Welcome to our review of Bucket Knight, one of many new platformers out now on Nintendo Switch.
Bucket Knight is a classic run-and-gun platformer game. Even knights still have to pay taxes, loans, and alimony. Help unnamed but brave knight in his sacred mission to find the Holy Grail (and make some money). Explore dungeons, slay enemies, avoid traps, stay alive and get rich!
Explore dangerous dungeons filled with traps, treasures and… food? Various enemies that will try to shoot you, stab you, explode you or will try to be your friend… nevermind, just shoot at them! Multiple weapons for every honorable knight taste.
Deadly traps that you never want to put at your home (but maybe at your ex-home). Gold, gems, and treasures. There is no text in the game and the story is told through visuals.
Exactly that might or might not be its appeal. I must say at first, I was rather underwhelmed by Bucket Knight and honestly thought very little of this game. Sure, it was an above par platformer with shooting mechanics to stay alive, but the lack of any guidance at first kind of threw me off guard.
Not knowing what to do or where to go, it took me two or three minutes to realize I just had to get my butt to the vortex thingie to move to the next level. By the time I had figured this out, I was about ready to put the game back down and play something else.
It really felt that awkward at first and despite a much better second impression, I can not shake the feeling that the intentional design choices might be ruining my game experiences.
The game itself is rather accessible once you get past my previous concerns. The enemies are manageable and not the hardest. They all have their own way to be beaten and the biggest asset of the game is none other than the level design.
Bucket Knight is a cheap game but it does have that weird premium feeling to it. Sometimes the levels are smart and a real riddle to find the exit, other times, you just need speed and precise jump controls to make it out alive.
While graphically, this game is very old school with the level screen displaying an old school TV screen and the pixels can almost be counted on the screen, it is a big contrast with how smart the approach to level design is. Almost like they do not mix, but in reality, they do blend very well.
In conclusion, Bucket Knight did, in the end, provide some fun and it was only after a while that I really got into it. I do wonder what this game would be like if given a more modern look instead of the 8bit approach. While graphics do not make the game, I just wonder if my impression would have been more positive.
