It’s “Free-to-Play Week” at GamerDad, where we’ll look at free mobile titles all week!  In Final Fantasy XV, some of the characters enjoy talking about and playing a video game in their world called King’s Knight.  And now you can play that game for free on mobile devices (reviewed on iPad here).  But King’s Knight has a bigger history than that.  Read on to find out more!

King’s Knight was originally a game on the NES.  It was a 2-D vertically scrolling shooter with fantasy themes.  It even predates Final Fantasy, but as a kid I never heard of King’s Knight until AFTER Final Fantasy came out.  After Final Fantasy was released, I was really big into Square games and tried to look up as many as I could.  I was glad to find out that Square made a NES game I already had called Rad Racer.  But there was one Square game I hadn’t played but I did see it once in the box at the front of a grocery store that rented games and movies, too (grocery stores used to do that).  Later on they actually had that game for sale, and I kind of wish I would’ve bought it.  But I had also heard the game wasn’t that great, so I didn’t feel too bad.  Anyway, here’s a screenshot from the NES version of King’s Knight.

Luckily the mobile update is TONS better.  It’s still a vertically scrolling shooter with fantasy themes, but the graphics and gameplay are vastly improved.  The story is set after the events of the original game and even feature some of the same characters.  In this one, a group of wicked people are trying to revive a dark dragon, and you’re on a quest to stop them.  When you start a game you’ll be given a random character to play as (I got a cool floating female warrior angel gigas thing).  But you’ll be able to get more characters later and switch them out.  Each has different powers and skills.

Just like in the original game, you can destroy certain obstacles like trees and some rocks.  Defeat enemies and bosses and find treasures.  Each stage has three hidden medals to find, too.  You can also participate in side quests and timed events to get even more items.  Use your items to upgrade your characters and their weapons.  As a free-to-play game, it probably gets very hard at some point and you’ll have to spend money or play a long time if you want to progress, but with over 100 stages, it will take a long time before that happens.  The stages are at a perfectly short length for handheld gaming as well

The game has a few problems here and there.  The story sections are pretty boring and aren’t really necessary, and the gameplay is a bit repetitive.  Also, I could download it on my iPad but it would always crash before I would even start, so I had to play it on a relative’s iPad.  But then, my iPad is pretty old (I’ve had it since 2012) so that may be why. I think the worst problem, however, are the controls.  You use virtual touch screen buttons to move, jump, and shoot, and my fingers would always slide around and hit the wrong buttons.  The game looks and plays like a console-quality game, so I wish it really was on a console where I could play it with an actual controller.  It would also be fun as a two-player co-op game, too.  You can play an online co-op mode in this one, but I could never find a room with people in it to play with.  But if you enjoy playing classic games from Square’s history, it wouldn’t hurt to check this one out anyway.

Kid Factor:

You shoot monsters with magic blasts and they fall over and disappear in a puff of light when defeated, and that’s about as violent as it gets.  Reading skill is needed for the text, and parental supervision is recommended for the in-game purchases.

Tags: Game Reviews