Developer: ILINX, Inc.
Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment
Platform: PS4, PC
Tested on: PS4
Black Clover: Quartet Knights – Review
Black Clover: Quartet Knights might sound like the old ladies from the local retirement home have started a gang that revolves around playing underground card games, but it’s actually Bandai Namco’s latest IP for the PlayStation 4 and PC. You’ll be thrown into a brawler, where some objectives may remind you of other titles such as Overwatch, but with some original classes and support types. We were intrigued by the flashy trailers, but we were underwhelmed by the actual execution of the gameplay portions of this title.
Story
Black Clover: Quartet Knights revolves around Astra, a young boy who made his way into the ranks of a knightly order of magicians. While he lacks the power to practice magic himself, he still made his way into the organization because of his skill and bravery. While these knights are tasked to protect the lands, a grave danger appears in the form of a ‘spirit’ who wants to exact her revenge against the nobles of the country. She is the daughter of a murdered nobleman who was killed by those he was supposed to be able to trust. At the same time, Astra’s captain, Yami, presumably gets hit by a magic trap, turning him into a young teenager again, making it harder to rely on the otherwise rarely matched powers of Yami now that he’s in his ‘lesser’ form. The story is a bit on the confusing side, and it still goes on after this arc, but it serves as an ok plot to motivate you somewhat to progress.
The story is both presented in a decent fashion, as well as in a low quality way. You’ll get anime sequences, which are perhaps a bit unpolished, but look spiffy enough to draw you in, only to alternate with still images for many of the game’s dialogues which simply feel lacking in quality. Nonetheless, even though the first few missions you have no clue what is going on, the game does have a typical ‘anime’ vibe with the ‘watch-now-explain-later’ approach.
Graphics
Black Clover: Quartet Knights doesn’t truly live up to the expectations the early trailers led on. You’ll be treated to a somewhat cleaned up PlayStation 3 title, with a lot of empty environments. The characters all look fairly decent, simply because of the somewhat cel-shaded style of said character models. The environments lack details, feel empty and are somewhat bland compared to the characters.
The anime sequences that sometimes trigger story portions of the game look fairly decent, but also lack the qualities of an anime series that is published by a big publisher. Nonetheless, these are somewhat grand compared to the dialogue screens which pale in comparison to most other things in the game. The dialogue intermezzos lack details, are a bit bland in terms of coloring and simply are void of proper character emotions during their voiced lines. Many of the characters will stick to one pose for the duration of a dialogue, even when they change emotions. Sometimes the game does alternate between different pictures of character expressions, but they lack a bit of liveliness.
Sound
Even though the graphical prowess of the game was somewhat of a letdown, the sound design of this title is actually quite on point. The music is fairly cinematic, and suits the battles at hand, while every dialogue is also fully voiced, which is certainly a sign of quality in our books. In the story mode there are plenty of dialogues, all voiced in Japanese, and the voice actors all provide fairly convincing roles.
Gameplay
Black Clover: Quartet Knights is a third person brawler, that has a certain multiplayer focus, but also has a story mode you can explore and dive into for several hours. In the story mode it’s often about defeating specific enemies, while the multiplayer mode is more about objectives that are reminiscent of games such as Overwatch. From start to finish, you’ll be duking it out in a third person view, be it with special objectives or not.
While in the story mode, you’ll often have to kill minions or some key characters, the objective based missions can involve capturing a zone with a crystal in it, and then escort it to the other player’s base. This is pretty similar to the payload mode in Overwatch. In other missions you might have to keep control over a zone, and defend it by all means. If the other team enters the zone, it will be contested and if only they remain, you will lose control over it. Overall it’s clear that the game tries to motivate you to eventually try the multiplayer (online) mode, which is actually quite fun and hectic, if it wasn’t for the game’s many flaws in its combat system.
The combat in BC:QK is somewhat reminiscent of a hack and slash game, albeit with some ranged characters, some support characters and so on. It’s clear that the game has a certain multiplayer focus, as you have different character classes, you have different skill sets which can be altered by equipping ‘decks’, which grant you power-ups. All of this sounds quite decent, if it wasn’t totally raped by the clumsy camera controls, the lack of a locking mechanism, the fact that AI opponents always aim for you, even if you have several AI allies and last but not least, everything feels unfinished as if the developers gave up after the barebones were developed.
Conclusion
Black Clover: Quartet Knights is by no means a terrible game, but it isn’t a good game either, it’s stuck in the realm of mediocrity, which already has enough titles in it to choose from. The game exists, but it serves no real purpose, safe for some relaxation in terms of story and the anime sequences, as the gameplay is extremely basic, a bit on the bland side and absolutely unpolished or even finished for that matter. This is one of those games that could have been good, great even, if it was stuck back in the oven for another several months allowing the developers to work out the kinks and implement some extra features that would have heightened the in-game combat and the otherwise clunky mechanics.
Black Clover: Quartet Knights - Review,
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