (Who needs friction? It's a bad Gauntlet Legends knockoff ON ICE!) There's an energy system that keeps trying to nickel and dime you (Finding a secret room is a mixed bag, as there's an energy surcharge to access these). The art direction looks good at first but they managed to botch this too. The game takes place on tile-based maps with a 3d camera with a fixed camera angle. If you're on the south side of a room, it's fine. If you're on the north side of a room, it's awful--the enemies you're trying to fight will often be completely off camera. If this is the best that they can come up with during four years of development, there's no reason to hope for improvement.… Expand
  10. BlitzWing00
    Feb 1, 2013
    4
    This game is fun at first, but it's a trap. The developers are only interested in getting your money rather than providing real content to earn money. You don't see this at first that much but it becomes really apparent later on when you've invested a lot of time into the game and are less willing to quit because of such. They force you to endlessly grind doing un-fun things in order toThis game is fun at first, but it's a trap. The developers are only interested in getting your money rather than providing real content to earn money. You don't see this at first that much but it becomes really apparent later on when you've invested a lot of time into the game and are less willing to quit because of such. They force you to endlessly grind doing un-fun things in order to frustrate you into giving them money so you don't have to play as much to get what you want. For example they have special events periodically during the year where they give you limited time to "play" (grind) for special items. The grinding involves doing tedious repetitive tasks for 10 to 15 minutes in order to be awarded a small amount of tokens. You'll need to do this upwards to 60 times to have enough tokens for one special item. Multiply this if you want more than one item. You'll have a few weeks to accomplish this until the event ends, this forces you to either invest a lot of time grinding in a short period of time (which involves using in-game currency to play that much in a row) or using even more in-game currency to buy the items from other players who've done the grinding already. The in-game currency needs to be bought from the developer with real world money or obtained from other players who bought it. Either way, you'll have to spend a lot of time grinding and not having fun, or paying money to not be forced to "play" as much. The only real way to win this game is not to play. As the game gets periodically updated, the developer doesn't add any real new content. Much of the "new content" are a facade of such, like costumes which are just in various different color of existing gear. The developer is really fond of promising things are coming, but they never do.… Expand
  11. Tarkus
    Mar 14, 2012
    4
    Spiral Knights is an interesting game, that I highly recommend everyone try at least once, at least for the sake that it's a f2p game, and who knows, you might it enjoy it. Everyday, players are given 100 mist energy which they are allowed to spend to their choosing. Whether it's playing newly generated levels, or creating new items is purely left purely to the user. Of course, players canSpiral Knights is an interesting game, that I highly recommend everyone try at least once, at least for the sake that it's a f2p game, and who knows, you might it enjoy it. Everyday, players are given 100 mist energy which they are allowed to spend to their choosing. Whether it's playing newly generated levels, or creating new items is purely left purely to the user. Of course, players can spend real world money to get Crystal Energy, that unlike mist energy does not top out at 100. Stronger items are required by the game to progress onto later levels, but that does not mean players are confined to low level playing. Gone are the days when games cost a set amount upfront and I've spent twenty dollars on many things that were of far more inferior quality. Even still, players that play smart, will have many hours of entertainment on a given day. At the time this review was written, I found it incredibly easy to spend multiple hours a day playing. In addition, once players reach the final playing zone, Tier 3, the amount of money in their coffers fluctuates from a few crowns, the game's currency, to ten's of thousands of crowns, which can be traded for crystal energy, thus lengthening play time considerably. The two biggest flaws are as follows. First, there is no way to credibly and quantifiably determine the value of armor, weapons, or items. Colorful bars are given to show damage output, resistance and cancellation, but many players have determined that the bars are mostly bologna, so there is little end-game variation between players, as good players walk away from unfamiliar items, also it was recently determined that trinkets, an in-game item, have little effect on what cancellation of things like being burned, frozen or shocked. Players have pleaded to the developers many times to release item information, only to receive a blanket statement that it's to preserve the "mystery of the game" and players are to "discover for themselves". This is my most frustrated complaint. Secondly, there is the issue with servers. I'm not sure what is wrong, but there have been times where my expedition party and I all had a "flawless" connection, but many of us were walking through walls, blacking out, freezing in place, and blinking around the map faster than Bugs Bunny on cocaine. Given that players tend to spend crystal energy whenever they die, lag is probably one of the biggest drains of real world money in this game, which is very rarely refunded. Given that this occurrence is happening a lot less than it used to, it is not affecting my review as much as it would a month ago, but it is still quite annoying. Overall, this game is quite a fun and even with the f2p aspects can give many hours of enjoyment. I strongly recommend everyone give this game a chance, and if they really like it spend a little cash on it, it makes it that much better. 8/10

