We've all heard the story before. An alien spaceship arrives from deep space, its aggressive inhabitants hell-bent on eradicating the local populace in order to make the planet suitable for colonization. Except this time, the spaceship contains a lone human in blue, a sworn knight of the human alliance sent to clear Planet ERA-138 so humans can live there. So what are you waiting for? Can you purge the planet of its perilous, pernicious pixilated inhabitants? In Alistair Maunder's Blue Knight, you'll get your chance.
Blue Knight is a power-up and exploration-platform-shooter that best falls under the category of "Metroidvania". Like Metroid, Blue Knight starts you off woefully lacking in any weapons or boosts (strange that your superiors would expect you to purge a planet empty-handed) but has you kicking butt and taking names in no time after a bit of exploration. Your knight moves and jumps with the standard [WASD] or [arrow keys], while you can aim and fire at bad guys with the mouse. You get to traverse a fairly large world, visible in its discovered entirety by holding the [M] key. Thankfully, there are numerous respawn points throughout the world, so even if you die, you're never too far from your last spot.
The point of the game is to destroy the world's four gate keepers before facing off against the final boss. Along the way, you will need to zap many bad guys to collect their precious black diamonds. Certain areas of the world only open up if you have enough of these diamonds, which means a fair bit of backtracking to dispatch the limited number of aliens in order to advance. Bad guys are very Metroidesque, consisting mostly of relatively harmless aliens that jump and walk around in patterns, and a few pesky homing birds. Some of the tougher bad guys shoot at you from turret-like structures that protect the four pyramid gate keepers. The Blue Knight is quite agile and powerful once he finds his weapon and accessories though, so dispatching these bad guys is never much of a problem.
With its satisfying shooter qualities, pickups, and elements of exploration, Blue Knight is a nostalgic romp that classic Metroid fans should enjoy. From its graphics (a green and grey-hued landscape filled with a pink-lined grey walls and tunnels) to its sound (wind-blown background ambience mixed with NES-style sound effects), Blue Knight has definite personality and old-school charm. While there's no way to save the game and the ending feels a little anti-climactic, overall Blue Knight is still a nice way to pass half an hour while fondly recalling memories of an earlier videogame era.
stuck underwater after getting first health upgrade
ok, I backtracked and found the way
Really good game, but waaaaaaay too small. :(
Wow. Beat that in less than an hour no help needed. new record for me!
(i hardly ever beat any of the games on JIG)
Also for the gate keeper in the
cave in the sky
all you need to do is
shoot through the gate. you don't need to open it.
Weird!
Very easy game; a fun little AM distraction. I felt that there could be a lot more to it and the ending was kinda anti-climatic.
I guess I was expecting some kind of twist, but I still liked the message.
Glitchy. I have two black diamonds visible but "stuck" in the platforms. I can't collect them and can't progress without them. The worst kind of frustrating.
Wow, simply cannot find the last gatekeeper! Got the
one in the sky and the two below it
but can't find the final one...
Also got a diamond stuck in the floor where I can't collect it, but hasn't been an issue so far...
I am sorry, I love this genre of games, but this one was just terrible.
The only challenging part was fighting the urge to quit when having to backtrack through the map after everything that could harm you was dead.
Perhaps a limit on how long you can use your jetpack would help a little, not to mention being able to swim instead of.. underwater jetpack??
overall I found this game very weak, extremely linear and just plain boring to play.
i am so disappointed that I stuck through to the end, even though i was getting more bored by the second. I agree with GQWeasle totally.
Hmmm, Blue Knytt perhaps?
Quite short. I liked the game, but I kinda agree with GQWeasle ; no challenge, at all. It all began very well, but the end was sad. Sadly unfinished.
The ending is "a little anticlimactic?" That's a slight understatement. This would have been great if no one had ever done a retro-adventure-plaformer before, but PSST! THEY HAVE! SINCE THE LAST CENTURY!
