[quote]Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades [/quote]
You know, sometimes ratings and reviews of a game can be pretty deceptive. Not because the reviewer is lying, but because their point of view and their standards are wildly different from what yours. Maybe nostalgia is getting in the way. Maybe something that is very critical to you is not much of an issue for the other person. Or maybe they are more forgiving when playing a game than you are. Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade (KOTT for short) is one such game, with other reviews on its store page making you think it's a game that has perfectly stood the test of time.
It has not.
[h2]Rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world[/h2]
In terms of story and its narration, there's not much here. You're a good christian boy, a bad guy is trying to destroy the world, the bad guy kidnaps your love interest, you go out to kill the bad guy and save everyone. There's no environmental storytelling, no fleshing out the characters and no pieces of lore hidden around the levels. The game just offers you your usual good against evil story with a Crusades theme, with the only attempts at storytelling limited to the animated cutscenes you will see every few stages. And the whole thing concludes with a plot twist ending that is pretty weak and dissatisfying, and honestly made me more mad with the game after I found out about it.
Now you might be wondering why I am malding about the story in this game. The first reason is that the game has insane amounts of lost potential in this department as it truly feels atmospheric at times. Some scenery in a few levels, combined with Gustaf Grefberg's music tracks, make for some captivating moments that could have been used to elevate the storytelling. But the game never capitalizes on this idea. Instead it constantly forces you inside hallways, streets and closed off areas, even fumbling the rare chances it gets.
And the second reason is that with a gameplay like THIS, they really should have had a better story presentation to make one actively want to continue playing it.
[h2]We have Onimusha at home[/h2]
Unfortunately, the gameplay in KOTT is a massive borefest and becomes repetitive very fast. All you do in a level is going from the starting point to the ending point, while constantly fighting the enemies that dare to stand in your way. This is not a problem on its own, but the thing is that neither the combat is actually fun nor the game offers you enough encouragement to go on. Allow me to explain.
The game simply throws you into way too many forced combat encounters per level with no breathing room in between. Sometimes you cannot go from one room to the other or even move a few steps forward without an enemy showing up to fight you. And sometimes, enemy spawn points are pretty questionable, with them magically appearing out of nowhere after a cutscene finishes playing or attacking you mere moments after a level starts. So you just fight and fight and fight... without having the game offering anything to break this repetitive flow.
As I have mentioned before, the story is pretty bland & uninteresting and the game refrains from using in-game cutscenes, only offering pre-rendered ones at certain points. There are no collectables or meaningful secrets in the game. There are only 6 puzzles present in the whole game. The game ties the majority of unlocks to weapon usage and how many enemies you kill, and gives you all of the weapons pretty early on, so there's almost nothing left to reveal by progression aside from the main story plot. Therefore, the combat is all that the game has to offer for a huge part of it, and it being so basic and bland doesn't help the situation we have here.
[h2]The action game genre at its most basic form[/h2]
The combat system in KOTT feels like what happens if you take a fantasy action game, then strip it from its features one by one until the bare minimum remains. Or if it's unfinished to begin with.
In KOTT you will get access to a total of 4 weapons, starting with a sword and then gradually acquiring an axe, a mace and a bow. But unfortunately, the first three weapons function exactly the same, with the only difference being small amounts of damage increase against specific enemy types. On the other hand, the bow is incredibly powerful, being capable of killing even the most annoying enemies in a few hits and one-shotting every enemy and boss (excluding the final boss) with a headshot, even if they are armored. Thankfully, it's handicapped by the number of arrows.
Then we get to the actual combat and I have to say, it's pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bland. While KOTT somewhat leans into the hack & slash genre on lower difficulties, it requires a slower and more strategical approach to combat as a whole. You can get surrounded by as much as 3-4 enemies at once, with their rapid attacks making it hard to employ a hack & slash playstyle and not get overwhelmed. You need to study the enemies' attack patterns, attacking and defending at the right time to get past them.
But it won't offer you enough to enjoy the fighting. You will be doing the exact same combos as most of them are not suitable to use against enemies with such a combat system, and you will fight against the exact same enemy types for the entirety of the game. Moreover, most enemies have a habit of constantly blocking your attacks, forcing you to spam your guard break special move (which gives you a small timeframe to only land one or two hits) or returning the favor by also constantly blocking their attacks and waiting for an opening. And remember when I said the game constantly makes you fight with no breathing room? I think you can now understand the whole problem.
[h2]Good audio and visual presentation, BUT...[/h2]
I will admit that aside from the pre-rendered cutscenes, the game still looks really good for a game from 2004. The textures look clean and the game supports modern resolutions as well. The animations for the main characters and enemies, especially in combat, are also praiseworthy as they are very smooth due to the devs using motion capture. Although it does stumble a bit in the technical side as while the game runs without additional tinkering, it has broken refresh rate and brightness adjusters, among some other issues such as baffling lack of controller support.
As for the music, the game uses the same music system that was later used in The Darkness, with each level having a calm version and a combat version of the music to seamlessly switch between. It features some very well-composed tracks that are pleasant to listen to, even enhancing the experience at the very rare times the game isn't throwing you into a fight and the scenery looks interesting enough to back it up. But then there are sections in the game where absolutely no music is playing (like the second boss), and then we have tracks being reused over and over again as you go through a couple of levels back to back.
[h2]TL;DR[/h2]
The game feels unfinished, feeling like what you get when you strip action games down to their very basic form. It's not bad, but is incredibly bland and boring to play compared to its peers.
