The Knight & the Dragon

Normally I would start the review by talking about an obscure old game or comparing it to some 1940s film noir, but not this time. I want to instead start this review by bringing up the importance of a good user interface. It may not be something you think about all the time, but bad UI can all but ruin a game. Take The Knight and the Dragon as an example. This new Switch game looks normal on the surface, but it's hiding a dark secret. When you die, you can't just restart from the last checkpoint. Oh no, that would be too simple. Instead you get thrown back to the map screen, be told that you're going to "loose" your progress, exit to the main menu and then have to reenter the map screen in order to move a cursor to the start button. It takes a half dozen steps just to restart from the checkpoint. And that's every single time you die. That's unacceptable, and it's one of the many problems dogging The Knight and the Dragon.

You know the story: Knight falls in love with a princess, but before they can live happily ever after, a dragon rips the two lovebirds apart. This sends the knight on a lengthy adventure through a fantasy world filled with all kinds of monsters and mayhem. It's basically a Ghouls 'N Ghosts runner, only without the characters and charm.

If you've played a runner before, then The Knight and the Dragon will feel awfully familiar. The idea is that you're racing down a linear path with three different lanes. You move between the left, center and right lanes in order to dodge obstacles and fight off wild boars and zombies. You'll occasionally need to jump on platforms and slide under tables, all while breaking pots and chests to collect more coins and power-ups.

The knight's quest is long, but the good news is that he doesn't have to do it in a single run. The goal is to survive long enough to bust through the various gates, which you can turn into checkpoints for a few hundred gold coins. If you can survive long enough, you'll end up fighting one of the nasty bosses, including a spikey roller and the titular dragon. These are simple stages where the goal is to dodge attacks and keep throwing swords at the enemy. Once you've vanquished the foe, it's off to next stage, where you ride a horse or jump in a boat.

The swords aren't your only defense against this fantasy world, as the knight will also pick up power-ups that let him double jump and plow through the enemies with a giant shield. Your owl buddy also gets in on the action and lifts you over the more challenging sections. And if you're absolutely desperate, you can also pick up potions that will allow you to continue mid-level. But don't think you can rely on these power-ups, because they are limited and not always easy to come by.

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One of the things I really appreciate about the game is how different each area is. This is a long game, so it's nice that the different stages come with their own batch of bad guys and obstacles. In fact, I like the art design across the board. It has a nice cartoony look with colorful levels and creepy enemies. Aside from some frame rate problems, the worst I can say about presentation is that it gets a bit repetitive after a while, but that's true of pretty much every game in this genre.

Graphics aside, this game has a lot of problems, both big and small. One of the issues is that it's not always clear what lane you're standing in. This is not like a lot of runners, where you'll snap into the lane by pressing left and right. Here you can be halfway between lanes and not realize it until it's too late. This, coupled with the way the knight handles, led to a lot of needless and frustrating deaths.

It doesn't help that the game is inconsistent when it comes to taking damage. Much like Ghouls 'N Ghosts, the knight will shed his armor and run in his underpants if he's hit. At least, that's how it's supposed to work. The problem is that some obstacles will kill the knight in a single hit. No embarrassing run in underwear or second try, just straight to the game over screen. I could never figure out why some enemies and tables would only leave me wounded, while the others sent me to the morgue.

My biggest complaint is that this game is just too long. The stages start out short and sweet, but by the time you're nearing the end, you'll find that you're spending an hour or more in each location. They keep expanding the length of the stages without adding enough new to warrant the increase, which leads to a whole bunch of repetition. And when I look back at The Knight and the Dragon, it's not going to be the cartoony graphics or owl friend that I remember, it's going to be the crushing repetition.