Game Description: Super Pixelknight is another addition to the amazing Pixel Knight series, this one marking the third installment! Play as a knight is a quest to rid the land of evil that has become increasingly powerful. Take on large beasts, such as the fabled minotaurs or the quick and agile bats! Travel through treacherous lands and stop the evil at hand! Here’s a word from the developer:

The Saga continues! Fight your way through hordes of monsters and battle against evil bosses in this action-packed, side scrolling, arcade platform game.

Super Pixelknight

Did anyone feel that their knight was just plain bulky? It felt as through it was practically impossible to dodge and blows. The minotaurs early on in the game were the biggest annoyance for me, because it was almost impossible to kill or outrun them and the only way to be rid of them was to make them run off a cliff. It felts distracting, as well as annoying, as a new user to be constantly dying due to your character size. That to me, in the beginning of the game was what got me the most. The size had to be the biggest difficulty in this game by far, if your character wasn’t the size of a tree than there would be a whole different game at play here. For the most part the enemies weren’t that big of a deal, I could easily kill them off in a flash, but the minotaurs were what got me every time. I would suggest turning down the speed on those guys – they’re little speed-demons in my mind. The platforming factor of this game wasn’t too difficulty. Like most action-packed, side-scrolling madness, platform games this one utilized the platform part of the game to make the “action packed,” aka, “enemies” more challenging and difficult. There were definitely a few instances where I fell into a chasm because I was rushed off by a minotaur (has anyone noticed a trend yet? I despise the minotaurs.) when I had very low health, or had bumped into a pile of spikes or had ran into another enemy due to the level design itself (which is a good thing, in terms of difficulty).

I didn’t seem to have much health in this game, it was four-strikes-and-you’re-out kind of style, which those four strikes came way too easy. Even the occasional bump into an enemy or spike pit could result in serious damages to your character and thus result into a game over. Hey, I get the whole retro influence, where the game is ridiculously hard, but seriously, the enemies seemed too abundant and your health too low. I, myself, only had those health problems because of them minotaurs – they always out-maneuvered me and were much quicker than me. The number one rule of this genre, basically, is that the enemies should never be able to outrun you. Super Pixelknight defiled that rule with the minotaurs and I would have liked to see them move a bit slower – just so much that I can out-run them. The minotaurs were my only, single, problem with this game and I believe a lot of users would have to agree that the minotaurs are seriously, over-kill and that the developer should tone it down a bit on them. Moving on, the additional weapons that you could equip to your hero were excellent, I loved the multiple styles of gameplay that the user could then create. Whether they want to use a gigantic cross-bow or ninja shurikens, it’s up to them. I love it when games give you choice, and this was an example of that. I personally loved the variety. Sometimes it can become boring using the same weapon over and over again, but with all the various weapons that you could utilize in this game it will never become dull. The main reason that I liked all of the different weapons is because you are constantly killing enemies in different ways (if you want to) it kind of spices things up and keeps the game fresh.

I found this image slightly interesting - "It tore my head right off!"

The art had a unique charm to it. The environment was definitely aimed towards a night-time theme as the monsters and the night sky fused to create one spooky scene displaying giant trolls and swift bats! This game could definitely pass in a Halloween game development contest if the developer added “Halloween edition” at the end of the title! I thought that the art was fantastic. One thing that I must note is the grass, definitely. I loved the combination of almost realistic designs and patterns with more cartoony illustrations. The grass, at first glance actually looked half-way realistic and it created this neat little effect as your character walked across it. The grass has to be my favorite part of the art department of the game. In addition, the rock pattern was also well-done (I need to get my paws on a pattern similar to that for Photoshop sometime soon! Wow, that was random!) and created this rough rocky texture for the game – it’s just a very beautiful pattern the artist has going. I also adored how it could easily be tiled without looking uncomfortable or awkward. I’ve seen a couple of of rock tenures and patterns come out awful because they don’t tile well, but this pattern was just the opposite, I love how it blended well together and only after inspection can you begin to see where each individual spite or piece is located. The backgrounds were rather interesting, even though I couldn’t tell what they were half of the time, they created this abstract theme or maybe just illustrated and created a hill sprinkled with trees here and there. The enemy design was fantastic! I loved the well designed and detailed trolls and even the minotaurs (yes, I do still love them, even though I much despise them in the game). You could almost get a feel for them as they charged towards you with their well-animated motions. The animations altogether were very smooth.

