Portal Knights Review

This was a pretty fun game that my wife enjoyed just as much as I did, though for different reasons. While I was off doing quests and exploring new islands, she hung back on the first island to build a house to dump all of our trophies in. I didn’t really care for the Minecrafty stuff at first, but then I realized those additions weren’t necessarily for me. If you like crafting, you can spend hundreds of hours in this game. Otherwise, it’s a cutesy gimmick that sometimes helps (like building a dirt tower to reach a high platform) and sometimes gets in the way. For instance, your inventory constantly fills up with different block types you don’t need.

That’s one of my biggest gripes with Portal Knights. Inventory management is a pain in the butt. I was constantly having to trash items, because my backpack was too full of blocks, scrolls, weapons, furniture, ingredients, and other trinkets. There are already too many types of items to pick up, made worse by the fact that they can’t be stacked very high. Why do ingredients max out at 50 and dirt blocks max out at 400? Feels like an annoying way to force you to return home and build more chests to hold all this crap. The fact that you can teleport home at any time does lessen this pain point, though.

Portal Knights is a very forgiving game in that regard. Not only can you teleport home but you can teleport to the beginning of any other island/world at will. This is a great incentive to explore the map and open up more locations. It’s a pretty big map, after all, with a lot of environmental diversity, from snow to lava to moon rock. I really enjoyed finding a portal to a new island, meeting its NPCs, and literally digging into its random dungeons in search of better loot. Unfortunately, the camera makes for some claustrophobic fights, especially in those underground dungeons. But that’s my only other complaint in an otherwise excellent and whimsical RPG.

Reviewer

Clark
I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.

Published by

Clark

I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.