Mid-ieval - Chivalware's Unique Combat and Addictive Grind Still Don't Quite Hit the Spot
I’ve been playing video games for a long time, so it’s hard to find gameplay that is truly novel. Chivalware makes a good shot at it by combining tile matching with real time combat. It’s about as much of a handful as it sounds like.
Chivalware takes place in a Tron-like retro electronic land with medieval theming. You start off as Disk Knight with the goal to reach the castle and defeat the evil King. Each run you have a chance to pick up different weapons, passive and active abilities, and other power-ups to boost stats and help you kill the myriad of enemies you’ll face in grid-based combat.
You will have three weapons equipped, and you have to match the icons for the weapon on the grid in a series of three or more–the more that are matched up, the more ammo/energy you have to use your weapon.
Initially, I hated the gameplay. It wasn’t fun, until eventually I practiced enough to get a better grasp on it. While I don’t think that solo developer Max of Regal Pigeon Games found the next best gameplay combination, it was compelling enough for me to sink countless hours into it, as I stayed up later than I should trying out different weapon and power-up combos.
While a lot of the best run based, rogue-lite (or whatever) games have lots of fun synergy between weapon and pick-ups, that isn’t really the case here. Sure, you can focus on upgrading certain stats to help out your preferred weapon, or taking pick-ups that give bonus to the weapon type you want to use. But having ridiculously overpowered synergy doesn’t seem to be the focus of Chivalware.
There are five total characters, each with their own special quirk and starting weapons. The Tank Knight, for instance, can accumulate armor shards by dealing damage. These armor shards stack and help negate incoming damage. The Jester Knight adds an extra twitch based element by launching a baton in the air that, if caught, grants you the weapon fully charged, along with a damage bonus.
Unlocking different items and characters is pretty straightforward. When you start up Chivalware it asks you to put in your three character initials, just like old arcades. That’s because your meta progress is saved and added to an accumulating high score. The higher your score, the more characters you’ll unlock. I haven’t made it to number 1 yet–because it’s a bit of a grind.
While certain other power-ups and weapons are unlocked by defeating certain bosses or killing enemy types while on a run–among other ways to earn them.
Combat in Chivalware is hectic, and honestly, a mixed bag. I appreciate the idea, but I never truly had as much fun as I was trying to have while playing. Equipping weapons and dodging enemy attacks sometimes becomes a game of moving your character around the relatively small grid area until you have another clear shot at it.
There are enough different enemy types to make encounters interesting, but combat is always the same pattern: 1 or 2 enemies spawn, you kill them, and then another group of 1 or 2 spawns, and then you move to the next encounter.
As you progress through the map you’ll encounter different NPCs that can help you out, shops where you can buy weapons, health and power-ups and other events. You sometimes have a branching binary (appropriately enough) choice on which direction to take.
Even though I appreciated Chivalware’s medieval cyberscape and the addictive grind of its progression system, the whole package ends up being a bit too disjointed. I got the hang of matching tiles to equip weapons while attacking, but it never felt mechanically satisfying. It’s a completely functional game that successfully kept me chasing the leaderboard, but the actual fun just isn't there.
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