Introduction
Machine Knight is a turn-based RPG that was developed by Hit-Point and released to mobile in March of 2012. It was then released on 3DS in February of 2018.
Review
On the verge of collapse, Frains’ world is getting closer and closer to the sun. Him and his fellow scientists have exhausted all their energy options and now the world is being pulled towards the sun. The only way to stop it, is to travel to another world and hope they can share their energy sources. Frain takes up the mantle and decides to be the one to step through the portal at the last ditch attempt of hope. He arrives in another world, but soon realizes that the plan is not what he thought it to be.
The story was an interesting premise all things considered. Though right from the get go it was obvious how it was all going to play out. From the robots coming into the world from your former world to wreak havoc, to the one evil looking man, who, surprise, turns out to be evil! There were a few twists that I didn’t see coming, but the story moves in such a way that it also feels a bit rushed. There was enough story to keep me interested and committed, but it wasn’t as deep as I was expecting it to be. But for a bite size handheld RPG it was still satisfying.
It was interesting to learn more about the world through the use of side quests. Unfortunately you didn’t know if a side quest was available unless you talked to everyone in a town. There were no indicators of an available quest or nothing. This was annoying but when I actually found them, I did them. From praying for the fallen town, to finding out that a king has been dead for quite some time, and his “dying wish” was for his advisor to rule, so as to not cause panic. I wish this was all a bit easier to access, or was included in the main story, considering it helped flesh out the world in every region of the game.
While you rested at the Inns in the towns, sometimes you’d end up seeing a little scene before the party went to sleep. So you’d learn more about the world this way, and Bell and Aulin would end up asking about Frains’ world, or the beliefs of the people of the world you’re in. There’d be jokes made about it all, that would make me giggle a tiny bit. My favourite was when a guard has to search the party and Bell says she can no longer marry because of it all, unless she finds a man who doesn’t care. What I wasn’t used to, is that there is no continuation in the story after you beat it. Once you beat the last boss, you get a choice. Each choice leads to two separate endings. One clearly being good, and one early being bad.
The gameplay was a lot harder than I honestly expected it to be. I’m used to Kemco games being a sort of mindless battle experience, where I can just mash A/X to get through the battles, not having to really work out strategies. This is not the case here. I was always on my toes, having to think how to attack, whether I should use items or not. Each new dungeon challenged the way I would approach battles. Do I use my most powerful move and drain my mana pools, or do I take the brunt of attacks and slowly win, but keep my mana? It didn’t help that I almost never felt like I was getting any stronger, aside from level ups.
There are only four real towns in the game. Two that are distanced so far apart, I had to do about half a dozen dungeons before I got a chance to upgrade my gear. The only alternative is by going to a blacksmith and upgrading your gear. But this takes materials that you get from monsters or from searching specific spots in dungeons. You also need to find the “Tome Of Manufacturing” for said item to be able to upgrade it. This made it a real pain to be able to upgrade my gear. By the end of the game, I was still missing upgrades and materials, so two of my three party members were still outclassed by almost every enemy I came across. It was maddening.
When. You defeat enemies you end up receiving SP, which are just skill points. These are used to either advance the jobs of each of your party members, to get more skills, which you can upgrade a of those, and eventually advance jobs. The game gives you a variety of jobs to choose from once you max your current job. What it doesn’t do is tell you to choose wisely because you only get three jobs at the end of the day. No description for each job before you advance to them, so don’t get to sit there thinking on how to build your party. You just advance to the next one and hope for the best. So for all I know, Aulin could’ve ended up getting a heal spell if I went on a different route. Who knows! I wanted descriptions! You also get stones to put into each skill if you want to. They would strengthen your attacks, completely change them up, or even add an effect to your healing. So when I started messing around with these, I really thought about how to use them. Though I only used a few for each character, because there were way too many skills at the end of the day to worry about more than a few.
Rating
Pros:
- Bite Sized Story
- Fun Dialogue
- Challenging
Cons:
- Job System Isn’t Explained Well
- Towns Are So Far Apart
- Blacksmith System
Summary
This was a fun RPG for what it was. It worked my mind more than I expected and it was bite sized with a well written story for the length. I just wish some systems were different. Like how many towns there were, or important lore quests being part of the main story. If you want a short RPG, I’d say go for it, but don’t expect to be relaxed!
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Game & Developer Information
Developer Website: Hit Point Co. Ltd.
Developer Socials: Twitter
Images – https://www.igdb.com/
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