The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia Review (PS4)
Before playing The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia, I thought I would brush up on my knowledge of the series by watching the anime. It’s gratuitous use of constant groping is off-putting, but other than that it’s an entertaining anime with some spectacular animation.
Knights of Britannia struggles to capture the sense of adventure that the anime has, and quickly breezes through the story with very little development or way to learn about the characters. It’s a game made strictly for fans of the anime, and it’s a bit of a mixed bag overall. Let’s start with what The Seven Deadly Sins is all about, because the game doesn’t do a very good job of introducing you to its world and characters.
Knights of Britannia struggles to capture the sense of adventure that the anime has.
The Seven Deadly Sins is a name that the region of Britannia knows well, and that’s because they were accused for planning to overthrow the Kingdom of Liones. As expected, the group consists of seven people and they each have incredible power and skill. They went into hiding, or were captured, by the Holy Knights and were deemed as villains, and so they made no attempt to re-appear as a group.
When Princess Elizabeth manages to come across the Sin of Wrath, Meliodas, and informs him of her plan to retake the Kingdom of Liones by bringing the Seven Deadly Sins back together, he journeys with her to see his old friends again. The Holy Knights have captured Elizabeth’s father, and the Seven Deadly Sins won’t let them get away with yet another treasonous act.
A few sentences serve only to give you a reason to join the next battle, and Natsume Atari’s handling of the narrative is disappointing – and all too reminiscent of their handling of the abysmal Godzilla PS4 game.
The game opts to deliver only the bare bones of the story, leaving those who haven’t watched the anime or read the manga to fill in the abundance of blanks alone. A few sentences serve only to give you a reason to join the next battle, and Natsume Atari’s handling of the narrative is disappointing – and all too reminiscent of their handling of the abysmal Godzilla PS4 game.
It’s a good thing I opted to check out the anime first, because a lot of the game would’ve been lost on me if I hadn’t, and I’m not sure I’d have been so willing to check it out afterwards.
It’s wholly uninspired, and the series deserves better.
Knights of Britannia is One Piece: Burning Blood meets Dynasty Warriors. Split between action-based adventure missions, and solo and team battles against notable characters, Knights of Britannia is unsteadily in both the hack and slash and fighting genres.
Both feel flat due to their simplicity, but we’ll cover the non-fight missions first. In these, you’re limited to a tiny arena where you’ll beat the constantly respawning enemies. Sometimes they respawn a bit too far away or just too slowly, so it really affects the pace of what should be a fast-based title and quickly becomes a frustrating experience.
It’s rough and, dare I say it, ugly.
The combat itself doesn’t feel entirely responsive, and it’s shallow. I had a lot of fun with One Piece: Burning Blood, but that felt much tighter and was much nicer to look at. Knights of Britannia is a brain-dead button masher and its pacing means that it isn’t rewarding, and the actual fights are mostly just mashing the same techniques that you were performing in the adventure-based missions. It’s wholly uninspired, and the series deserves better.
As I touched on briefly in the last paragraph, Knights of Britannia isn’t a pretty game. Anime-inspired games are generally noted for how gorgeous they are, and how it’s almost as if the anime has been transported into a game, but Knights of Britannia lacks the good looks that its sibling shares. It’s rough and, dare I say it, ugly.
The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia fails to shine not only against the other anime games on the market, but on its own merits.
Character models are stiff, and there’s an unpolished feel to the visuals – to the whole game, really – that’s disappointing. I don’t think that The Seven Deadly Sins has particularly memorable character designs in the first place, but they’re still done a disservice here. There’s only the Japanese voice-over, which is great, but it’s under-utilised and the music doesn’t leave an impact.
Knights of Britannia fails to shine not only against the other anime games on the market, but also on its own merits. The passion and attention to detail I expected isn’t present, and it rushes to get you to the end of the story. There are side-quests, but they mostly just mimic the main quests and see you fight waves of enemies. The Elizabeth missions are a cool idea, but running around defenceless (other than Hawk, who isn’t all that reliable as a gameplay mechanic) as you collect various items gets boring quickly.
It’s impossible to shake off the feeling that this game was solely phoned in to capitalise on the anime and manga’s success.
If you’re a die hard fan of the anime then you may be able to forgive the game’s many flaws, but if you’re a casual fan then you’d be best off waiting for the price to drop. Repetitive gameplay, substandard animation and close to non-existent narrative and dialogue are a few of the reasons that The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia fails to impress, but the most disappointing aspect is that it’s impossible to shake off the feeling that this game was solely phoned in to capitalise on the anime and manga’s success.
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