This Knight Really Is Brave To Show Up In The App Store At All
Brave Knight ($2.99) by Yobibyte Games is a side-scrolling arcade game that takes you on a dragon killing adventure. Before you run off and spend your pennies on this game, you should know that dragons aren’t real and if they were, you certainly couldn’t kill them the way this brave knight does.
I hate writing unyieldingly negative reviews. Even if a game is full of bugs or crashes all of the time, I try to find some redeeming qualities. In my mind, there is some developer somewhere who has poured his soul into his app and if I come along and destroy his dreams with my negative review just because of a little glitch, then I wouldn’t be a very good writer. However, sometimes an app is so bad that you just can’t say anything nice about it. Today, Brave Knight is that app.
Let me walk you through the first level. The knight walks automatically across the screen. Players control the jump and attack moves. When approaching a dragon or evil tree, hit the attack button and it will split in two. There are only two enemies in the entire game. Three if you count the end boss. You don’t really even have to be that close to the enemy to cut him in half. You just have to be somewhat near him. You don’t even have to try very hard.
When you tap the jump button, it doubles as an attack move, so you can also slice flying dragons in half if they are too high above you. The problem is that about 80 percent of the flying dragons are so high above you that you can’t reach them, even when jumping.
The real purpose of jumping is to get over gaps or jump up on steps. Since the knight is on auto walk, you have to pay attention to gaps and steps. You don’t have to worry about timing though. You can land a perfect jump in midair. The game doesn’t seem to recognize the gap right before the ground. I almost thought it wasn’t a real gap at all, but just a different color of ground. I tried walking straight across it. It’s a gap.
You collect big red coins along the way. They are never difficult to find. They just hover directly in front of the knight’s walking path. You don’t even need to jump. There are also shields that are enormous and easy to collect, which will grant you extra lives.
The boss at the end of the level is a red dragon that spits fireballs at you. All you can do is jump out of the way. You can’t attack the dragon because the auto walk keeps you from getting close enough to swing your sword. Just jump over and over again when the fireball is spit at you. Oh, and don’t worry about timing here either. You can basically land right on a fireball and it won’t hit you. The only way I was able to get one to actually hit me, and yes I tried on purpose, was to just stand there.
When you finish the first level, you get a happy splash screen that says, “You Win!” which is odd because there are still four more levels to play.
Let me walk you through the second level. Read the paragraphs above for the second level. It is exactly the same.
I didn’t make it to the third level because boredom had set in too hard.
If this game were free instead of $2.99, I still couldn’t recommend downloading it. It is poorly made, poorly executed and just poor. Unfortunately, this is a game that will probably get a few dollars out of some unsuspecting kid who likes retro graphics and adventure games. Please warn all of your friends to steer clear of Brave Knight. It’s just that bad.
