Bedtime Story
A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV (2016): 8 out of 10: A short free side scrolling pixel art game based on Final fantasy game I have yet to play? How the hell did this score so high?
Well, a couple of things. It is a good difficulty at normal. It doesn’t overstay its welcome. The pixel art is gorgeous and should be require viewing from about ninety percent of developers who use pixel art in their games. Plus, it has a giant octopus and Cactuars… How can one not love a game with Cactuars.
A King’s Tale uses a rock scissors paper approach to things as you have three major attacks (light, heavy, and shield bash). Each enemy type is particularly vulnerable to one attack and often immune to the others. You also get some magic and some neat summons as well as an overcharge meter. To A King’s Tale’s the games credit, the controls are such that one can use all these tools without too much thought, allowing the focus to be on the action on screen.
I often find the difficulty curve in beat-em-ups to be punishing aping the original eighties arcades. But I have a soft spot for a decent beat em up and while I prefer non-pixel art, I recognize when it is well done as it is here. I cannot imagine a better iteration of this game.
Video Capture and Screen Shots
While the PS5 does nothing to make A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV look better, its video and screenshot capture software are really on point.
