What is Forest Knight?

Forest Knight is a mobile tactical turn-based NFT game released by Chrono Games in October 2019. The game revolves around chess-like gameplay, similar to Final Fantasy Tactics where you move your characters once each turn. Battling others on a set stage.

The game began as a non-NFT game but has since started implementing assets like items and its own P2E system with the $KNIGHT token. Forest Knight is also hosted on Polygon, which lets you save some money from those pesky gas fees.

Game Highlights:

1. 2 Ways of Earning: You can earn by either selling the in-game items as NFT or selling your $KNIGHT tokens.

2. Simple with Depth: The game is quite simple on the surface but has more complexity as you play through the game.

3. Hassle-free Start: You could start immediately by logging in as a guest and registering it as an account later.

First Impressions:

Forest Knight is listed as Early Access still to this day on Google Play which confused me. It was supposed to be released in 2019, and it's almost been 3 years; this was a bit of a red flag to me. The game starts with a questionable unskippable cutscene. It was panning to different panels of a comic in a way that makes it confusing.. After that, I got to the tutorial and obtained my first free character “Forest Knight '' then began learning the basics of the game.

The characters are basically chess pieces; moving a set number of tiles and attacking only when close to the enemy. It also tells me that my character has an ability that charges up every turn and goes on cooldown after use. I did find a bug where I could just spam it on the same turn without it recharging, which was fun but a clear major issue.

It then shows what the town looks like and how each building works, but most of it is locked until you level up. There’s also resources, like Meat (or Food), a form of an energy system that recharges over time. Each time you battle on PVP or PVE mode, you consume 5 of it. I was also given another free character named Paladin at the end of this part of the tutorial.

Gameplay:

Now let’s talk about gameplay. The game has a PVE mode called Adventure; it’s the main way to level up your characters and get resources in the early game. Similar to Axie Infinity’s Adventure system, where you earn stars for each stage you beat and how many you get depends on the amount of characters still alive after clearing it. Stars you get are then accumulated, and getting enough of them grants you a chest. Clearing these stages gives the player XP (not the characters) and other resources you will need to progress throughout the game.

You could also play the PVP mode, Arena. This is also similar to Axie in a way that you gain trophies, climb up on the leaderboard and earn $KNIGHT tokens as you play. These also give out Arena chests which you can open to get a chance to open gear that could be sold as an NFT. The food system also applies to the Arena, providing a limit on how much you can earn daily.

Earning:

I think it’s quite nice that you can both get NFTs and tokens at the same time. I think its systems are quite similar to, again, Axie Infinity. You can earn tokens and rank up on the leaderboard while also being able to sell NFTs you get from those chests in OpenSea. Forest Knight is working on a marketplace of their own, but as of this review, that is not available. The game is also built up on Polygon, which lets you transact easily with less gas fees. This could potentially be a good game P2E-wise.

Design:

The game design is quite something, not in a good way. Apparently, the game design was inspired by the TV shows and the Game "Yu-gi-oh!" The anime-style art and character personalities. “Anime is a worldwide phenomenon and an important part of Gen Z and millennial culture." quoted from their white paper, but I barely see any semblance from the game Yu-gi-oh! or even anime in general.

Here’s a picture for comparison:

You could make a point of saying that the small character design could be considered as a Chibi (an anime design trope referring to a small character), but other than that, It just seems like it's a really generic fantasy RPG design.

Besides that, the game is straightforward, whether in a good or bad way. I could understand everything easily, but the way it was designed makes it feel like there was no effort put into it. Not to mention the Early Access point I’ve made earlier; it makes it feel like there’s no passion put into the game design and that they just focused on the economy of the game.

Final Thoughts:

I think the game is good for those who want something similar to games like Axie, where you play daily and earn. The game has its ups and downs; highlighting the fact that it’s still Early Access almost 3 years after release was really off-putting for me. Although the economy seems pretty well polished, you can see where the devs put their effort. I would definitely try this again if they put more effort into game design, but as of now, I have mixed feelings about it. The game is free, so it’s worth a try if you’re interested in the tactical turn-based genre.