The Knightling

The Knightling is one of the most characterful adventures of the year, with Twirlbound crafting a large, bright, engaging fantasy world, and giving you the tools to truly enjoy it. You won't regret picking this one up.

Putting up a brave effort despite all odds, The Knightling is a valiant effort and is far more endearing that you might think. Like the protagonist itself, The Knightling is a small open-world adventure, but it is packed with meaningful quests, bouncy platforming and simple-yet-satisfying combat. Yes, The Knightling lacks new ideas and could be seen as too short and insignificant - but for a fleeting five or so hours, The Knightling is a small delight that deserves your attention.

The Knightling is a fine action-adventure game with some strong ideas and elements. There's plenty of charisma and quality at the heart of this game, and it's broad and packed enough to keep you engaged until the credits roll. But, and despite its immediately noticeable similarities in gameplay, don't expect a game of nearly the same mechanical depth nor technical refinement as that of a Zelda project, as The Knightling doesn't have the same attention to detail as the series that to this day stands out as one of, if not the best in the genre.

The Knightling offers a colorful world, fun characters, some interesting gameplay gimmicks, and a lot of Stuff to Do. The downside is an overall lack of “finish” that makes the more intense gameplay feel unrefined and inconsistent, and an open world structure that doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from peers. It’s a fun, cheerful platformer with plenty of personality and ideas, but perhaps doesn’t achieve all its goals as intended.

Much like the hero himself, The Knightling might seem small and unimportant, but it can produce great results when it needs to. Exploring the colorful environments is an enjoyable time. There's a ton to see and do and the game invites players to make the most of everything it has to offer. It can be challenging, but it's never frustrating. The light puzzles break up the combat and exploration, and the combat allows the player to find solutions to encounters that fit their preferred play style. Traversal is the true star of the show, especially after all of the abilities have been unlocked. Putting together strings of moves to zip across a region is extremely satisfying. It all comes together to create an action platformer that isn't flawless, but proudly owns its B-tier status. And it should be proud.