Arthur should have worked out that some days it’s better to stay in bed. During the quest for the holy grail the knights unleash the void giant and consequently all get killed. Merlin has enough magic to bring back only Arthur. Rising from the dead, Arthur discovers that Camelot is not only in ruins, but it has been transported into the void. It’s a nicely presented intro, all the better for having Brian Blessed, playing Merlin, with an unusually restrained performance...

Knight Vs Giant is a fantasy action rogue-lite quest

Knight Vs Giant has you playing as Arthur in a fantasy action rogue-lite quest. The game is in two halves. The first has you battling wave after wave of enemies, culminating in a boss fight before you can move onto the next section. The second has you rebuilding Camelot.

Although your knights have all perished their spirit remains. These spirits will offer you up their weapons and fighting styles, which can be upgraded at the blacksmith, once you have found him in the forest. It's worth making sure that you have covered all the map as you need to discover the NP’s which will rebuild Camelot for you and allow you to gain even more rewards.

Being a rogue-lite game, each level is randomly generated, sort of. I say sort of as each area is chosen from quite a small set of possibilities. You are very likely to meet the Travelling Merchant, good for charms and potions, as well as a few reoccurring characters.

The Merchant takes soul orbs, the dungeon's currency, obtained from killing enemies. The game also uses gold. The difference is that the soul orbs reset every time you are defeated, whereas the gold – needed for upgrades – continues to accumulate.

Knight vs Giant has an almost perfect balance of gameplay and reward

Combat is straight forward, at its bare minimum, if you are playing with Lancelot’s blessing, then you have a combination of a sword and an area lightening attack. These can be temporarily upgraded as you move through the dungeon, either from statues of Knights, or tables of blessings. The upgrades are the usual increases in health, critical hits, increased lightening or several other useful additions.

These only last for the time you are alive in the dungeon. Die and get resurrected by Merlin then everything, apart from your gold and the upgrades that you have paid for, disappears.

Most of the enemies have set patterns and especially for the Giants, if you go in all gun’s blazing, you’re going to die. Although the giants are relatively slow, their attacks are more than enough to defeat you after a few hits. On the plus side they all have repeatable attacks, so if you watch their attack pattern you should be ok. It’s a good game, after a long day, where you just want to kill some sh*t and still get some progression.

You only get access to Lancelot and Bors at the beginning of the game, but it does mean you get to mix up your primary and secondary loadout. As the game progresses you gain access to more Knights and more options.

This is a game about grinding. Sometimes this can be tedious in a game, but Knight vs Giant has an almost perfect balance of gameplay and reward. Whether you need exp or gold, each run will get you that little bit closer to your goal, so no run feels like a waste of time. Also, it’s a very easy game to pick up for half an hour.

Visually the game is cartoony, but pleasant to look at

I usually set myself a goal for each session, increase my attack or critical hit and then just play until I reached that point. The only thing I didn’t like is that you cannot choose to assign your gold and exp to a particular attribute, these just go round in order, so to upgrade your sword you must upgrade two other attributes.

Visually the game is cartoony, but pleasant to look at, the music is ok and not so repetitive that you want to pull your ears off.

Overall, I really liked this game, for its easy accessibility, for the fact that I could just pick it up for half an hour and still feel like I had made progress. It’s a very well-balanced experience.

10

Charles Packer