Playmobil, the international toy line of playsets and figures that encourages imaginative role-play, now lets your kids pretend to be a knight on the Nintendo DS. In Playmobil: Knights, help a recently knighted beet farmer save the kingdom. When an evil warlord floods the land and turns all the king’s knights into stone, it’s up to the newly knighted Sir Beetalot to save the day!

Playmobil: Knights is, at heart, a 2-D platform jumping adventure. You’ll usually talk with a person in town who will send you on a fetch quest in a short, 2-D obstacle course to retrieve an item. Along the way you’ll defeat enemy Dragon Knights and collect coins to spend on equipment in town. In the beginning of the game, it’s hard to get enough coins for what you need, and sometimes the goals are a little unclear as to where you need to go next.

You can buy new weapons and armor and keep them repaired, as well as magic potions and other goods. Also, buy dragons as your mode of transportation when you need to fly to a different island created by the floods. From time to time, you’ll also have the chance to play a touch screen mini-game.

The graphics are colorful and retail the playful spirit of the toy line. Control in the 2-D sidescrolling sections is simple, but a bit slow. Unfortunately, the controls while flying your dragon in an overhead perspective aren’t any better, and maneuvering your dragon is very confusing.

Kid Factor:

Playmobil: Knights is rated E for Everyone with ESRB descriptors of Crude Humor and Mild Fantasy Violence. The text contains all sorts of silly, third grade humor, like putting the king’s face on toilet paper or calling the king’s daughter Princess Pimplefart. Violence is mild. When you swing your sword at enemy knights, they just slump down, looking all sad, then disappear. Reading skill is a must for all the text.

Playmobil:Knights feels like it can’t find its audience. The toy themes and simple 2-D gameplay mechanics seem to work for younger gamers, but they might be confused by the more complicated item and weapon shops. Older kid gamers would like that level of complexity, but may get bored at the endless fetch quests.

Tags: Game Reviews