When the title of Mojang was launched on the market, many said they were perplexed by the actual ability for the game to entertain, sure that in a landscape like today, where being accompanied step by step is now the routine, being suddenly a having entire worlds available to create anything could even be counterproductive. Instead, it was interesting to find out how from a niche product Minecraft became a real cult phenomenon, leaving room for clones and titles with similar ideas.
Portal Knights, published by 505 Games and developed by Keen Games is only the latest of these but in its own way tries to carve out its own personality, taking advantage of the classic cubes to give life to a geometrically perfect world but also replenishing it with creatures of design cured and stylistically more cared objects. A product of the same kind in short, but not a simple clone, ready to receive our final verdict after having spent the last 12 months in the phase of Early access on Steam.
If you are a fan of the genre, Portal Knights is a title that you should not miss because of the price
CUBE AFTER CUBE AFTER CUBE
Portal Knights is the perfect link between Minecraft and Dragon Quest Builders, trying to offer almost total freedom to the player but also channeling it through the classic style of role-playing games. During the creation of your character, with a good amount of variables for aesthetics, you can choose whether to become a warrior, an archer or a magician, laying the foundation for a one-way development.
You will then have a very specific role in the universe of portals, you can be a tank or a damage dealer and when you meet the other players in the online matches you will already know who you have by simply observing the equipment.It is a significant starting point, as we told you, but it is also the only real limitation with which you will be harnessed.
From a title like Portal Knights, which presents a linear structure of growth and discovery, we would have expected a more important story while to lead the players through the available worlds there will be only a faint background narration, leaving to the fact that they are the players themselves to create their own story.
From this point of view the evaluation for a choice of the kind falls on the mere personal taste: we would have preferred to be guided more by a narrative to there Dragon Quest Builders, for example, rather than to deal with the simple, repetitive and obvious quests secondary ones that flesh out Portal Knights.
They are brothful, of course, but to the umpteenth request to find a particular object or to kill a certain amount of monsters we have begun to ignore them, just to come back later to get prizes and trophies to customize the houses.
The quests are also a good source of experience points, even if the only “farm” of enemies guarantees a rapid growth of the character.As a good self-respecting role-playing game, Portal Knights offers you thirty levels of experience, passive talents for your hero and even statistical points to place at your leisure.
It is just a sketch of a structure that could have been more in-depth but still does its job, allowing you to think about some particular build for your class. Nothing overwhelming, it is clear, but enough reason to want to reach as high as possible the maximum level to unlock your potential. With growth you will also gain access to new sets of armor and equipment for a rather low and yet malleable difficulty curve depending on your needs.
A simple game to face and never unnerving, thanks to a basic but effective combat based on attacks and dodges, perfect for young audiences to whom the title is aimed.
