Black Knight Sword Review: Ethereally Stylish

First impressions are important in art, but they're certainly not everything. I really despised my first few hours of pain in Dark Souls. I couldn't imagine why anyone would put themselves through such an arduous gauntlet of pain and suffering. Of course, I now know that my ignorance of FromSoft's language was at the heart of this misinformed opinion, and upon learning Souls' inherent lexicon, it became one of my favorite games of 2011. But for every game that builds like Dark Souls, there's an analogue that makes a fantastic first impression, only to show its cards far too early. So it goes with Black Knight Sword, the newest downloadable title from co-developers Grasshopper Manufacture and Digital Reality.

For better or worse, you kind of know what you're getting into when you enter a game with Suda's name on it. With this in mind, Black Knight Sword starts with a fantastic opening that exudes the uniquely strange style and vision that we've come to associate with the eccentric creator. You begin this dark fairy tale where most childhood stories start -- at the business end of a noose. Upon wiggling your corpse off of its not-so-final resting place, your titular knight stumbles upon a cursed blade, and thus begins a three-hour tour through a hellish nightmare. It's a great first few minutes, but the game sadly heads in a downward direction after that.

Throughout the preview run, developers often cited the original Castlevania and Mega Man as their primary inspirations. While the influences from those titles are immediately obvious, Grasshopper's latest never manages to capture the magic of those two NES classics. Its atmosphere may be original, but it lacks the cohesion of Castlevania's inaugural setting. The dark twists on classic fairy tales merely exist for the sake of existing, never once attempting to say anything meaningful. Grasshopper toys with some interesting ideas, such as a neat take on the damsel in distress, but concepts generally come across as pithy attempts to capture a twisted fantasy vibe. And where Mega Man's combat managed to contain a simple-yet-elegant depth, Black Knight's becomes an exercise in mashing the attack button until your enemies bleed out.

Framing is key in Black Knight, which is evident from the start. The entire experience is presented as a theatrical performance, complete with a stage and curtains acting as a border; think of the battles in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. You don't move through the world, so much as the world moves around you. The setting lowers from the ceiling, audience members fidget in the foreground, and enemies enter and exit the frame with an air of theatricality. While this comes across as cute in the initial stage, Black Knight shows its hand early and never quite manages to introduce new elements to compliment this vision. I appreciate the unique spin on presentation, but it ultimately squanders its initial charm. There's no genuine reason why the game is presented as a stage play, and outside of those first few tricks, brings nothing new to the table. Perhaps most disappointing is the misuse of Akira Yamaoka, whose score falls flat and becomes completely unmemorable. Though the composer's music was the highlight of 2011's Shadows of the Damned, this most recent collaboration with Suda proves to be his weakest, which is honestly a shame.

Black Knight Sword is a lot of things, but polished is never one of them. It tasks you with mowing through endless waves of enemies, but the combat is woefully shallow. You have your standard sword swipe, a ranged attack, and an area-effect magic spell. That's it. If the three of these worked in conjunction via some form of rock-paper-scissors dynamic, combat could become surprisingly deep. Sadly, you can make it through a bulk of encounters by just wildly swinging your blade and slicing through whatever stands in your way. The only times things become slightly more complicated are during the handful of boss battles, but those provide their own special brand of frustration.

On any difficulty level higher than easy, these skirmishes require immense dexterity. Too bad Black Knight never affords you with a control scheme responsive enough to accommodate these moments of quick reactions. You're asked to avoid segments of bullet-hell and to scurry to tiny spots of safety, but the real danger lies in a movement system that's just a bit too unresponsive. Similar control problems occur during tight platforming challenges, which become far too difficult due to your avatar's lack of an inherent inertia. The reason Mario can bounce between tiny outcroppings is because Nintendo created a perfect physics system that the player learned and adapted to. This doesn't exist in Grasshopper's world, so prepare for your Black Knight to fall and fall again.

Nothing about Black Knight Sword is earnestly offensive, but nothing really stands out either. It does a handful of things adequately, but exceeds at none of them. The presentation is a pack of grocery store fireworks that you set off on a warm summer night -- worth a few moments of praise, but ultimately forgettable as you wander elsewhere in search for fun. I appreciate a game that draws from the foundations of NES platformers, but if you don't eventually say something unique with those pieces, why wouldn't I just play those original masterpieces?

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