The King's Bird game Review: A Rocky Flight
The King's Bird - A platform that gives wings?In order to stand out in a platform market saturated with original proposals, The King's Bird plays the momentum card, or rather maintains momentum as your character soars through the air with grace between two platform sequences where your sense of timing will be put to the test. Elegant in its proposal, the title of Serenity Forge however encloses its concept behind the bars of a level design too stuffy to allow the player to take off.
FLY MY DAUGHTER.
The King's Bird - A platform that gives wings?Minimalist, the history of the game tells us a quest for freedom, that of a young girl dreaming of adventure beyond the closed borders of her world. Confined in a space closed by an overly protective father, our leaping heroine manages however to acquire a part of the power which chains it in order to give free rein to his adventurous adventures. Then offers us the basis of the gameplay of this King's Bird, an aerial platform based on the grace of movement. After a too succinct tutorial during which the basics of free running are instilled in us, we unlock the main skill of the game: gliding. In a graceful aerial ballet supported by a pretty soundtrack, our aerial heroine leaps from platforms in vertical pillars in an assembly of levels with increasing difficulty which is intended above all for lovers of speed, perfect performance and to a lesser extent , for lovers of an elegant graphic atmosphere.
The King's Bird - A platform that gives wings?
The narrative aspirations of the departure quickly give way to a more classic construction based on a series of challenges to be completed in order to progress within the five regions of the game. And if each new zone displays a specific color palette, nothing changes frankly on the side of playability and renewal of situations. The player performs a series of challenges aimed at harvesting light orb in devious levels where his ability to jump, dasher, hover and perform wall jumps will be put to the test. The rhythm of the whole resides in the conservation of energy between jumps due to a limited duration of the gliding capacity. The size of the scarf worn by the girl reduces as she spins in the air, a visual indicator that is reminiscent of that of a certain Journey.The King's Bird - A platform that gives wings?
Each touched surface resets your movement skills to create a series of precise sequences, graceful jumps and momentum to be reused in order to reach the next level. However, the call for freedom of the first levels of the game quickly gives way to a much more narrow level design where the rare moments with the sweet scent of Sonic on steroids occur only at the cost of long sequences die and retry between two toxic pools and other deadly thorny surfaces. Things work out somewhat in some more open levels where the true nature of momentum-based gameplay can finally be expressed to its full potential. This constant fear of embracing his initial vocation ends up rubbing off on the behavior of the player who quickly learns to be wary of speed when he should, logically, seek it at all costs.LIKE A BIRD IN A CAGE
The King's Bird - A platform that gives wings?How do you recognize a good platformer? In the precision of the controls will respond to fans of performance and speed run. Titles like Super Meat Boy, Ori and the Blind Forest or the recent Celeste demonstrate the importance of the thing: without precision, the platform is nothing. Lack of luck, The King's Bird lacks an iota of this famous precision to pretend to play in the same course as the titles cited above. Between too often capricious physics and slippery receptions, difficult to progress with thanks to the middle of a level design where everything or almost wishes our death. High speed and imprecision rarely go hand in hand in a hardcore platformer.
Fortunately, checkpoints are placed almost everywhere in levels with increasing difficulty, but with almost non-existent reinvention over the course of the game. The gameplay mechanics, like the overall design of the environments remain frozen from start to finish the other of the adventure. Prepare to die many times at the slightest mistake and to start over and over again. The presence of an assisted mode that can be personalized as desired reduces this pitfall by allowing you to play on different parameters such as the speed of the game, the number of checkpoints, the air resistance and many other factors essential to the level of difficulty of the title.
The King's Bird - A platform that gives wings The King's Bird - A platform that gives wings
Between two attempts at environmental storytelling on the Journey (via frescoes on the wall, or different emotional sequences against a background of melancholic music), we will be lulled by an effective soundtrack where the tones change dynamically according to our actions.
The notes
+ Positive points
A good movement system based on the physics of momentum
Elegant minimalist environments
Dynamic soundtrack
Highly customizable assisted mode
-Negative points
The controls lack precision.
Little varied environments and challenges
A level-design that limits the possibilities of the game
Narrative aspect quickly forgotten
The King's Bird is like a bird in search of freedom whose wings would have been sealed by a frustrating level design and a gameplay lacking in precision. The first moments of grace passed, it turns into a too narrow platform game, both in its surroundings and in its ability to renew itself over time. Too bad, because the gliding mechanics based on momentum sometimes lets glimpse the real potential of a title that we feel much too constrained by its imperative of difficulty.
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