Occasionally, I am going through the lists of games on RetroAchievements and something will catch my attention, whether it be the name like Kowai Shashin (Scary Photograph), or the small little thumbnail they use for the game, that thumbnail is also used as the icon that gets added to your games mastered section of your profile. It is the latter that drew me into this game. The little mastery image features a fox in a blue tunic with a sword, it has a fox in it! How could I say no! Especially since the last fox-based game, I played was Star Fox Assault and I really need a palette cleanser for vulpine adventures. Kingsley’s Adventure is brought to us by Psygonsis, which is a name and logo I recognise, but for the life of me I can’t think of what game from my past I saw it plastered on.
Kinglsey’s Adventure follows the… Adventure…. Of Kingsley. Hmmm, usually that starter to a game gets the ball rolling. The game is set in the Fruit Kingdom and the Kingdom’s book of magic has been stolen by Bad Custard. Yep, that’s the villain’s name, he’s not called Custard who just happens to have gone bad, his name is Bad Custard which sets him up for a path of villainy, doesn’t it? It’s like Victor Von Doom from Marvel, with a name like Von Doom, what are you going to do with your life, besides run a campaign of evil and become a dictator of a micronation? Anyway, Bad Custard has stolen the kingdom’s book of magic and has used it to corrupt the Royal Knights and is trying to take over the Fruit Kingdom. Rise sir Kingsley! A knight in training who vows to stop Bad Custard and save the kingdom. Kingsley travels to different towns to put right the wrongs and gather the items required to become a true knight.
So, with all that, let’s begin and you’ll immediately notice that the game utilises tank style controls, like Croc: Legend of the Gobos. Granted this game was released in 1996, and the gold standard for 3D platformer controls may have not been established. It doesn’t take too long to get used to the way the game controls, and you’ll find yourself going through a training area where we learn, what is probably the most frustrating part of this game, jumping. The platforming in Kinglsey’s Adventure isn’t some cardinal sin, it is just somewhat frustrating, I found myself struggling to gauge distances, this isn’t an issue in the tutorial, but the jumping can get problematic later. Especially when moving or teeny tiny platforms above instant death pits are concerned. I suppose we should be grateful that we are made aware of this problem during the tutorial, it really helps set the tone for the adventure.
Besides jumping, we learn everything we need to know about combat. I feel spoilt by playing games like Ocarina of Time, where the combat, whilst relatively simple in that but feels good. Kinglsey’s combat is fine for the most part, you approach things, raise your shield to block an incoming attack, and follow up with a counter, hoping the enemy hasn’t gone into their blocking stance. By and large you will just stand there and exchange blows like that until they fall. There is nothing fancy going on with melee enemies, as you can block all their attacks. Again, Zelda spoilt me. You can also sidestep, which is useful during the boss encounters, but it is a slow movement, almost as if it was more designed to help you line up jumps. There is a back flip! It’s fun to do! It adds some panache to your fight but the distance you get on that is just not suitable for anything. Also, in the tutorial you will get a crossbow, which can go into a first person view to shoot or just shoot from the hip. An annoying thing about the crossbow is that you can hold a maximum of 10 shots, restocking your bolts can only be done at respawning pick-ups, at specific locations, usually locations where it is required to use the crossbow. The pick-up also only respawns when you have run out of ammo. It’s a little strange, I found myself wasting shots just to restock back to full to use later. So, now that you have learnt all of that and are equipped for the game, what happens after you finish the tutorial? Well, all that gear is taken away from you. You won’t get the crossbow back for a while.
So, when we begin our adventure properly, we are told to go to a town and help the people there. Helping the people there is all about locating the person you need to speak to gain access to the “dungeon” of the area. In fact, some of the town areas are quite large and open, sadly beyond rather humourous dialogue with some of the locals, there is next to nothing going on in the towns. You might find some chests that have coins in there and you might think you can buy stuff, maybe potions, weapons, armour… No. Once you get enough coins you gain an extra life, yes, this game has a rather arbitrary lives system. Why do I say the lives system is arbitrary, well, you game overs will send you back to the start of a dungeon, unless you reach the boss, which where game overs will put you right before the boss fight. That being said, one of the dungeons I had to re-do because I game overed half-way through it. So maybe less arbitrary than I believe. But back to the towns for a moment, it does feel that the game is a little undercooked, like there was going to be more to do, little side quests and stuff. There is some fetch questing going on, but it is all mandatory stuff.
You do get equipment in this game, as you start with a dagger and gain an axe and sword and you can switch between these weapons, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason not to use the most recently acquired weapon as there are no benefits to using certain weapons against certain enemies, and whilst I didn’t really notice it, the damage and range probably increases as you. The Knights armour and shield you get, do change your appearance, but also don’t seem to do anything to improve your defences, so the entire weapon selection seems a little pointless, though as mentioned previously, the game feels a little underbaked, perhaps there were some more mechanics that were planned to be added. To add to this, there was apparently a magic system that was planned for the game but ultimately scrapped.
The game isn’t terribly long, you can get through it in a day and admittedly a lot of my play time was trying to get the damageless boss achievements. Besides some frustrating platforming requiring you to jump as late as possible moments above instant death pits, the game is quite enjoyable it is a silly little jaunt that I think is worth giving it a play, but I wouldn’t rush out to give this game a try.
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