Knights Contract Review

Whenever there is a new game by Game Republic, it always turns out to be a hack-and-slash or an action-adventure game. Some of its titles were huge successes, like Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, while others have been total disappointments. Game Republic’s new game is Knights Contract, a tale of two characters who both must depend on each other in order to survive.

For fans who played Ninja Theory’s Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Knights Contract will be very similar. Like Monkey and Trip, Heinreich and Gretchen depend upon one another, but there’s a twist: Heinreich is immortal but Gretchen is vulnerable to attacks. If Gretchen dies, the game is over.

HOT

Intriguing Storyline
From the very beginning, players will be intrigued by the story and will be motivated to finish the game to see the epic conclusion of the lives of Heinrich and Gretchen. As an executioner who has lived for hundreds of years due to the curse of immortality that was bestowed by a witch that he killed, Heinrich has suffered long enough and wishes to die. Through his quest to find a way to break his curse, he meets Gretchen, who is the executed witch reincarnated. The two team up to stop the group of witches and a man named Faust that have been threatening all of humanity. The completion of their quest will fulfill the Knight’s Contract and lift the curse on Heinrich.

Creative Spells and Combos
The duo of Heinrich and Gretchen works very well especially when both of them combine their powers. Using Heinrich’s scythe and Gretchen’s magic spells, players can combine both attacks allowing them to deal massive damage to enemies. Controlling Gretchen’s magic is fairly easy; the spells are mapped to face buttons and whenever the player locks onto a target, the health indicator will appear. The colors that it shows reflect the enemy’s health. For the best results in taking down enemies, perform any of Heinrich’s deadly combo attacks and spam it with a lot of magic spells from Gretchen. Every defeated enemy will drop an orb that players can use to upgrade Gretchen’s spells. The higher the spell level, the more damage it can inflict to the enemy.

NOT

Bad Gameplay
Players who have played games such as Darksiders and Devil May Cry may find Knights Contract top be quite similar. It is the same old hack-and-slash adventure game where the main character has to go through different areas to fight a wave of enemies and several bosses in order to advance. In the twenty episodes of Knights Contract, players will find it frustrating playing from the beginning to the end. The main objective of Heinrich is to protect Gretchen from harm. While Gretchen can fight and use her spells, players will find that she doesn’t help at all. The AI for Gretchen is just plain bad. At times, she will run in front of the enemy and allow herself to be killed. As for Heinrich, he is immortal but when he receives a lot of damage, his body will explode. However, he can get back to his former self by repeatedly pressing the A or X button.

At almost every other chapter in Knights Contract, there will be a boss fight. While the bosses may look appealing, there is a twist to it. Every boss in the game is easy to defeat as their pattern in attacking Heinrich is almost the same for every boss in the game. Just before Heinrich can deliver his final attack, he must perform some QTE (Quick Time Events), which is yet another frustration thing to look forward to. When trying to perform a QTE, there will be times that the game won’t recognize your input. Fail the QTE and the player will be thrown back to a fight where he must take down the enemy again and perform the QTE. Luckily, the QTE for each boss is the same every time you fight it, so if you fail the first time, just remember the pattern and do it again.

What kills a hack-and-slash adventure game is the poor camera that follows the main character around. Whenever there are more than three enemies in the field and the player is covered by them, the camera will start zooming in on the character and players will notice right away that they can’t see Heinrich anymore. The game starts to slow down and massive screen tearing starts to happen. To make the fights a little bit easier, there is a lock on feature, but most of the time players will find that it does not work.

Bland Environments
The game shines when it comes to the CG scenes but it falters on the environments of the game. The twenty episodes of Knight’s Contract are plagued by bland environments. The same recycled palettes are used in most of the dungeons found in the game. Due to the bland environments, expect to get lost since there will be no indication as to where the next area is. The character design is average; Heinrich is your typical hunky dude with white hair while Gretchen has that “princess” look that we’re all familiar with. As mentioned earlier, there is a lot of screen tearing to expect but a remedy that lessens it is by installing the game’s data through the main menu (PS3 owners).

Lack of Combos
While it’s true that Heinrich’s attacks are deadly, the game suffers from a lack of combos. From beginning through the end, the combos of Heinrich are all the same. Players will not have the ability to learn any combos and they are pretty much stuck using those about ten sets of combos for the entire game.

VERDICT

Knights Contract is another game from Game Republic that turns out to be a total disappointment. While the story is very intriguing, the game fails due to the aforementioned gameplay problems. The AI is annoying, poor camera controls totally ruin the experience, and the bland environments can make the player get lost in the undifferentiated dull world. If the player is willing to ignore the negatives and just play the game through the story, expect to be frustrated throughout the experience. At a $60 price tag, Knights Contract might be a game better rented, borrowed, or overlooked completely.

[Editor’s Note: Knights Contract was reviewed on the PlayStation 3 platform on the Knight difficulty level. The game was given to us by the publisher for review purposes.]