Funded in just seven hours on Kickstarter, it’s clear that there was a lot of interest and high hopes for GGS Studio’ creation. And rightly so.
Sometimes referred to as T.C.K, The Cursed Knight is set in the year 3122 - long after the fall of civilisation – and casts the player as Kalder, a knight who is in love with his king’s daughter and must set out to rescue her when she is kidnapped by nefarious forces just as the king bestows his blessing on their relationship.
Set across six expansive, linear stages, The Cursed Knight is an impressive title that gives you a lot of options from the get go, and throws in some well-observed curve balls in the gameplay department to keep things fresh. Offering you three modes of play – Normal, which gives you infinite lives to work through at your own pace, Old School – which grants you three lives and two continues, and finally, Insane – which is primarily designed for speedrunners and masochists, giving you only a single life to get through the entire game. The Cursed Knight game continuation works on a password system, and has a tutorial built in to the introduction sequence so that you can get to grips with the controls - which reminded me of Neofid Studios’ recent Mega Drive title Demons of Asteborg in how they are deceptively simple, but used to great effect through clever level design.
As mentioned above, there are different facets to the gameplay. The initial level sees you flying out of the king’s tower in pursuit of the thief of your beloved in a mellow-ish ‘shmup’ style. A slow-paced stage, it lets you settle in to The Cursed Knight’s aesthetics and gameplay whilst still being quietly impressive in how it wrangles some visual gold from Sega’s behemoth. The addictive (and very well looped) soundtrack – courtesy of level designer Christian Gaudin, clearly a talented individual - is driving and keeps you involved as your aerial knight glides across the skies, skies that boast pseudo-3D buildings, classic parallax-scrolling and enemies flying into play from the distant background, small touches that add an extra dimension to the game world. You can charge up your shots for a powerful attack and also switch between standard and homing variations at the press of a button, which are slower and less powerful – but awesome. This adds a really nice element of variety to how you approach certain stage sections and specific enemy encounters.
Following this stage – and subsequent screen-filling boss, good – you’ll find yourself unlocking the ability to flip gravity in a much more traditional platform-based, underground sequence. This is really where the hand-holding ends and you are left to fend for yourself through the rest of the game - as deft fingerwork and quick reflexes become key to progression. The game never feels unfair, though – and this is due to the aforementioned accessibility setup, which also offers separate control systems for three / six-button controller configurations – the challenge is plentiful but fun, the bosses are always a highlight, and the mixing up of genres keeps things feeling fresh, whether it’s platforming action, blasting enemies from the skies or even a sneaky 3D racing stage later in the game. There are also elements of powering up in how you can beef up your health, weapon power and charge-shot. It’s also worth noting that the game locks occasional flourishes of adult language behind a password system, and so is suitable for all.
Whilst the game is soon to be available both physically on the Sega Mega Drive as well as digitally, the physical release itself is the version that I received and is very well presented, with a choice of reversible covers for a more PAL or Japanese vibe, and a glossy instruction booklet written in both French and English. This lays out the features of the game, the stages and The Cursed Knight’s approach to ‘scoring’ (there are no points, your score is how many deaths you incur, and how long you take to complete the game). I again reiterate how accessible this is, catering for all skill levels as well as those that wish to stream intense speed runs.
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