Knights Contract

Wow - Whats with all the hatred for this game???

Knights Contract is a game that I had my eye on for several months before its release. Perhaps it just the fact that I seem to prefer a good story driven adventure to another tired old war shooter. Perhaps it was the very cool pre-rendered trailers on you tube, or the dark and twisted gothic setting. Whatever it was - I was very excited about Knights contract... and then the first reviews came pouring in (with one particularly critical IGN review). I was so disappointed I almost did not pick the game up at all.

...But I reminded myself that I've enjoyed other poor scoring games in the past, so I went with my gut and picked this up. And I'm glad I did.

First off, if you are the type that gets frustrated with your games easily, this may not be the game for you. If you are willing to look past a few minor issues, there's plenty fun to be had though.

Knights contract is primarily one long escort mission. Yes I said it. Is this a bad thing? We'll let's consider that other excellent games like : Ico, Resident Evil 5, Prince of Persia, Half Life 2, Silent Hill 4 and many others are also escort missions, and you'll see that it's not necessarily bad.

Knights contract is a competent Hack and slash game. Its not the greatest game in the genre, but its definitely not the worst either. If you enjoyed Dante's inferno, Conan, Castlevania or The force Unleashed there's a good chance you'll enjoy this too.

The story revolves around Heinrich- a hardened immortal warrior, and the beautiful Gretchen - a reincarnation of a witch that Heinrich previously executed. Its a dark and grizzly fantasy tale, that's both interesting and moving - with 2 main characters you'll grow to care about, and definitely want to see through to their ultimate destination.

The graphics are pretty decent. This is not Gears of War, but it's still a nice looking game, with plenty diversity and nice looking characters. It has a couple of pre-rendered cut-scenes, which are absolutely stunning - we're talking Final Fantasy XIII quality here. Ignore the haters saying this game looks like a PS2 title. That is obviously not true.

The voice acting and sound are also pretty cool. Heinrich sounds suitably tough and rugged, while Gretchen plays her part well too.

As mentioned earlier, Heinrich is an immortal and cannot die. Gretchen however is definitely mortal and susceptible to harm. Others have hated this, but I found it refreshing. Gretchen is your charge, and you need to protect her as such. If you want to run off and kill everything that moves, and just ignore her, you are missing the point, and you are more than likely just going to be frustrated. I loved the fact that Gretchen was weak and vulnerable, and I particularly liked the way in which Heinrich could pick her up and carry her to safety - an emotional and subtly interesting touch. Call me old fashioned, but I found that one small detail great.

Overall, I'd say Knights Contract is a pretty decent hack and slash title. It does a few things differently, but if you approach it with an open mind, I can guarantee you that there's plenty fun to be had here. Don't listen to the nay-sayers. Knights contract is a decent game with a captivating story in a dark and interesting world - that you'll definitely want to see through to its conclusion.

The first great things that I noticed about this game were the cut scenes, the environments, and the unique monsters. There are many variations of different kinds of creatures, the environments range from snowy to woodland (which I love). The gameplay itself reminds me a lot of God of War (I hate comparing other games to God of War because it seems like more of a critique, BUT IT IS NOT).

The abilities (witchcraft and melee) that you use are upgradable and I love this aspect. The boss battles are very creative yet range from easy to excruciatingly hard, without any warning (most of the gameplay seems to have random difficulty at times).

I have not reached the end of the game just yet but I feel that by the end of the game you might find yourself a little bit bored because of the repetitive nature of the game and I feel that this game, while it is actually a very fun game, does not truly live up to its full potential. Maybe there will be a second installment later down the road that will improve on flaws. Overall a very fun game despite its flaws.

By putting this excellent hack & slash off because of the bad reviews. I love hack & slash games! Dantes Inferno is one of my most favorite games from this gen and i've always been a big fan of other hack and slash series such as Devil May Cry, God of War, ect. I'm constantly on the look out for any new interesting hack and slash IP's to come out so I was really looking forward to playing Knights Contract but then the reviews came out and it got trashed so I reluctantly decided to skip it. Big mistake.

I was recently able to pick a copy of Knights Contact up for cheap and after spending over 16 hrs with the game, beating it and replaying several chapters for better scores, more souls to level up my magic and tracking down the elusive collectibles I still can't get enough! For starters the story is actually really good with some nice little twists and turns where it went off in directions and did some things I wasn't expecting and the main characters are both likeable. The graphics are a bit of a mixed bag, for the most part I thought they were great with some very imaginative locations such as Rapunzel's gothic castle with her hair blowing through the air all over the place, the characters were all well animated and some of the bosses were huge and quite cool looking but at other times the graphics could be a bit ugly especially when getting up close on some objects they really lacked detail.

As for the gameplay, it was my favorite part. In videos it always looked to me like the knight Heinrich controlled kind of slow and sluggish but that was not the case at all as I found his attacks both fast and fluid however it isn't Heinrich's attacks that are your best offensive weapon that of course would be the witch Gretchen's spells with some of them being quite impressive and brutal looking with some awesome finishers that reminded me a bit of Bayonetta. At times I did find the camera to be a bit wonky but it did not in any way hinder my enjoyment.

Now for the last thing I wanted to touch on, Gretchen's AI which was the big complaint of most reviews. Yes Heinrich is immortal and can't die but Gretchen can and if she dies its game over so it is a long escort mission and the reviews complained that she was dumb and died all the time, all I can think is that they must have played the game at a higher difficulty than normal because I never had a single problem with her AI while playing on normal. She was rarely in danger and when she did get in trouble I simply picked her up and ran around with her for a few seconds until her health refilled and then I went right back to destroying bad guys. I seriously never got frustrated with it so please don't let this scare you away, if you love hack & slash games then I can't recommend Knights Contract enough, its probably my favorite game of this gen of this genre behind Dantes Inferno, don't miss out on this overlooked gem.