    UPDATE: With the recent incorporation of the mission update and the Steam exclusive content, this game has failed horrifically. The lower level missions are significantly tougher than the boss battles, and the economy has crashed due to a large portion of the F2P playing group that strive to horde in game currency just for a chance to Steam Trade for the content. Updated score: 4/10    … Expand
  12. Ceps
    May 5, 2012
    2
    I've foolishly spent a ton of time on this game... and its not because I enjoyed it, as my roommate can attest to with my frequent cursing while playing, but simply because I was bored. My overall recommendation is that you won't miss anything by passing this game up. It's most definitely not original, but can have a bit of charm. The cons outweigh the pros though.

    On the pro side, the    I've foolishly spent a ton of time on this game... and its not because I enjoyed it, as my roommate can attest to with my frequent cursing while playing, but simply because I was bored. My overall recommendation is that you won't miss anything by passing this game up. It's most definitely not original, but can have a bit of charm. The cons outweigh the pros though.

    On the pro side, the game has a decent mixture of weaponry that can be fun play with. However, it doesn't variate enough to keep things interesting. There's really only a few types of weapons (about 10?), the variations are just changes in damage type and status effects. The community is okay for the most part. There is that share of douchebags, beggars, elitists and scammers, but they do not make up the majority of the people I've met, which are nice and cooperative. In the beginning I enjoyed the soundtrack coupled with gameplay, though eventually I switched to my own music. The game is fast and easy to learn, and skills can make a big difference in effectiveness.

    I briefly skimmed a few other reviews and they seem to have covered most of them, but I will beat that dead horse because a lot of these qualms are rather important. The biggest of all is the energy system. Essentially, the economy has you by the throat. You cannot run levels or craft gear without using energy, and only 100 energy is generated daily and each level costs 10 energy. This means you will have to buy "crystal energy" to craft gear - crystal energy which is sold by players for in-game currency which the p2p players purchased from the developers. They like to call it free-market, but they seriously do not understand what free-market is. The game economy is controlled by oligarchs who own tons of crystal energy which can only be generated by becoming p2p. Even among p2p, most do not purchase masses of crystal to energy to play, but for those that do, their interest in items can actually drive the entire market down, and by placing huge bids here and there, they can drive the prices for crystal energy up. Another huge gripe is the lag spikes of this game. Even after a patch that repaired many of the lag problems, they continue to persist. For a game that's supposedly skill-based, you get heavily punished for taking hits and often by the time the lag spike ends you are about to die or already dead. I run a quadcore system with a decent video card with decent internet. I rarely lag in other games but for some reason my computer chokes up on Spiral Knights. Considering the graphics and simplicity of the game, I'm confused why the performance sucks so much. There is an extreme shortage of content in this game. One of the patches added missions, but the dialogues are elementary - it made me recall those silly assignments in grade school where I had to write stories. They are also essentially running the same random dungeons you always ran/run except you get some "prestige points". Besides that, there's only 4 bosses, therefore only 4 non-random dungeons. The random dungeons are uninspired, repetitive, and very basic to say the least. Other Gripes: The camera angle is horrible! As people have mentioned, you can't see anything up top of the screen, and it also takes some getting used to for dodging missiles or using ranged attacks. There IS a sizable of grinding. If you use 100 mist to craft each top tier item, it amounts to 1100 crystal energy which means several days of no playing and currently costs 73k in-game crowns - just calculate how long that will take to make. Be prepared for tons of monotony while gearing up.    … Expand
  13. ntall1
    Aug 6, 2013
    4
    This game has an extreme lack of real content, does not offer new challenges as the game progresses, and is also insanely pay to win.