It wasn't horrible, just...I kept waiting for it to really get started. You know, a weapon upgrade, more/new enemies, some twist to give it an identity all its own...but then YOU DEFEATED THE BOSS YOU WIN KTHXBYE :D
We've had so many games that give an interesting twist to the metroidvania genre lately that this was almost a surprise - like if the mailman dropped off a huge, padlocked wooden crate at your door, and when you open it...it's a case of bottled water and a LOT of excelsior.
There's my review: Blue Knight = a case of bottled water and a LOT of excelsior.
Super. Metroid.
I thought it was OK for a quick diversion, but agree that more Robot Wants-type upgrades would have added to the fun and that the final boss was... disappointing. When I played it in Firefox, I twice defeated the first shooting obelisk you encounter, but died immediately afterward and was unable to collect the diamonds -- everything vanished. As a result, I was unable to open the second gate... Ugh. Switched to IE and it worked fine.
The inability for a human to hold breath just a few seconds wondered me.
His inability to swim upwards comes stranges.
Well he can respawn, I might trade the first two abilties with this one.
But, and this comes as a total surprise, he can use the jetpack under water! Wheeeez!
(Oh and btw. I didnt realize this pyramids where "the gatekeepers", I shot one for a while, nothing happened,so i kept going... only later by accident kept shotting another while aiming at the tower before... cheez that long reistances for a thing that cannot defend, not necessary IMHO)
Backtrack Knight.
For anyone who didn't like this game, I direct you to Iji. :)
i rather like this game...seems a nice little homage to Metroid II: Return of Samus. About time the oft-forgotten child of the series got a little love.
I broke the game. While fighting one of the guardians, I accidentally left the screen, and now it's gone. I can't kill it because it isn't there. So I can't finish. Sadness.
It's a light version of the retro adventure game. Light on the graphics, upgrades, enemy design, map design (someone mention linear? I swear there was one bit where I could go in three different directions for a little distance!) and audio design. Super low-calorie on the plot line and ending.
If the Robot Wants games and all that lot cost a hundred bucks per game, this would work as a substitute for the poor.
Not too much of a challenge here. Once you get the gun, killing enemies is a matter of time. Once you get the jetpack, get ready for some jetpack-backtracking.
Glitch on the section/cell on the far right, one cell down, the area where there is a pyramid.
Gun bullets, jet-pack exhaust not showing.
Health bar, diamond symbol before diamond count also gone.
However, when I exit the area, all of the above re-appear.
Because of this, though, I am not able to destroy the last pyramid.
Also have a diamond embedded in ground.
short but sweet. beat it very quickly. that said it was the perfect length. though i felt that it could have been a whole lot more had the developer decided. felt like all of the basic elements were there only at demo length and not full version ability.
I'm usually a fan of this type of game, but this one just did not do it for me.
For one thing, it was buggy. At one point, I had a diamond stuck in the ground and all the bad guys had disappeared, including the pyramid I had yet to destroy. I had to restart the game. Looking at the comments, I can see that other people had the same troubles I did.
Second, the game was too easy. Most of the bad guys were ridiculously easy to kill. The ones that shot at me, I could usually stand or jump out of range and shoot at my leisure. And the final boss took about 30 seconds of jumping in place and shooting to beat. I'd have liked to see some more variety in the enemies, in both difficulty and design (the same few black things coming at me over and over got old real quick).
Third, the story felt tacked on. It might have helped if the text didn't disappear so quickly; I'm a slow reader, and I missed quite a lot of it, especially at the end. It came so suddenly, I didn't have time to read any of the ending text. There's no closure whatsoever.
I do think this could have been a good game, if only more effort had been put into the story and fixing bugs.
can't find jetpack...
Another dull Metroidvania-by-numbers. Even fewer upgrades than Insidia, and lots of walking around. Protip: Walking around is somewhat tolerable if you pass through lots of different environments - I liked Endeavour. But walking around is just boring in a place where everything looks the same.
I love Metroidvania games, but it's been a while since any that are even close to Iji or Untitled Story. Except I guess the Robot Wants JIG banner game was very good.
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