A Knight’s Quest from Sky9 Games and Curve Digital is finally out on Nintendo Switch! Find out how this The Legend of Zelda homage did in our A Knight’s Quest review!

 

It’s easy to see the influence of The Legend of Zelda series on A Knight’s Quest as soon as you see the game’s trailer. Sky9 Games also mentioned Monkey Island as an influence during our interview, and having played A Knight’s Quest, I can definitely see what they mean. You’ll take control of Rusty, a young adventurer who begins this particular journey by when exploring an ancient cave.

As soon as you load up the adventure, the game sends you into a short tutorial section where you will get to learn all of the basics. You’ll move your hero around with the left analog stick and jump with the B button, panning the camera around with the right analog stick. The B button is also used for wall running, so just jump towards a wall and hold down the B button and the hero will run along and jump at the end. This is a useful ability to be able to clear some smaller gaps. Rusty can also roll away from danger by pressing the R button. To interact with things, such as, say, a switch, you’ll need to press the A button.

 

A few minutes later, you will gain access to a wooden sword, your first weapon, as well as a handy wooden shield. You’ll be able to swing your sword with the Y button to damage enemies, grabbing tightly to your shield to block attacks by pressing and holding the L button. The shield can also be used to block projectiles, keeping Rusty safe from long-range attacks. The L button is also the button you can use to lock-on targets so that you can circle around them as you find your chance to attack without being harmed.

After completing a short exploration sequence, Rusty finds an ancient treasure chest with a “note” that asks you to open the treasure chest, as it will grant him great power and riches. Behind him is what seems to be a wraith of sorts inside of a set of large purple crystals, which should have tipped off Rusty. As expected, opening the chest releases something bad into the world, and the whole area starts to shake and crumble. Rusty rushes out of the mountain as fast as possible before the whole thing falls apart.

Landing near the city, he makes his way to the town square where everyone has gathered after seeing the large floating purple crystal. Mayor Munsch acknowledges that the good news is that all the monsters can be taken care of by way of some pitchfork stabbing – which is great since he did blow the town’s entire budget on buying way too many pitchforks, when Valy, who’s friends with Rusty, mentions it might be time to call on the Guardians for their support in this great time of need.

Instead, the Mayor tells the tale of the mighty Spirit Knights. There is Henry the Greath, the Spirit Knight of Wind, who could breeze through any situation with his mighty gusts; Rocky the Rockman, the Spirit Knight of Fire, a martial arts expert who could hit with the heat of a thousand suns; and Ivan the Icebro, the Spirit Knight of Ice, a cool and strong warrior with a skin as thick as ice that could withstand the strongest of blows. The Spirit Knights are supposedly watching over the population from Icy Mountain, Fiery Desert, and Gusty Forest – a clue to where you’ll need to go in your adventure. Why? Because after his tale, Mayor Munsch appoints Valy and Rusty to go out and find the Spirit Knights!

 

Once you’re given this task, you’ll be able to access your map, collection, and inventory menus by pressing the – button. The map will include your primary quests with a yellow marker, your secondary quests with blue markers, and will mark your currently active quest with a green marker. You’ll need to use the map and your compass to find where to go and what to do in order to keep the story moving forward. Under the collection menu you will be able to review the special collectibles you’ve managed to find during your quest. The final menu is self-explanatory since your inventory will include the things you will definitely be using a lot during your adventure.

As you battle enemies and explore deeper into each area, you might end up receiving not only the usual type of damage you’d expect from being hit one too many times by enemies, but also permanent damage. What this does is seriously injure Rusty, lowering the size of his health bar, which could be dangerous when you’re exploring a dungeon. To remove this effect, you will need to use bandages to heal your wounds, so be sure to keep some handy at all times so that you don’t have to suffer from it! You can also recover a bit from this by eating something. To avoid receiving any damage, you should learn how to parry the attacks of your enemies. By pressing the A button at the right time you’ll be able to parry an opponent’s attack, leaving it wide open for you to unleash a flurry of hits.

 

It won’t be long until you receive your first magical attack, which you’ll be able to activate with the ZR button. It will also come with a considerable upgrade to your sword and shield combo, which is great since the wooden sword and shield were barely useful as weapons as it took dozens of hits to defeat even the smallest of enemies. Once you have the magical gust of wind, you’ll unleash it on enemies with the ZR button to make them dizzy, opening the way for you to deliver a couple of killer blows. You’ll soon gain magical abilities as well, which will be mapped to the ZL button, for your convenience.

As expected, you’ll, have to face up against some rather bosses during your adventure in order to gain the powers that you will need to obtain to defeat the evil entity you released early in the game. You’ll need to pay attention to bosses so that you can learn their movement and attack patterns, so that you can plan your strategy accordingly. Each of the bosses will have an elemental weakness, so as you gain more magical elemental powers, you’ll need to do some trial and error to find out which element is the most useful. This knowledge can be put to good use to eliminate the magical defense barrier a boss might have, so that you can chip away at its health bar.

A Knight Quest is a fun action RPG adventure on Nintendo Switch that does a good job at paying homage to the beloved The Legend of Zelda series – at least in its old-school variant. The game has more in common with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Majora’s Mask and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker than with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which makes sense considering the team started to work on A Knight’s Quest over three years ago – not to mention that indie studio Sky9 Games is certainly not the same size as Nintendo itself! The game is available for $24.99, and for that price you get a solid and good looking budget action RPG that will scratch that old-school The Legend of Zelda itch with a good dose of humor on the side.

Disclaimer
This A Knight’s Quest review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Curve Digital.