Famicom Friday: King's Knight

Last Friday I sat to play some King's Knight.
This game looks like an RPG but it's not. Its purpose is to be a shooter in RPG style. It has some novelty value, but that is probably the only advantage.

To play this game, there are a couple of things you need to know.
If you don't have a  manual, here they are:
1. At the start screen, you can continue by pressing the Select button. See my video below. Choose character to replay and press A then start, or simply press Start to play stage 5 with your existing characters.
2. You need to find all four special items for all characters so you can make it through stage 5.
3. On stage 5, having all four items on the characters, makes it possible to use their special attack once by pressing B. This must be used at the right moment.

Knight:  Cast Zainen to change into a winged horse.

Wizard:  Cast Naizath to defeat enemies in the water. 

Monster: Cast Cetune to change into a dragon.

Thief:   Cast Balbath to destroy monoliths.  

You upgrade your characters with items they take. For each upgrade you get an extra level added to your character for a maximum of 20.

To make it through the first stages, you are almost forced to know where the upgrades are. Without the attack upgrade, the shots are only half as effective for example, and you will die soon. You can see my video below how hard it was to kill the ghosts before I got the attack-upgrade at 0:55.

The good thing is that the upgrades are always in the same position so you can memorize them. This would take a very long time with normal play, and I think that the game is more fun if you follow a stage map. You can see the stage map for the wizard if you visit http://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/587386-kings-knight/faqs ) so you can follow my path in the video, if you want.



As you can see in the video, I didn't use the map yet, and missed item 1. Actually didn't have all four items with any character and I didn't have any chance on stage 5.

The game doesn't have any save function, but it is pretty short if you know how to play through the stages and know where the items are. If you don't mind playing with a map and maybe a walkthrough, I think you might want to give it a try. The Japanese version is entirely in English. It was also released for NES in the US.