Review #576: Kingsley's Adventure

 This fox can't do a barrel roll.

 Can charm alone help make an ever-aging game tolerable? Kingsley's Adventure makes a great case study of it! This game is an adventure/platform game developed by Psygnosis, known for... well, they made a lot of games, so take your pick.

 The story places you in the boots of the fox Kingsley, a knight in training, who is tasked by the rabbit king and queen to save the land and defeat Bad Custard, an evil, yellow rat. Furries, enjoy. While the story is little more than context for the adventure, what really sells the game is how pretty everything is... despite the short draw distance that'd make Silent Hill blush. Each town is fairly distinct, although the same can't be said about the dungeons, featuring a colorful cast of animal-folk. Dialogue tries to be funny, but it really isn't, and somehow manages to make the characters fairly endearing. That was pretty much how I felt about the entire game, I wasn't invested in the story, but I was enjoying my trek through Kingsley's world immensely.

 Most of the game follows a simple formula: Talk to the king and queen,  go to the afflicted town, talk to the NPCs, enter the dungeon, defeat the boss, get new equipment(Mostly cosmetics) and then return to the king and queen. That goes on for the first four, and only, dungeons. Afterwards you'll have to defeat the four 'dark knights', which entails returning to every town and finding the entrance to the boss' lair. Once you've done all that, then you can tackle the final boss. The entire game can be beaten in about 3 hours, give or take. Do be careful, you can only save the game when entering foxholes, which means that you can only save when traveling between a town and the castle, so once you decide to tackle a dungeon you have to commit yourself until the end.


 Kingsley is, sadly, not as agile as a fox, and he controls via tank controls. As you might've guessed, this works very poorly in platforming environments. Dungeons 2 and 4 are particularly nasty due to all the platforming required, the conveyor belts in the second dungeon are benevolently safe, so you'll be stuck repeating the same jumps over until you get them right... this doesn't hold water on the fourth one, in which falling means death, so expect to see your firsts, and only, game overs in dungeon 4. Do be careful with your jumps, since, sometimes, it's possible to die instantly from tall heights. Finally, pressing switches or using keys can be... finicky, Kingsley must be extremely close, and you musn't be moving in any way before pressing square, otherwise the game will have trouble reading your inputs.

 It's not all jumping and running though, Kingsley's a knight in training, so he comes equipped with sword and shield. And eventually a crossbow too. There're three melee weapons, a dagger, an ax and, finally, a sword. Each weapon is better than the last, both in speed, range and power, so there's absolutely no reason to equip anything else than the last weapon you acquired, why you're allowed to boggles the mind. The crossbow, which is earned before the final dungeon, can only carry 10 arrows, and you can't pick up more arrows until you've depleted your entire quiver, so expect to see yourself shooting your last few arrows away in order to get a fresh refill. As for the combat, it's a simple mashing square affair. You can use the circle button to block, but it's not required, and, most of the time, a good offense is the best defense.

 While Kingsley's adventure is an adventure game, there's not much point in exploring your surroundings. At most you'll find coins, which will grant you an extra life every 50 coins you collect. Dungeons don't hold much secrets either, and they are fairly easy to traverse, with very simple puzzles sprinkled throughout barring your progress to the next room. There are no secret rooms or backtracking necessary, you just move forwards, solve the puzzle and move on. Bosses are fairly simple too, no brain power required. Although the third boss might take you by surprise, being the only boss that  requires you to block an incoming attack in order to deal damage to him.

 Kingsley's Adventure is very simple and very flawed, but at its core lies a rather entertaining little game If you removed all the platform segments, or gave the player better controls, it could've made for a much more fun game. But I think what really makes the game more than a sum of its parts is it's charming presentation and world, as this is a game that's even just nice to look at.
 6.0 out of 10