Thank you Curve Digital for sending us this game to review!

A Knight’s Quest is a throwback to classic action platformers from the nineties. The dialogue has many popular words like "radical", "bodacious", "tubular" which were used by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Although this game is colorful and has a pleasing art style, it’s not nearly as family-friendly as the Legend of Zelda games it’s modeled after. Sadly, it has other flaws that take away from the fun factor as well.

You play as Rusty, a clumsy adventurer with a metal arm. On his latest adventure, he unsealed a crystal overlord that’s now hovering over his village. The mayor asks Rusty to locate the legendary heroes that specialize in wielding various elemental powers. As Rusty seeks them out, he will learn to master the wind, fire, ice, and time-stopping powers needed to undo the mess he created in the first place.

Although this is an open world game, there are many inaccessible areas. One of which is a slime trader who will unlock inventory spaces for slimes that you can collect on your adventure. Until you meet him, prepare for not having enough space to carry many vital resources. In an attempt to free up space, I accidentally sold my pickaxe. Resources are also in short supply so be sure to destroy every barrel, crate, and clay pottery piece that you come across as they may have coins or other handy items inside.

Like many platformers, you’ll have to jump onto and across various ledges, rocks, and columns. Not all of them are stationary either. Mastering wall running is another requirement. Later in the game, you’ll acquire some boots that allow you to glide on rails. The rails often have obstacles that you’ll have to jump over. Failing to do so may cause Rusty to lose his balance and fall off.

Fortunately, when Rusty takes a spill he’ll be respawned (health bar permitting) with a little less health than before. Some of the rails have multiple paths and require you to jump between them to continue on your away. What should normally be a simple jump is way more complicated in this game. Often times Rusty would jump past the rails and fall to his doom. The respawns are generous until your character runs out health. When your character dies, he will respawn at the beginning of the area and any items collected since then will have to be re-acquired.

Healing wells are nice, but not free. Thankfully, they can be used indefinitely free of charge after the initial fee. Until you leave an area, any defeated foes will remain that way. Unlike The Surge games, using a healing well will not respawn the enemies.

There’s a good amount of variety when it comes to the monsters you’ll have to fight. Many of them are pallet swapped and only differ in color and elemental weaknesses. There are slimes, worms, skeletons, octopuses/squids, and bigger variants of them all. The bosses are pretty intimidating too. They’ll have different phases with a regenerated health bar. Sometimes enemies will have a barrier around them that needs to be disabled via elemental magic before you can do damage to them.

As Rusty ventures out to find the legendary heroes, he will learn how to harness their powers himself! With each new elemental ability learned, Rusty will have to backtrack to formerly visited regions to see previously inaccessible areas. There are many timed challenges along the way that are very unforgiving and will take a lot of patience and perfection to complete. If you’re not a fan of being timed, you won’t like these very much.

Races are also available and though they are timed, they usually have a little more leeway. Meteorite ore is given as a reward and it’s needed for upgrading your weapons at the town blacksmith. Townsfolk are not very chatty and often have repetitive bottled phrases like “I’m a slave to capitalism.” Quest related NPCs have funnier dialogue that’s often laced with curse words or sexual overtones. I have seen words like d*mn and *ss used.

On a quest to assist four incapacitated guards, two of them had crude expressions. One of them complained that the heat was making him sweat off his “giggle berries.” Another guard was completely frozen and after thawing him out with a bomb, remarked that the frozen state gave him “shrinkage.”

There are some mushrooms that will allow you to bounce off of them to access different areas. Before they let you bounce off of them they require some doodie/fertilizer to help them grow. Battling enemies involves violence, but thankfully it’s bloodless.

As you attack enemies and talk to NPCs, they’ll mutter gibberish. The background music is much higher quality and fitting to the environments you’re in.

For the most part, A Knight’s Quest ran fine for me. However, I have experienced several glitches that killed off my character on multiple occasions. If Rusty gets stuck, he may be killed off and will respawn nearby. I’ve also had a fighting glitch happen mid-battle and lost some health as a result.

In the end, A Knight’s Quest is a fun but flawed game. When you know where you’re going, this game can be fun. If you get stuck, there are not many active online communities to reach out to for help. The game controls are disappointing and should have been fine-tuned a bit more before releasing. If you’re looking for a Zelda-like game for your children, you’ll want to look elsewhere as this title has crude language and juvenile humor.