IGN Review of Undead Knights

The PSP has made itself home to a number of weird and quirky titles, the latest of which is Tecmo's Undead Knights. Pitting you as a member of the Blood family, who were struck down when they spoke out about the king's new wife being too controlling of the land, and then brought back from the grave with the power to raise the dead (hence the title), the game is two parts action title and one part (simplistic) realtime strategy. The idea is solid, if clearly destined for a niche audience, but the production quality and controls leave a lot to be desired.



The basic idea is that you head into a mission, which generally is just you invading a castle to take down someone high in the food chain, kill some guys, turn them into zombies and then use them to fight, solve puzzles or what have you. As you progress you'll earn souls that you can then spend to upgrade your character with more health, new combat moves and the like. Again, the setup is good, but it quickly falls apart once you're in battle.



My biggest gripe is that it can be a pain to grab a knight and turn him to your side. At any point, you can grab someone and start turning them to the undead, and the weaker they are (and more powerful you are), the quicker they turn. If you slash someone a couple times before grabbing them, they'll turn much more quickly than when they're fresh.



The problem is that your minions often get in your way and you'll wind up grabbing them (to throw them) rather than grabbing an enemy knight right next to them. This gets aggravating rather quickly, especially when there are bowmen shooting arrows your way, lots of knights running around and slashing at your guys and what you need to do most is turn more enemies to your side.



On top of this, your guys will often pile up near the enemy, where you'll likely be, so if you attack them, you'll inevitably hit your own guys and either wound or kill them. It makes you want to avoid combat by and large, especially when there's only one enemy surrounded by two or more of your zombies. Now, this sort of plays into the Three Stooges-esque humor element of the game and I can appreciate that aspect, but it can also get frustrating when you're in a tough spot and you just want to move on.



All of this might also be fine if your zombies could take care of themselves without babysitting them. While they'll run around and attack just fine, when you need to take down armored guys or something of this sort, you need to hold down R to focus on the enemy you want killed while they pile up around him and take him out. That's fine, except that you're still able to be attacked, and you can't do anything (or even see yourself) while this is happening.



Combat isn't really all that interesting as the enemies are essentially the sort that you'll find in Dynasty Warriors. That is, they'll fade into existence, walk around until attacked and generally make uninteresting opponents. The level design is also pretty bad. By and large you're fighting in uninteresting, repetitive and boxy areas that seem to just sort of go on forever after a while.



One thing that gives the design some variety and promise is that you'll have to solve puzzles with the zombies. This can be using them as a bridge, a ladder, plugging holes in something or even using them as bait for a boss fight. What's unfortunate is that while there are some interesting and funny ideas here, you're never left scratching your head with what to do as the solutions are almost always contextual. If you can't cross a chasm, hold down R and your zombies will form a bridge. Were you given the ability to create these things at any time and left to figure out how to use them on your own, that would be one thing. Instead, it's just "hold a button and we'll do it for you" design.



Another missed opportunity is that there isn't really much variety in the zombies. A few unit types will result in something unique, like bombers that turn into zombies that can explode, but for the most part you're dealing with the blue dudes the whole game. It is possible to turn larger enemies into undead units to work with you if you're careful, which is a nice touch.

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