“Dear Parents, I hope you had a good harvest. The Evil Wizard, as I’m sure you have heard of, has awaken the King’s wrath. Whoever saves the kingdom from him will get riches and recognition. I am currently after him although I have suffered some inconveniences; losing my weapon in particular affects me a lot. I will hurry back home after dealing the final blow. Yours truly, Peasant Knight”. After this heartfelt letter to his parents, our unlikely hero sets up to reach his goal, but it’s easier said than done in this challenging auto-runner platformer.
Like mentioned above Peasant Knight (PK) is an auto-runner, in which the sole objective is get to the portal at the end of the stage like the above picture. However, there are several mechanics that make this game different from most auto-runner games; first of all you can stop your character’s movement at any time by holding back on the D-pad or Stick. This design choice is an interesting one, because allowing you to stop gives you time to think about the best way to rise above the obstacles that present themselves in each of the 80 stages in the game. However, that doesn’t mean that you have all the time in the world to beat each stage, because you are also in a race against time. You see that gauge near the clouds? That is your timer for the stage, if you take too long the day passes by and night comes. You might think is nothing but a change in background or something, but if night comes and you haven’t reached the portal…you are smited by lighting!
While the first couple of levels are easy enough, but once you start to encounter pillars of fire that activate as you get close to them, giving a PK BBQ, spinning saws that require precise jumping, well… unless you want to see a cure tombstone; you get the idea that the world is not going easy on our hero. Luckily if you fail you immediately continue, and it’s fun to see the reminders of your past failures in the form of charred helmets, tombstones, and the like, if you die a lot on the same stage.
The game also throws some changes to the mechanics on later levels to keep the action fresh, for example if you hit a bumper on some levels instead of moving from left to right you start to move inversely, with the button to hold still being inversed as well. This provides some really interesting and frustrating puzzles, especially if your platforming skills are not up to the task. The game also offers some “boss battles” in which you need to avoid their attacks and try to get to the portal, which is a nice change of pace, and some of them are rather hard. For the trophy hunters, this game has a platinum trophy that’s easy to get, so that’s something to look forward to. The music and graphics are fine, they aren’t taking the world by storm or anything, but they are pretty to look at.
Bottom Line, Peasant Knight is not a filthy peasant; it is a fun puzzle auto-running platformer, which you can enjoy on your PS Vita. The best way to play it is in short burst, as it feels really satisfying to beat a stage that had you die so many times on, only to find one harder. I enjoyed my time with it and I definitely recommend it.
A Review Code was provided for this review.