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jp's Playmobil: Knights (DS)

[July 5, 2023 06:26:29 AM]

My sense (no data, just a feeling from the game's presentation and timing) is that Playmobil saw what Lego was doing with videogames - more fairly what Traveller's Tales was doing with Lego-branded (parternship?) games (e.g. Lego Star Wars) and said, "whoah, how do we get a piece of that action" and that's where this game came from. I don't know if there are other Playmobil games or not - probably yes (I haven't looked) and I wonder if there are other things as well like TV shows and such.

This game seems in that vein - you play with a Playmobil character, it's set in a Playmobil fantasy world and there are animated CGI cut-scenes like in the Lego games. The gameplay is quite different, obviously! (and, to be fair, worse IMO).

I was playing along, seeing what the game was about - lots of short quests by different characters that move forward a plot that's silly (on purpose, it's trying to be humorous like the Lego games) - it's something about an evil person messing up a kingdom (and now there are no knights left!) and you're a pig farmer of sorts and you're the only one who can help, so off you go.

Most of the gameplay is 2D platforming - simple at that - with some fighting (sword swings). The levels are super short, you can pick up coins along the way and also get hurt. The end of the level is usually the goal of the quest and then you head back to town where you can buy upgrades and such. There are different locations, some are on different islands, and to travel you fly on your dragon (which you must buy!) there are different dragons and they have different stats (can carry more cargo, which you can use to trade between towns to earn more cash) such as attack, hit points, and capacity.

I didn't really engage with the trading (arbitrage, really - buy cheap in one town, sell high in another, limited by how much your dragon can carry) and this might be why the game really has a nightmare challenge in terms of grindiness...

(a) Your weapons degrade every time you swing - so you need money to sharpen them back up. OR, buy a new one if you completely waste one. I did this by mistake and I had to do a few levels to grind out coins to buy another sword. Pff!

(b) Your other upgrades are also "one shot" things - I thought I was improving my permanent armor - but no, it was just like a shield that would take one hit and then disappear!

(c) I decided to try out dragon combat - when flying to a new island you can see other dragons patrolling - I had avoided them until I decided to try combat out! I killed one, but was taken out by another....and I started back at a town - without a dragon! I had to grind to get money to buy a new one!

By this point I'd done enough missions to unlock a new area on the island/overmap...but wasn't particularly enjoying the platforming nor the flying (super slow) and I realized that the grindiness was just a pain...So, I'm done with this one!