Horned Knight from 2Awesome Studio is an action-platformer on the PlayStation 4. Check our Horned Knight review!

Horned Knight is a challenging 2D action-platformer where you must overcome all fears, enemies, and traps as the Hero Knight. Rewrite destiny, with your trusty sword, young Knight!

 

Horned Knight is a platformer in which you’ll be following a Knight that is exploring a huge castle. The first thing that came to mind as the game starts is how it reminds me of the very fun Rogue Legacy, a game that is much, much better than this one.

You control the Knight with the left analog stick and attack, jump and dash with the X, Square, and Circle buttons. As soon as I started to play, I noticed the controls are very stiff, with attacks is delayed by nearly half a second because of the sword animation, on top of stopping the character from moving forward. The controls take a moment before you can adjust to things. The game does seem to compensate for this by being generous with the number of hits the Knight can withstand before dying and by having a surprisingly long range for the attacks, as well as the considerable number of checkpoints you can activate.

This game is divided into four chapters, and each one is divided into sets of levels with a boss at the end of the chapter. The game starts easy enough, but the difficulty ramps up quickly, which is aggravated by the stiff controls. The level design is bland and repetitive. You’ll be wandering in a dungeon with the same background for an entire chapter, battling the same few enemies, trying to overcome the same traps over and over again. There are no collectibles, no secret paths, nothing to add to the experience. I didn’t like how the spike looks like regular objects in the background, which made it very easy to run into them, getting some extra damage before I was able to change course.

 

I already mentioned how the presentation reminded me of the very fun Rogue Legacy, which is a good thing, but in the end, while the pixel art for Horned Knight is good, the whole thing is very basic in its design. I don’t understand how this game didn’t manage to reach at least 30 frames per second when playing on my PlayStation 4 because there is nothing in this game that Sony’s last-gen console shouldn’t be able to handle. While most of the soundtrack didn’t grab my attention, I do have to say that the main theme is catchy.

 

Horned Knight features an easy and quick Platinum trophy for you, which you can be achieved in around 30 minutes. You’ll get trophies for completing the first chapter in the game, for dying 27 times, and for using the dash ability 40 times. You will also need to “block” the fireballs that some skeletons and snakes send your way. There’s really no block ability in the game. What you need to do is slash with your sword before a fireball reaches the Knight so that the sword can destroy it.

All in all, Horned Knight is a below-average action-platformer with bland level design and stiff controls that get in the way as you start to play. It does include a Platinum trophy for trophy hunters to add to their collection, but other than that, this is a hard one to recommend.

 

If you’re looking for the quickest Platinum route, here’s a trophy guide that can help you:

Disclaimer
This Horned Knight review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by 2Awesome Studio.