Horned Knight review

If you’re looking for a solid story, Horned Knight won’t be it. Its story is pretty thin; as a nameless hero knight, you are tasked with using your trusty sword to rid your castle of the ghouls and undead lurking about in every corner as your realm depends on you. Along with your favorite weapon, you will need to use your limited skill set in order to survive through the game’s four chapters and take on dangerous bosses.

Horned Knight is a 2D action platformer split across four chapters. Each chapter has a set amount of levels and is punctuated with a boss fight. Each level can take about 4-6 minutes to complete depending on how many times you die. You have to go from start to finish by killing (optional) enemies and avoiding deadly traps whether it be fiery lava or moving platforms full of spikes. You also have limited health, but unlimited lives, so no worries, you won’t see a game over screen. Aside from attacking, our nameless protagonist can jump and dash.

One of the most interesting features here is the way you can refill your health. Instead of picking item health-specific items (there’s absolutely nothing to pick up in this game), you need to fill a short meter under your health bar by killing enemies. Fill up your meter by killing enough enemies and you’ll regain a health block for each time you fill it up. It’s a pretty interesting feature and encourages players to kill enemies. Alternatively, as a challenge, you can try to go through each level without dying, losing health and/or killing enemies.

While this all sounds dandy, the game has two major flaws. The first one being your sword. It’s so so so short. You basically have to be *on* the enemy to kill it; thankfully the collision mechanism is fair, but this is just ridiculous. It’s fine against typical enemies across levels, but it’s a major nightmare against enemies where you’ll sometimes get unnecessary damage because you had to get too close to the boss to inflict damage. The other problem is the level design inconsistencies. Instead of instilling a gradual difficulty curve, you’ll see an easy level, then a more complex level, then an infuriating level, etc… Thankfully, each level has plenty of checkpoints to avoid too much frustration.

Horned Knight could’ve been a perfect candidate for an NES game way back. Sadly, given that the game is set in a castle, the level background doesn’t change much and it’s always the same enemies over and over. Lacking in originality for sure. And each level is straightforward, so no hidden stuff or anything. The soundtrack is quite forgettable; you can easily drown it out by either focusing on the game or completely mentally zoning it out.

Horned Knight is an overall fun, albeit short action platformer; not that difficult either. Sure you’ll die a few times, but you might get bored before you reach the end. Repetitive level design, little to no enemy variety, and questionable inconsistencies over the level design can amount to a boring experience. But on the flip side, it’s a very easily attainable 1000GS for Achievement hunters. If you’re looking for a bite-sized game to chew on between AAA games, Horned Knight can fill this void; otherwise, pass.