I loved the medieval music that was displayed in the game. It really fit in with the time period of the game itself, as you are indeed a knight (Well, okay, it could be some nerdy kid in the 21st century running around in some virtual world, but I’d rather think that it is based in more of the “Dark Ages.”) on a quest to defeat a great evil in the mountains to the north-east. The music also had a nice tune to it it was energetic and lively, something to be desired by the developers and users alike of a game in this genre. The music choice was perfect, I liked how it was different and unique and, like I mentioned earlier, medieval. The music when you were about to fight an enemy was intense! I loved the battle music which accompanied the power and anger that surged through the knight’s body, the anticipation to fight was strong. Battle music also worked well with the game. Since, the objective of the game to fight and quarrel with the enemies, it was logical to have that caliber of music playing to work hand-in-hand with the ideas and concepts of the game. The sound effects were easily lost in the mist of the constant playing the epic music. I would have liked those sound effects to be bumped up a bit, in terms of volume, they were so quiet compared to the music that I had hardly realized that there were sound effects at all. The sound effects covered several factors of the game such as hitting enemies, throwing whatever weapon you had and destroying things (those were the only one that caught in a quick test run). I personally, would have like to of seen more sound effects, maybe the grass crushing onto the fertile soil as you stomp on it with your solid metal boots.

I noticed a definite difficulty ramp going on on this game. As the levels progressed they were undoubtedly becoming more and more challenging as new monsters were added to the mix, such as troll and bats, Each enemy had their own special, unique way of attacking you, some trolls threw boulders at you, while others charged at you, bats liked to follow you, as just about any creature. As you can tell, as these new enemies were added to the mix the levels became more intricate and more difficult as swarms of enemies piles up and gathered to attack you from all angles. The difficulty ramp was pretty good, the game had an okay, in-game tutorial that briefly covered the basics of the game, but I would have liked to of seen a more in-depth, optional tutorial for the percent of people who may need a little more background on the genre to understand the game, because, while i thought that the tutorial was fine for a person that has played a game like this before, it wasn’t detailed enough to allow completely new users understand the concepts of the game. Moving on, the level designs themselves also became more and more complex. I noticed that there were even a couple of pits, that looked that eminent death, but weren’t and actually lead to new tunnels. I also noticed that as you progressed through the game there were a ton of treacherous spikes scattered around the level.

There was a little bit of replay value and I’m serious, there was only what I could tell to be a Mochi score board that only covered hos many points you have, not much of a score board if you ask me. This game is overflowing with potential for some huge replay value, huge replay value. I would have loved to see the Kongregate API established, since it is currently being hosted on Kongregate, it only makes sense to take the extra minute to incorporate it into the game. What I like about the Kongregate API is that you can track multiple stats, I’m so tired of leader boards that only track one stat, but with the Kongregate APi you can have multiple statistic running and I think that is exactly what the users are looking for in a game and in a leader board. You have to have a strong leader board to keep a large majority of people coming back to the game, besides people naturally like leader boards, they have a chance to be leading something, or creating a small rivalry, just for fun, between a another user for the top spot. I would also have liked to have seen in-game achievements, maybe a couple for completing specific levels, killing a specific number of enemies, ect. A level builder/creator would also have been interesting to incorporate into the game and t5hen maybe have a level pack of sort made by the fans of the game.

In conclusion, Super Pixelknight was an excellent game, just about everything about the game was spot-on perfect! All fans of the two previous games in the series will definitely love Super Pixelknight. In review, the difficulty was pretty touch at times. The minotaur is what really got to me early on in the game and I want to see his speed turned down a bit – he’s way too fast and can easily outrun you (and there lies the problem). For the majority of the game, the difficulty was pretty good, I got stumped at times, but that’s all part of the game. In addition, the difficulty ramp was flawless. As you progressed through the game there were definitely more enemies, (more and more dangerous enemies by the way) and more intricate levels. Also, the art was amazing, I loved the mixture of cartoony graphics with slightly more realistic designs and patterns. The music was absolutely phenomenal, I loved the medieval, energetic, exciting tune that was taking place and it created a good vibe throughout the game. Finally, the replay value was a bit low, I would have liked to have seen more features included, such as the Kongregate API, in-game achievements and maybe even a way to create your own levels to share without people, would all have been excellent features. All in all, Super Pixelknight was superb, be sure to play it! [Play Super Pixelknight on Kongregate]