Gryphon Knight Epic Xbox One Review

"Wings of a Gryphon"

Campaign

I originally thought going into this game that it might be just another one of those typical platformer games, but I was quickly shown something entirely different. In the game you play as this retired knight that long ago had slain the dragon with his squad and was getting fat and old. Things change one day after many years of holding onto this mystical amulet that was his treasure from the dragon and a dark side of him split off. This is where things get crazy as the game is a sidescrolling game where you ride the entire time on a Gryphon, that whole aspect is crazy and something I never thought I'd do in a game. Taking this style of gameplay it becomes more of a bullet firing type game with some neat directional movement in levels. Most of the time you're flying along one direction in the game, but the option to switch sides is there as well as moving up or down when needed. At first it was truly magical and highly entertaining though things turn dark quickly due to difficulty. There are options to adjust the game level with normal being quite challenging, especially with death being basically a permanent thing. I'm not fond of games without checkpoints and it sucks having to restart the entire level if you die. That aside the game offers a fairly large roster of levels as you're visiting each of your old adventure group to warn them and there are minor sub-levels in each of the realms. Most levels are straightforward with difficulty increasing with the pure number of enemies present and also boss enemies to tackle. Bosses were interesting enough with a couple ways to take them on in order to defeat them and continue along. It's best to take breaks in-between levels to buy more items from the merchants including regular potions or permanent boosts. This includes things like a strong crossbow or even a better assistant floating character that helps out in battle.

Gameplay

The world looks rather nice taking the pixel route and levels are filled with charming environments. Aside from the natural state of the levels the variety of enemies is great with all sorts of crazy monsters to take on during combat. The levels are decently designed with simple movement, but can feel very claustrophobic at times due to enemy fire or just the number of enemies. There are also some switches to occasionally hit that open doors or allow progression so multiple direction changes may be needed to safely hit those. It does look great and mostly functions well when moving around though just frustrating when getting attacked by so many.

The Conclusion

Gryphon Knight Epic is definitely an interesting game being something entirely different from what I've played before though the difficulty can cause some issues for players. It's a good challenge if you're looking for that and a unique game. The levels were mostly interesting with nice graphics and a variety of enemies though sometimes boring to move through. The whole permanent death thing isn't something I was a fan of and checkpoints these days are basically a must, not fun to restart a whole level over. There's a good amount of length to the story across the levels of the many realms you visit with some interesting bosses to battle on your pal the Gryphon.

Gryphon Knight Epic Review on Xbox One
Review Code Provided by Cyber Rhino Studios

Rating Overall: 6.8