Namco Bandia releases Knights Arena on iOS – a freemium RPG-ish online-battle game…
Knights Arena is a free game in which you are tasked with becoming the greatest knight in the land, by completing tasks, earning powerful rewards and upgrading weapons and armor, all the while battling other characters (both computer AI and real people online) in duels.
There's a big social element in Knights Arena, with support for Game Center leaderboards and achievements, as well as Facebook and Twitter integration. You can add your Game Center and Facebook friends, track their progress and challenge them to duels.
We've been putting the game through its paces today, and while we havn't been able to participate in any online duels (the game wasn't public when we tried it), we did try out the various challenges – including archery, swordplay, and horse jumping – as well as fighting a few computer AI duels. Participating in both types of event allows you to earn coins to upgrade your characters stats and equipment, which will in turn improve your chances on your quest to becoming the best.
This being a freemium game, everything can be bought with real cash – which means not everyone you duel online will have earned their gear through skill alone. However, at least you can't equip all items until you reach a certain level.
It's a little disappointing that all fighting is done form horse back, I'd like to have seen some on-foot battles. These duels essentially play out as on-rails shooting mini-games, with controls handled by tilt (default) or virtual stick. You ride alongside the enemy and must reduce their health meter with each shot, while passing obstacles. Health, coins can be shot at and collected too, including power ups to aid or hinder you – the flour bag is a good one, which covers the enemy in a cloud of flour making it hard for them to target you. Apart from the odd gesture based action which perform fine, I found the controls to be a little awkward. Trying to shoot arrows at the enemy on horse back using either control option feels clumsy and unresponsive – and I think some tweeks are needed in an update to make this play better.
However, if you can get the controls to work for you, then this could be a fun game, particularly if you can get friends to battle you. With it being free, you'll certainly have nothing to lose to try it out.
You can the Knights Arena app is available for FREE from the AppStore on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
