Knights of Braveland Review (Nintendo Switch OLED)

by Jim Smale · February 9, 2024

Knights of Braveland Review is a cooperative beat’em up action game with a generated story. You will hack, slash, and smash your way to victory. And with your friends, it is much more fun. Play local or online. Once you sign a contract to catch the villain, you’ll head into an adventure. Each quest is created from hundreds of particular events, melding into a unique story. The Elves will reveal secret paths to you and the ordinary pub owner might very well turn out to be a werewolf.

Knights of Braveland Review Pros:

Decent cartoon-like graphics.
2.6GB download size.
Supports 2 to 4 local players.
Four playable characters.
Each stage has five total difficulties with only two available initially.
The main hub is where you can choose your stage.
Each stage has its world map level select screen.
Changing the difficulty increases the rewards.
You get a melee and ranged attack.
Items can drop and will show green and red text to indicate if it’s good or bad.
Opening tutorial section.
You use up food when moving around the world map.
Multiple choice interactions.
All items found and used in a stage run are taken off you and converted into materials to permanently upgrade your abilities and revive the Lost Guild.
Big boss encounters.
All levels happen on a one-screen basis with enemies coming in from the sides.
You can replay stages.
Has a slight Castle Crashers feel to it.
Breakable objects in the levels.
A wide range of weapons all feeling unique.
Pick one of four cards after they get jumbled up is the system the game uses for actions like buying and selling, getting into a new area etc.
Not all levels are combat, some avoid obstacles and make it to the end.
At times you can opt in to camping to regain health on the world map screen.
Picking up gear changes your appearance.
The controls and gameplay loop are very easy to get into.
Get powders and elixirs to get buffs.
Fast loading times.
You can see your and the enemies’ health bars.
If you die then you get materials from what you had and will tell you how much progress you made.
Hack and slash combat that is ideal for button mashing.
The library in the hub acts like a bestiary for encountered enemies, weapons, and gear found along with bad guy cards.
Running out of provisions means you take damage every time you move on the map.

Knights of Braveland Review Cons:

In-app purchases straight away on the character select screen.
No real game settings.
Scenarios start to repeat themselves early on.
At times it can be hard to tell if you are in line to hit enemies and this also applies to dodging attacks.
The game doesn’t make it clear about its roguelike nature.
A lot of the time you have to be so pre-use in lining up to items in order to get them.
The game is quite tiring as the levels get longer and longer using the same layouts and any death means you have to do it again.