Nintendo Switch – Knights of Pen & Paper #165

Well this was unexpected…

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Knights of Pen and Paper +1 Deluxier Edition – Nintendo Switch – Released: 5/29/18 – $14.99

Short Review (Review copy provided by Plug in Digital)

Dungeon and Dragons was always that weird thing my friends did on the weekends in college. I tried it out once just to find out it wasn’t for me… for those who don’t know what D&D is, it is a role playing game where one player is the Dungeon Master telling a story to a group of other players that play through their story. Knights of Pen and Paper takes that idea and tries to bring it to the console. It works rather well since my biggest issue with D&D was always how long it would take. Stranger Things was pretty serious when it came to them saying it has been 12 hours. Knights of Pen and Paper is one of those long sessions but at least I can pick it up and play at anytime or make the game a bit easier by adding more players. The game is rather simple with you picking between different characters, what their role is, and when leveled up which spells you focus on. Depending on if you want an easy play through a hard playthrough, you will decide how many enemies will appear during each fight. If you choose a smaller amount it may take you a longer time to complete the game while the harder route would be maxing out the enemies and risking death in each fight. This is an interesting game that kept me wanting to play and expand my team. It does get a bit tidiest to buy new items since gold isn’t the easiest thing to come by but I love every minute playing this game. I would give this game a 8 out of 10! I really hope the sequel makes its way to the Switch eventually.

I really like this icon, it is straight forward and you see everything you will be doing:

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Story

You are a group of travelers that wake up in a dungeon to find the door has been cracked open. The other people in the dungeon call you assassins as you try to leave your cell. You fight several guards until you get to the “Default City”, this is where your story is more open ended as you take on quests on your terms. This could be killing off huge monsters or helping out the town’s people.

Gameplay

This is a pretty standard turn based role playing game. You pick an attack when it is your turn as the enemy takes their turns. There doesn’t seem to be an order of who goes first since I would start a battle and it wouldn’t pick the same character every time. You will level up spells that range from passive to attack spells that cause enemies to go to sleep or bleed. Enemies will drop loot that will aid you in your quests or have to be collected to progress the story. Sometimes your missions will have you defeat a certain amount of enemies or travel to a location to kill a huge monster. When you start the game you will only have enough gold to pick two players in your team once you get enough gold you can get more. These characters all have different unique passive like recovering mana each turn or having a higher bonus in health. After picking a player you will pick a role like warrior, mage, rogue, thief, etc and these are have unique spells. Once you start the game you will need to complete missions to progress the story or you can take side quests. Each mission and quest has a level recommendation that you won’t need to be but makes it easier to take out the boss of that quest. If you decide to go under leveled you will need to fight less monsters which will make quests take longer.

Personal Experience

Role playing games have never really pushed for me to spend hours sitting and playing so this was great to run off do a short mission and put it down. The game is great to picking up for a bit and putting it back down. This game is a lot like a beginner’s dungeon and dragons which is great for people who have no idea about that series. It has all the common things like dice rolls, random encounters that you didn’t prepare for, and figuring out what is the best path to take. The easy path that has you grind for days on end or the hard path when you risk your characters lives in hopes of finishing the game faster.

Final Thoughts

This is one people should check out if they are interested in D&D as it is an easy version of that game that doesn’t require you to put as much time in to. It made me want to seek out more information about Dungeon and Dragons to give it another shot to find out that one of my friends play sessions from time to time. While it is a good role playing game it can be a bit frustrating with its grinding if you decide to take your time. The game takes a long time if you want it to but if you decide to speed things up you will get your butt handed back to you. The grind for gold is also a slight pain since gold is required to expand your team. I would give Knights of Pen and Paper a 8 out of 10! It has some slight flaws but flaws that I personally didn’t mind since I like being able to pick and play anytime in short bursts.

My Gameplay Footage:

Uploading this weekend!

Trailer: