“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.” -Dante Alighieri, Inferno     I often hear the phrase “arcade-style” thrown around with wild abandon but I rarely experience the kind of transportive experience that such a phrase seems to hint at.

Typically, a game which borrows elements from arcade games contains things like playing difficult stages in short bursts, simplicity of controls, or emphasizing high scores. The coin-eating style of gameplay which many of us grew up with is perhaps what arcade games were, stylistically, in their purest form. You went to the arcades to play games for a limited amount of time and, for all the chatter of money abuses mixed in with gameplay with loot boxes and microtransactions, things essentially haven’t changed much in regard to games as products being about making money. The coin-op arcade games treated devouring your savings as invitations, though, not barriers to immediate fun. Their brevity made you want to play them even more.

However, there is a deeper truth to the phrasing “arcade-style” that I’d like to get at. A game can hearken back to the arcades in terseness and tension of segmented gameplay, but beyond and beneath that, a few special games can evoke the feeling of actually being in an arcade. Provided you can reasonably and safely excuse the reality of your immediate surroundings, of course.

Knight Terrors is a game which made me feel like I was back in an arcade. It hits every beat, its finger on the vein in which the lifeblood of ye olde arcades flows: Terrors has a fundamentally simple control scheme, it emphasizes attaining a high score, its rounds are played in quick, short succession, it is seemingly endless, its difficulty skyrockets. These descriptions fit the likes of golden age classics like Pac-Man, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Galaga, and Dig Dug, esteemed company in which Knight Terrors confidently stands.

The one area where Knight Terrors deviates from classic arcade games is it doesn’t eat your money. Knight Terrors is available courtesy of Nicalis in the Nintendo Switch eShop for a miniscule $2.99 (also on Steam). Quarters, breathe a sigh of relief.

In a world where you’re paying $60 at least for a new big name video game, plus DLC, subscription costs, and microtransactions, three bucks seems like it’s next to nothing. What is that, like the price of an ATM inconvenience charge these days? For that amount you get essentially a handheld or mobile game experience, the kind that you can pick up and play on the go for a bit while waiting for your colonoscopy, attempt to beat your high score, maybe unlock a few modes or power ups, and then go about your merry business. You’re getting a fairly addicting experience for a comparatively dirt cheap price.

Interested, yet?

Click here for the full review... http://thewellredmage.com/2017/11/10/knight-terrors/