Knight Squad 2

Genre: Top-Down Arcade / Party Game

Players: 1-8 Competitive (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Knight Squad 2 is a Top-Down Arcade-style Party Game released on PC, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2020 and ported to PlayStation 4 in 2021. And this game follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, once again having players fighting it out as color-coded knights in an enclosed arena in various game types.

The core of the gameplay here hasn’t changed. It’s still a simple top-down view in one-screen arenas, with a single button for attacks. What’s changed here isn’t the core gameplay, it’s the presentation, and the amount of content – bigger, better, more.

For the presentation, Knight Squad 2 replaces the 2D visuals of the first game with cartoony, fully-3D visuals fully of personality. And not only do these visuals look much better, but they’re far easier to parse and distinguish, improving the gameplay. This is backed by an epic instrumental soundtrack befitting the game’s theme, action, and silly humor very well. And of course, the Mortal Kombat/Unreal Tournament-style announcer makes his return as well.

Once again, the gameplay is pretty simple. You can move around, and you can press a button to attack with your current weapon, and that’s about it. As you move around, you can pick up different weapons or power-ups, and if you get hit, depending on the game mode, you instantly die and respawn a few seconds later at your base.

Despite the generic core gameplay… it still totally works. The frenetic 8-player competition makes for a really hectic struggle to make headway in free-for-all contests, and team-based games do feel like they require some strategy. And the simple gameplay seems like it’s ideal for a party situation where anyone can pick up a controller and figure out how to play quickly enough.

This sequel adds a hefty number of different game modes that really add to the longevity of the game. Just to name a few, painter is a Splatoon-esque game where you’re trying to cover the arena with your color while erasing others’ colors. Race has you literally competing to run a circuit around an arena. Soul Hunter requires you to not only kill enemies, but return back to your base to “bank” them for them to count. Not every game mode is a winner (Soccer, for example, is just terrible), but most are great, and they’re so varied that it really gives players a ton of variety.

I do have a few complaints here, though. Once again, projectile weapons are pretty difficult to aim, and I really wish that this game enabled two-stick controls. And while this game does have online multiplayer (unlike the Nintendo Switch version of the first game), the online lobbies are deserted, meaning that you’ll need to bring your own friends.

However, you really, really should. I enjoyed the first Knight Squad, and this is a faithful sequel that takes everything that was great about the first game and makes it even better. Me and my friends had an absolute blast playing this game, and I highly recommend you consider adding it to your Party Game rotation, because it will definitely be going in mine.

tl;dr – Knight Squad 2 is a Top-Down Arcade-style Party Game where players take the role of knights competing in various game modes in an enclosed arena. This game takes everything that worked in the first game and makes it bigger and better, with improved visuals and a huge amount of new content. Sadly, the online lobbies are deserted, but even so, this is a game you should absolutely consider adding to your Party Game rotation.

Grade: A-

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