[b]Briefly: [i]Tiny Knight[/i] is a cute but simple action adventure with minor puzzle elements.[/b]
In my view, [i]Tiny Knight[/i] is [i]Convex'[/i] attempt to make a linear [i]Zelda[/i]-like action adventure.
[list]
[*] The protagonist is a child with sword and shield.
[*] A bad guy [strike]kidnaps princess[/strike] steals a magic crystal of the village and you have to beat him up to get it back.
[*] You start with a lousy weapon but find bigger and better swords along the way.
[*] Cute graphical style, where even monsters can be cute.
[/list]
Well, while it is definitely not on-par with [i]Zelda[/i] games, [i]Tiny Knight[/i] has some success despite its faults.
[h1]Time for justice and revenge[/h1]
The very first level introduces the protagonist and the story. You, as the tiny knight, live in a village protected by a huge magical crystal of untold powers. Tiny knight is a kid who trains to become a great hero. It appears you are also the only person capable of using a sword in the village.
Then an evil skeleton king destroys the village and steals the crystal. Who would have guessed?
[h1]Might and magic[/h1]
Tiny knight immediately sets out to rescue the crystal and beat the bad guy. He can already swing a dagger and later a sword. The weapon is small and there's a tiny delay when swinging it, so it can take some time to get used to fighting. Yet it is easy to dispatch all minions of the skeleton king. I guess the skeleton king did most of the work himself when destroying the village.
If swordfighting is not your forté, you can also simply jump on enemies like a plumber of some kind to kill them. A shield can be used to block both regular melee and ranged attacks (though I found it unreliable to use because of hitboxes).
Finally, at a certain point you learn magic to shoot fire and ice. Again though, there's a delay of almost half a second of initiating and then shooting the bolt. During this time you can move, reposition and turn like normal. Alas, with the lack of targeting system it is easy to miss completely by turning away at the last moment.
Control aids of 3D games from late 90s could have done wonders for this game. Other than fighting, the controls are well implemented. I used keyboard and mouse. Maybe it's just me but I felt they were actually more natural controls than using my Xbox 360 controller. With K&B combo, mouse controls camera, swings and defense, while ASDW moves the guy. However [b]if you don't like those controls[/b], note that there is no way to change the keys in-game, so you would have to resort to 3rd party programs for that.
[h1]Dungeons...[/h1]
Levels are comparatively well varied. The forests, towns, dungeons and graveyards may have secret areas, side tunnels and insta-killing traps like lava or sawblades. There are fortunately only a couple of places requiring 3D platforming, as all movement is freeform and the only indication of character location is the usual round shadow underneath. Good thing that you can rotate camera freely, e.g. to bring it above you while platforming.
To fully complete a level, i.e. gain gold completion, one has to find all or almost all crystal pieces. You get some of them by killing enemies but most are hidden around the level. [strike]Note that at the time of writing, two levels are impossible to complete with "gold" status because of missing crystals. Developers have kindly promised to patch this after summer 2016 but this has yet to happen.[/strike] EDIT: Everything works now as of January 2017.
Almost all levels have minor puzzle elements, like "beat these guys to open a door elsewhere" or "jump on these pads in correct order, you'll never guess what it is". Those were okay but with little more work they could have been very cool, as now they stayed too simplistic to my taste.
Music is nice, with the epic tone you'd expect for this kind of game.
[h1]...and dragons![/h1]
Tiny knight faces the usual cast of enemies: skeletons, skeleton archers, skeleton mages... even some non-skeletons, like magical bats and dragons. While the visual assets (that I'd describe as "cartoon cute") are not default stuff, they can be bought on Unity store (like [url=https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/5589]all the skeleton enemies[/url] and some [url=https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/26704]other enemies[/url]). Despite being a bit generic they fit the theme well. Still, maybe a bit of customization would have made them more awesome.
The enemy attack patterns are slightly varied. The melee fighters usually just charge mindlessly, but there's the usual cast of ranged arrows and spells and armoured enemies who can be hurt only when they reveal their vulnerability to unleash a great attack. It's a shame that ranged enemies just stay still while shooting.
While the regular enemies were tad lame, I liked the boss fights a lot. The four boss fights are reasonably varied and challenging, though only the last boss proved so difficult that I had to try several times before finally beating it.
You see, the bosses start using new tricks after getting hit and the last boss had a new pattern to show after each hit. Consequently, the end boss was the best boss in the game!
Too bad that the ending is the lamest ever, with no cutscenes nor fanfares but basically a simple "You win the game!". Somehow I expected something more.
[h1]Conclusions[/h1]
[i]Tiny Knight[/i] has its moments. The combat system could have learned from all the 3D action adventure and platforming games seen since last 20 years but it's still pretty fun. However, it only took me 3 hours to beat all levels to gold completion for the achievements.
There's also a hardcore mode, i.e. a single-life mode to beat all the levels in order without dying. As there are many dangerous traps, it can be very difficult. I made it only few levels through before succumbing to defeat.
For its relatively short length and mediocre presentation I do not think [i]Tiny Knight[/i] entirely worth its full price of 9 euros. However, I bought it at 50% sale, for which I was happy with, so I'd give this title a tiny recommendation with a note: wait for a sale.
