When a game says, ‘inspired by Studio Ghibli’, I often ignore it as a lazy marketing ploy, as the game has art in it, or a cute character that has a similar colour palette. That’s it. However, when King’s Blade compares itself to Golden Axe, I can’t help but sit there with a beam on my chops, nodding in agreement. King’s Blade is Golden Axe, but it has its own identity in the process.
A side-scrolling beat ’em up from Alexey Suslin, you play one of four initial heroes that take the battle from your own kingdom to the enemy’s. Those first choices include a barbarian, wizard, ranger, and arachnid thingy. All characters have three basic stats that include power, vitality, and speed, and you would be correct in making assumptions about how each of them plays, with the exception of Varosh. As interesting as the character is, they’re neither a tank nor a damage dealer, so usually in the group to, ahem, look pretty.
There are 12 decent-sized stages to complete with secrets scattered about, as well as two unlockable playable characters and different movesets. Naturally, King’s Blade doesn’t reinvent the wheel as a side-scroller and is pretty much the same throughout, with an increase in challenge towards the last couple of stages that make the bosses a little more challenging, as they should be. While being predictable might spell out boredom, the game does exactly what it sets out to do. If you like games like Streets of Rage, this is one of your picks.
As can be expected, you move from left to right, taking on all manner of enemies using a basic attack, special attack, and defense/dodge (which doubles up as an attack for some characters). Like Golden Axe, you also have an ultimate power that will either trigger an elemental attack or even summon support, but other than that, that’s pretty much the process with a few stages of floating platforms, beast riding (ooer!), and sitting at a turret and taking out hordes of baddies.
Gameplay, while incredibly familiar, can be a little unusual, too. You can’t swap out your characters on death, and after finishing a stage, you’re given a menu to go to the next level or return to the main menu. Trying to figure out who my favourite character would be, I’d complete a level, exit to the main menu, then jump back in to start the level I unlocked. As long-winded as this may be, it’s good that you don’t lose progress, can experiment with characters (I think the wizard was my go-to, if not an unlockable behemoth of a character), and seamlessly transfer King’s Blade gameplay to the Steam Deck. Which is what I did.
Another notable addition is the 4-player co-op feature. In the arcades, beat ‘em ups were frequently 4-player, such as TMNT or Vendetta. Having three of your mates join you is great, but there’s also an AI option, and you can theoretically have bots join you. Surprisingly, they’re not bad at all. First impressions were that they would tail you like a shadow, though they do seek out enemies, allowing you to apply a bit of crowd control. On the other hand, they are as rage-inducing as friends from back in the day. They are incredibly aggressive and will ALWAYS go for the power-ups, worse: the health when they don’t need it.
On two occasions, I had died because the AI had collected the health when I needed it, and there’s no way to change this. Instead of a game over, you have to wait for the AI to reach a checkpoint for you to respawn. Once again, I was surprised at how efficient the AI was in surviving; however, they weren’t so good on the last bosses. I maxed out the party with bots, and in those last two battles, all of them died and left me to scrape through!
King’s Blade is a fun side-scroller that captures all the nostalgia of the arcades, only without the scanlines. I haven’t once touched upon the really unique art style, which I thought was fantastic, and makes this a stand-out compared to the plethora of other fighters out there. While those AI thieves can be annoying, and despite a really good selection of difficulty levels, it doesn’t stop it from being a challenge towards the end. With that all in perspective, King’s Blade achieves its mission and is a thoroughly good indie beat ‘em up that you should look up.
