Take control of Rusty, the son of the mayor who, by what seems like accident, becomes the hero of the story in A Knight’s Quest. Evil has risen and it’s up to him to save the day. There are other heroes who, for comical reasons, cannot do what they normally do. Instead, your adventure revolves around gaining the powers and weapons of these past heroes. There are a lot of puzzles based on movement and slight quick thinking. As you progress, you’ll unlock more areas that utilize the new abilities in order to progress or find collectibles. It’s a huge open-world adventure with plenty of hours of content.

Here’s what I liked:

Changing Powers — I do love the idea that there are famous heroes in the game that can no longer save the day. Finding and gaining their powers is pretty funny. These powers will eventually help you traverse farther into the world. My favorite power is turning into a giant snowball so that you can roll around and shoot yourself far into the air. The progression of these powers seems fair, gaining them every so often and being able to revisit areas in order to find the collectibles you missed. Certain enemies will have shields that must be broken by using a specific power. It gives a good mix to an otherwise boring fighting system.

Parkour — Battling enemies isn’t that smooth, but running around doing puzzles and traversing can be pretty fun. It can be satisfying to run along walls or grind along rails, have to jump over obstacles or switch tracks on the go. I always welcome parkour into any game, as it gives you the feeling of control. There are a good amount of areas that take a lot of jumping and performing specific maneuvers to get where you want to be. The opening part of the game is actually the best part of the game, as it has a huge emphasis on your agility. I just wish there was a lot more of it.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

Slow Travel — Each area isn’t too bad to walk through, even though there are some long distances. However, there isn’t always a lot to do while running. There aren’t many enemies and even killing them does not really help you in any way. With no leveling or upgrading, you can just avoid a decent amount of bad guys. The issue that I had was having to traverse these same locations a lot. Fast travel is not unlocked until the game is near the end. You can see these points, but can’t use them. When you pull up the map, your character icon just shows where you are in but in a generalized “you’re in this section”. It’s a terrible experience, especially when you’re lost or don’t remember how to get back to a specific location. It’s almost like a giant maze.

Spikes of Difficulty — While there aren’t too many difficult situations, there are a few that seem unfair. In some cases, enemies will need to be hit with a specific power in order to damage it. This becomes a problem when fighting a boss. I felt lucky numerous times to escape with my life. I have nothing against tough battles, don’t get me wrong. But it appears as if the enemies later in the game are actually glitched. You hit them with the specific power to break the barrier, but then suddenly they gain it right back as soon as you swing your weapon at them. This keeps happening, over and over and becomes an exhausting fight. Nothing enjoyable about it.

Wrap-up

While A Knight’s Quest can have its moments, the negative outweigh anything positive. The fun is eclipsed by an infuriating nonexistent roadmap of what you’re supposed to do. While I was able to get to the end, for some reason my save file got erased and all of my progress was lost. After that mishap, I had mixed feelings. I love getting achievements and feel I didn’t have long to complete the game which had me upset. However, I realized it was a blessing in disguise and freed me from having to continue getting lost again or wasting hours figuring out where to go next.

Score: Limited Appeal

A Knight’s Ques was published by Curve Digital and developed by Sky9 Games on Xbox One. It was released on October 11, 2019, for $24.99. A copy was provided for review purposes.