Fly By Knight

7/5 would pirate this again.

I enjoyed the immediate flair of highlighting UI with the crystal, but it was absent on "Quit," feeling a bit lopsided, which is also how I might describe the control somatic. The speed of vertical traversal, whether it be jumping or flying or via mushroom, feels snappy and satisfying, yet the ground movement feels sluggish by comparison; the effect is exacerbated by the "thud" sound effect for landing feeling uncharacteristic for a tiny bird character. There is a single point where I was required to slash above me to clear a rock, but both the visual and mechanical feedback for the basic slash attack obscure its role here. The camera has an intentional obscuring effect put to use in the fire flower area, although the camera's introduction of the flower itself provided the effect of appearing like a "boss room" where I needed to fly into the crevice and defeat the flower. The game has a clear dedication to its Land inspirations which shines through in the quantity of music defining each zone, however there are other flairs that would have cemented this motivation beyond a shadow of a doubt; actions like displaying a name of an area when you arrive bridges elegantly between the enjoyment of an "open world" and an "elemental zone romp." The Nerve aspects are here largely serving the Land motivations, and the battle gauntlet area has well enough choreography that the spot-troubles in the tutorial aren't as ill-taken. If the experience is meant to feel lopsided it should also feel tailored to that imbalance, with enemies that require me to slash down on them or having that attack do more damage, rather than simply being forced into that input by the level itself. There was a tidal wave of titles within the "streamer bait" slop sphere after Bennet Foddy convinced everyone that trash was actually cool, but he played a dangerous game himself by making his game fun to play. Despite an esoteric control scheme, it has a crunch and depth to it that goes beyond Sexy Hiking, and not many other "Sisyphus-likes" take this double standard into account. Let's contrast with the nearly identical game-feel of Kirby's Dream Land, which uses an infinite number of jumps and a low-risk combat with a two-beat rhythm: swallow and spit. Fly By Knight splits the rhythm into two "measures," slash forward and ground-pound. Of course, everyone wants more measures of music, but if your game can't compete with four-on-the-floor then let's look at the funk. *ba-na-naa-nah* Fly By Knight gets an A for Aerial, Charming but Anchored.