King's Rider is a running, action upgrades game. I want to start off by saying that I'm a big fan of this publisher. BezerkStudio has put out some amazing games, namely Bezerk Ball 2 and Frantic Frigates. This game kept the trend of a solid art style and good in-game animations.
This was, at its core, a pretty solid game, it was straightforward with easy and simple controls. It had a set of linear upgrades, and despite having terrible scroll over text, it was immediately apparent what each upgrade did (although did not specify to what degree or magnitude, which I found frustrating).
"Arrow does more"
The controls were also quite frustrating. The duck and jump commands didn't respond immediately, and there was not controllable duration (as far as I could tell), so if you ducked, it took a moment to respond and then you were ducked for the standard duration. This did add a bit of complexity to the strategy and I'm guessing the game was designed like that on purpose, but I wasn't a fan. I like being able to fine tune my dodges, especially in a game like this where the whole mechanic was timed precision.
I thought the upgrades lacked depth, but that was mostly a factor of how short the game was. There was no variety in the levels. It was the same thing from beginning to end. There were some new enemies along that way, and that drove the game, but ultimately the gameplay didn't change and there were no incentives to go back to old levels. Each time you died you kept 100% of the gold you'd acquired, and the upgrades were fairly quick to get anyway.
It's a good thing every goblin takes hours to raise their bow
The boss was quite difficult, and that was partially due to the control scheme. I was extremely frustrated that I had to time the delay just right to avoid everything, and each time I screwed up I was just that much closer to throwing my mouse in rage. I didn't, but I was close. I like a good challenge, but I like it when my skill determines how well I do rather than a fairly arbitrary and unresponsive control scheme.
"You can't resist the power of BLUE!!!"
There was a strange and crude storyline to the game. It contained some very crass humor that I didn't find particularly amusing, and some of the in game animations had a bit of crude humor as well. I think a game like this really didn't need a storyline.
Why does a dark wizard need a poop shovel? Some questions are best left unanswered...
Now, that being said, there is a nice little twist ending that made me enjoy the game a little bit more and opened it up for a sequel. But if it's fundamentally like this entry, I think I'll be skipping it.
Is it worth your time? Ultimately, it's a pretty short game, so it's worth playing a bit if you like cheap little upgrade games. But if you get stuck and you find yourself wondering if it's worth playing through to the end, you should just move on to another game.
Scorecard:
Category
|
Score
|
Time Value
|
3
|
Money Value
|
10
|
Originality
|
8
|
Ryplayability
|
3
|
Fulfillment
|
3
|
Final Score
|
5.4
|
Let me know what you think of King's Rider!
Until next time,
Ryan
Pictures courtesy of ArmorGames
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