    Game is fun for about a day or two then you start repeating the same content over and over, and even if you spend more money than this game is worth, you will still find yourself lacking in the things you need to progress. But that doesnt really matter    This game has an extreme lack of real content, does not offer new challenges as the game progresses, and is also insanely pay to win.

    Game is fun for about a day or two then you start repeating the same content over and over, and even if you spend more money than this game is worth, you will still find yourself lacking in the things you need to progress. But that doesnt really matter cause you will be bored by the time you need to upgrade that far anyway.    … Expand
  14. suneater
    Jan 3, 2013
    2
    The intro starts off great introducing you to this game's Zelda-clone mechanics but you are soon barricaded by the Energy system. Unless you convert real money into Energy, you have a Facebook game-esque timer on how long you're allowed to play with Energy costs being tagged onto everything inside dungeons. The graphics are chunky, sound and music are unimpressive, and the single hub townThe intro starts off great introducing you to this game's Zelda-clone mechanics but you are soon barricaded by the Energy system. Unless you convert real money into Energy, you have a Facebook game-esque timer on how long you're allowed to play with Energy costs being tagged onto everything inside dungeons. The graphics are chunky, sound and music are unimpressive, and the single hub town is small and cramped. All the dungeons are instanced so I'm honestly not sure how something like this is supposed to be a "Massively Multiplayer" game other than the fact that the devs drain your wallet like any other f2p MMO.… Expand
  15. kuehnau
    May 28, 2013
    4
    Spiral Knights is a Diablo-esc game with a cute theme. It's a fun, if not basic game. Ultimately this game comes up short because of how the developers handle the game's economy.

    In order to access dungeons, in order to access some non essential features, as well as forging and making gear. Basically the entire game relies on the use of energy. Free users can save up to 100 Myst that    Spiral Knights is a Diablo-esc game with a cute theme. It's a fun, if not basic game. Ultimately this game comes up short because of how the developers handle the game's economy.

    In order to access dungeons, in order to access some non essential features, as well as forging and making gear. Basically the entire game relies on the use of energy. Free users can save up to 100 Myst that gets regenerated every 24 hours, you can only have up to 100 Myst. If you want to spend money, you can get more in the form of a premium currency called CE.

    The game is okay, but it's nothing new, what breaks it entirely is the energy system is incorporated.    … Expand
  16. Joefesok
    Sep 15, 2013
    1
    What's funny is that people are complementing this game and being mad at it for all the wrong reasons. At first it's a cute little mmo about collecting things and crafting things. You get orbs of alchemy from missions, life is good. But then, as you go on, these orbs are a lot more rare. The game will evolve into a massive grindfest. It turns quickly into a game you can dump time intoWhat's funny is that people are complementing this game and being mad at it for all the wrong reasons. At first it's a cute little mmo about collecting things and crafting things. You get orbs of alchemy from missions, life is good. But then, as you go on, these orbs are a lot more rare. The game will evolve into a massive grindfest. It turns quickly into a game you can dump time into without much reward. The only real way to acquire the orbs is through two methods; You can trade crowns, the ingame non-premium currency, for the premium currency at a changing rate based on the market. It is to be noted this works both ways, meaning you can indeed BUY INGAME CURRENCY FOR REAL MONEY. This is a huge problem, of course, but the community manages to keep this ratio massively unfair, so it's all good.

