Review for The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia. Game for PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 09/02/2018
The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia is the new title Bandai Namco developed by NatsumeAtari and dedicated to the manga of the same name Nakaba suzuki and which tells of Elizabeth, the third princess of the reign of Lionesse, escaping from the castle to escape the coup put in place by the Holy Knights of the kingdom.
In an attempt to save her father and her kingdom, the young princess sets out to seek the order of the most fearsome and cruel knights: seven traitors called Deadly Sins.
As with any successful brand, it was only a matter of time before The Seven Deadly Sins also made its way into the video game market with its own fighting game. The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia presents itself as the classic action-adventure game with three-dimensional combat, proving to be not too far removed from the gameplay of similar titles like Dragonball Xenoverse. This lack of originality could suggest a defect, but this is not the case: sometimes going in search of banality and cliché - perhaps putting a drop of fanservice in it - is not the wrong idea. In fact, the whole game is not based on particular mechanics or on an undisputed quality of combos or other elements, but is based mostly on the characters. Being able to control the heroes of the comic is a matter of course, since that's what we're talking about, but the thing that most attracted us to the game is how these characters have been rendered in terms of quality.
Fighting for your kingdom… having fun.
Although weak in the variety of combos, the battle system works great, having fun and creating pretty good clashes even on a visual level. The poor interface between the commands is what worries the most: while in similar games it is possible to mix the types of attacks between them by creating different move-sets (as in the aforementioned Xenoverse) in this case it is not really feasible and the thing is definitely limiting. The too much simplicity of the actions undermines that sense of spectacularity that the visual effects of the attacks and the particles give. Fortunately, the spells and special techniques in particular are very varied and show themselves in their beauty with captivating choreographies and very pleasant graphic effects.
Each character has an optimization emphasized on reproducing with almost maniacal fidelity the potential he expressed in the comic: the few strong and apparently unbeatable characters will be equipped with more lethal blows while the less strong ones will still be able to combine something within the limits of their capabilities. This helps a lot the role-playing component of the game, which allows us to relive the main situations of the comic by “piloting” the story: the game strategies are based a lot on this feature. Knowing the characters, we will know immediately how to make them fight and therefore also their limits. Fairies and wizards will not have great physical abilities and will base all their offense on magic which, if exhausted, will leave the characters defenseless.
To give an example of all, just think that Ban, who has various enhancement abilities, will be an easy victim once the power up time runs out, exactly as narrated in the original comic. A loyalty that we appreciated and allowed us to enjoy the game much more. Also to be considered is the fact that, in a playful way, it will also be possible to use Hawk the pig, which all in all presents quite particular and sometimes devastating moves.
The number of characters available is large enough, although better could have been done, aligning more with the comic. With 25 characters in the whole game, it provides us with almost all the protagonists, excluding some in a rather questionable way. Fortunately, the lack is balanced by the balance of the protagonists, who thanks to their skills alone fill the void left by the holes in the plot.
A forced and unconvincing narrative.
The main story is clearly cut off and for this reason The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia is not suitable for those who have never approached the manga or anime. The narrative vein is indeed distorted, glossing over several details such as the appearance of Jericho, a very important character especially for the Ban story. These upheavals are caused by the poor alchemy between main and secondary missions, especially as regards the timing: for example, it will be possible to unlock missions for Elaine and other characters only once you have gone a long way with the main storyline and not in parallel with the course of the events as happens in the comic, which creates a rather annoying narrative hole. And it is precisely because of the uncertain progress of the plot that The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia falls, losing a lot of its appeal especially in the final: here for plot reasons, after a boss that we would not even define as difficult but only annoying, there is another boss fight that ends the game abruptly and that is not even present in the original story, seeming put there just to include one more character, or Zeldris.
The secondary missions, in any case, are several and vary quite often in content, so as not to be excessively repetitive. The worst developed mission is the one where we can finally take control of Elizabeth, simply collecting objects scattered around the map while avoiding the enemy soldiers. The problem lies in the fact that the entire game space is made up of five large areas referring to the cardinal points of the kingdom and its capital. The size of this map, which can only be explored on the back of the Boar Hat, makes the search for new secondary missions to be faced, not signaled in any other way, annoying and long. However, completing these missions is essential, since as mentioned above they help to fill as much as possible the holes in the plot and, above all, allow us to obtain items that can enhance our knights.
The upgrade system consists of a map containing features to unlock, such as the spherography in Final Fantasy X. To unlock these upgrades (which include attack power ups, defense and other secondary aspects) it is therefore necessary to take part in secondary events, which will allow us to complete the story more easily. As a system it is quite simple to understand and easy to complete, allowing you to freely assign upgrades to the whole team.
A double-edged sword.
Moving on to the purely technical side, the gaming arenas are another key point of The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia. While we appreciate their fidelity and the sheer amount of detail within them, we're sorry to say that beauty obscures efficiency. Some of these maps turn out to be too small to host clashes between different classes and, as if that weren't enough, they are filled with obstacles. These (which can include rocks, rises, and so on) make the game more fascinating and realistic but are detrimental to wizards and those who fight from a distance: when the magic bar is exhausted, those classes remain helpless in front of a more powerful enemy on the physical side and this makes the meeting unfair. A similar criticism is the one made against the automatic pointer which, beyond all logic, does not target the nearest enemy, but a randomly much more distant one, rendering the player helpless against the opponents behind him.
This last fasid thing happens above all in the clashes against many enemies, similar to the exploration mode of the old Naruto Ultimate Ninja on PlayStation 2: in those cases the game shows all its weaknesses, also suffering frame rate drops due to the amount of enemies, the number of animated and non-animated obstacles on the map and the continuous graphic effects of the various characters' moves.
Removing the problems related to the frame rate and obstacles in some arenas, it must be admitted that the playing areas are particularly pleasant also on a graphic level, with an enchanting and sometimes realistic coloring.: the artistic side is certainly appreciable and suggestive, worthy of the original work. Finally, a Japanese fighting game that exploits the graphic potential of the PS4. The music, although not memorable, is pleasant and fits very well with the setting and situations, unfortunately without putting a band-aid on the wound left open by the poor narrative quality of the game.
For the level of challenge, we are pleased to see that the game is not doing badly: worried by the lack of the possibility to choose the level of difficulty, we were proven wrong by the excellent work done in balancing each character so that each player can use at best any knight, even Hawk. With a bit of forethought, knowing the characters and the various battles related to them within the manga, it is possible to face many otherwise difficult challenges with serenity. With mostly balanced bonuses and penalties (except for Merlin, she's just too strong, Ed) PVP battles are based solely on the skill of the player and not just on the quality of the chosen character.
The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia is not a game for strangers to the original work, although it has a functional and entertaining battle system like few others. Too many defects prevent him from taking flight, especially those concerning the plot, far from the narrative abilities of a Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm. Too bad for the wasted opportunity.
► The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia is an Action-Adventure type game developed by Natsume Atari and published by Bandai Namco for PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 09/02/2018
