
Game Details
- Publisher: Chainsawesome Games
- Developer: Chainsawesome Games
- ESRB Rating: “T” for Teen
- Genre: Multiplayer Action
- Pros: Tons of modes; simple and fun gameplay; awesome multiplayer; bots!
- Cons: Only so-so solo
- MSRP: $15
Knight Squad is top-down multiplayer battle arena game where
you play as knights. That’s it. That’s the story. It isn’t just deathmatch, though, as there are a number of other
modes including capture the flag, juggernaut, domination, and more. The game is played 4v4, but if you don’t
have 8 human players the game also has bots.
I gotta say, I love bots, and I especially love actually being able to
play a game like this even when other people aren’t around. The A.I. bots are also surprisingly skilled,
which make them a decent challenge.
They aren’t as fun or funny as playing with human players, of course,
but I love having the option, at least.
You can also play online, but there’s no guarantee the player base will
be there, which is another reason I’m grateful to have bots.
Gameplay is dead simple in Knight Squad. You move around with the left stick and
attack with a button press. You start
with just a simple sword – you are a knight, after all – but can pick up
powerups that give you new weapons like a longer sword, laser gun, boomerang,
horse, extra speed, extra shields, and more.
The game is generally one-hit kills, so expect to die a lot, but that is
where a lot of the fun comes in. It is
really fast and frantic and crazy. The
various modes also add a ton of variety to the game. The general gameplay of kill or be killed doesn’t change much,
but adding in objectives in between all the knight slaying really makes the
different game types uniquely fun.
There is a separate single-player mode in addition to just
adding bots to the normal modes, but it isn’t very good. You face other enemy types in these
challenges like skeletons, trolls, dragons, and there are even boss fights, but
the gameplay kind of sucks. In
multiplayer everyone is equal ability-wise, but in the single-player the
enemies are much faster than your character, which makes it an absolute drag to
play. It just isn’t fun. Good thing the multiplayer modes are so good
then, right?
The presentation is simple, but well executed. The top-down view means the arenas you fight
in aren’t exactly detailed, but they do look good and are distinct. The game also does a good job of making
things easy to see as the characters are always brightly colored and really
stand out. I also like how the knights
aren’t just color palate swaps and do have some distinct looks between them.
All in all, Knight Squad is a great party game that is a ton
of fun and has a surprising amount of variety.
It was originally a free Games With Gold title, but unlike a similar GWG
party game in #IDARB, it also has bots to ensure the game is fun even if you
don’t have a room full of people to play with.
Having bots as well as the wealth of different modes to play make it
much easier to recommend at the full $15 price tag. It definitely shines brightest in multiplayer, though, so if you
have friends to play with it is well worth a look as a fun party game.