True adventure isn’t that easy to come by, but perhaps if you’re a squire to the world’s greatest knight, things are just that little bit easier. It sure seems that way at the opening of The Knightling, the latest third-person action adventure from the team at Twirlbound. Out on patrol with Sir Lionstone, you’re ambushed by an Earthborn creature, nearly dying at its hands were it not for Sir Lionstone throwing his shield, Magnustego, in front of you. As your liege gives chase and disappears, you’re faced with a trek back to town, heavy shield in tow, and the slight sinking feeling that he’s not going to be back for a while.
It’s a gut instinct you should listen to, as The Knightling embarks on his own adventures in the absence of Lionstone. Starting off small and learning the tricks and techniques to owning a massive shield, you’re soon making yourself indispensable to the local townsfolk before starting to impress the Queen and the landed gentry, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the horizon in the hope of your mentor returning.
The Knightling is immediately endearing. It’s hard to explain what it is that gets straight under your skin. Perhaps it’s the chunky, characterful art design – there’s a dash of Breath of the Wild and a hint of Darksiders here – or the animated facial movements of the Knightling despite only really being a pair of eyes. It may be just incredibly relatable. That position as an apprentice who’s thrust into bigger and tougher tasks without any real guidance, is one that few could forget.
The Knightling manages to evoke an incredible sense of scale with its chunky, playful visuals. Huge chasms, immense palaces and never-ending fields are laid out in front of you, simply begging to be explored, whether bouncing and jumping to the highest point, riding the wind, or slip sliding all the way down on the back of your shield. Movement is one of the game’s greatest achievements, and just getting from one point to another, working out the best route, and playing with the different systems is fun from start to finish.
That sense of scale is enhanced by a light approach to side quests and additional tasks. There are plenty of things to find, discover and do out here, from discovering treasure to taking part in races on your shield, but they get the balance right between things to distract and things that are meaningful and interesting.
Side Quests often leave you with artefacts which stand as a reminder of the people you’ve helped along the way, giving each activity a permanence that many games simply don’t manage all the way through. In fairness, I’d actually have liked a few more, but the focus and scope here remain tight, presumably, in part, due to the game’s budget.
There’s a strong sense of forward motion at all times, with the Knightling and Magnustego both capable of growth, upgrading each through different collectables and growing your range of offensive and defensive skills.
You’ll need to utilise and maximise every one of them too, with combat in The Knightling proving to be no slouch, despite the welcoming visuals. Blocking, parrying and dodging play a key role, while you steadily grow more proficient at bashing everything in sight with your immense shield. It builds into a serious task as you struggle to handle large groups of bandits and creatures at the same time, but it rarely feels unfair, and save points are generous enough that you don’t lose too much progress when they take you down. There’s not a huge breadth of enemies, but those that are here, particularly the larger boss characters, retain the same idiosyncratic characterisation as the central cast, and they look great.
Besides fighting, there’s a lot of platforming, with the Knightling capable of a reliable double jump, before expanding his moveset to include a handy glide ability. Getting to the top of things is often part of an area’s allure, and, barring a few annoying sections, movement remains continually fun. That’s helped by the various races that appear throughout the game, lending the game an old-school Banjo or 3D Mario feel, and going fast is often rewarded with a heap of treasure. They’re very addictive, and the kind of thing you find yourself losing serious time with in the quest for the gold.
Mention has to go to the orchestral soundtrack, with the Tumult Kollektiv trio – made up of Jonathan Howe, Leonhard van Voorst and Alexander van der Kruijf – providing a stream of beautiful compositions shifting between playful, dramatic and epic with barely a pause. Exploration in particular gives you a real chance to appreciate the melodies and nuance of each piece, and the sense of scale, drama and adventure here wouldn’t be the same without them.
The Knightling’s only occasional misstep is in performance, and on standard PS5 there are occasions where the frame rate dips, or there’s pop-in of textures and details. It’s actually moderately power-intensive – based at least on my experience of playing it for preview on my 3070-equipped PC – but they’re minor kinks that feel as though a patch would smooth them out. They’re few and far between enough not to detract from the experience, as is the very occasionally wayward camera, and they’re easy things to forgive when the rest of the game is so enjoyable.