    Actually no, it's not all good. In addition to the fact that the game is one of those increasingly common pay-to-win no questions asked games, it's actually very much a REQUIREMENT to pay to win. You have to grind for approximately 5 million crowns (a whole lot, considering the largest loot drop possible is only 50 crowns) in order to complete the tier 4 armor, which due to a massive difficulty curve later in the game is required to go on.

    The only reason I give this more than a flat zero is that the devs are really trying their best to fix the game, failing, but they are trying. The first 5 or so hours might be enjoyable, but if you cap tier 3 that's where the "Trial" period ends.    … Expand
  17. Lumanator
    Sep 14, 2014
    3
    This is an promotional festival. It features mostly promos in every updates. Nothing new to the game, just your typical promos. Gotta save my wallet from those money sucking developers!
  18. Hayward
    Jan 1, 2015
    2
    I've played this game since it came out , many many moons ago. But after a couple of years the developers for some reason started spoiling the fun by increasing the requirements for weapon upgrades, making the game impossible to level up for casual players without paying with real money for ingame upgrades! So I decided to give it a miss for a while, i've been away from the scene for theI've played this game since it came out , many many moons ago. But after a couple of years the developers for some reason started spoiling the fun by increasing the requirements for weapon upgrades, making the game impossible to level up for casual players without paying with real money for ingame upgrades! So I decided to give it a miss for a while, i've been away from the scene for the good part of 2 years now. I logged back in the other week, noticed immediately that they'd changed the weapon levelling up system , so now you can't level up with just HEAT , you now also need to find special orbs which aren't easy to find btw (but then you can just buy them with real money!!) .. So now levelling up weapons is harder, more time consuming and ultimately breaks the trading system too, as making weapons is expensive and unbinding them costs you more than it did to make them in most cases, which then makes it pointless trying to sell it on the market place or even give it to to a friend (as I used to). They did this because they wanted to remove the cost to travel on the elevators, which is bull, because it costs players MORE in time and coins than ever before.. I'd be happy still paying to travel on the elevators , but they don't care..

    Which brings me to this disgusting attitude of theirs. I noticed that my account didn't have the recipes for making crystals, which are a crucial part of weapon upgrading now, I was entitled to these recipes and should have got them , but because I was offline for 2 years, they're refusing to give them to me. Which breaks the game for me now. I emailed and asked for the recipes, which could be added easy enough by an admin, but was told they can't do anything for me..

    I have paid real money for in-game credits, I consider myself an investor in this company and they treat my request with complete contempt.. They are only interested in money, they've ruined the game and I can see the player base dropping. Dozens of my friends refuse to play anymore, even those hard core players. They hate what SK has done to the game..

    Anyone who says it's brilliant is either high or rich enough to keep spending real money for the ingame credits you need to progress at any real pace. I for one only continue to play this game because I've invested in it so I'm getting my moneys worth. I wont be around for long though, their attitude towards customer support and satisfaction is appalling ..    … Expand
  19. Obviouscrit
    Sep 9, 2020
    4
    Good graphics and good atmosphere but it is Pay to win and it is really annoying. The weapon prices are insanely high.

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
64

Mixed or average reviews - based on 4 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
  1. MMORPG.com
    Feb 18, 2012
    64
    Ultimately, I'd encourage you to give Spiral Knights a go as you'll know before you've expended your first 100 points of mist energy whether you want to keep playing. The question of whether you'll have the strength I lacked to grind your way out of the constrictions of the energy system is another question entirely. If you treat the game as a dip in/dip out sort of affair, then I think it's possible to really enjoy it.
    Read full review
  2. CD-Action
    Aug 2, 2011
    60
    When I look at this game it reminds me of the humorous Diablo 3 logo. The one with the sun, rainbow, clouds and unicorns. It's this game! Having in mind that it wasn't designed for hardcore gamers, I can let some of the boredom resulting from the combat system's simplicity slide. But only some. [August 2011, p.70]
  3. PC Gamer UK
    Jul 26, 2011
    51
    Spiral Knights is fast, accessible and fun until the spiteful pricing system pops up to punch you in the face.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »