Spiral Knights

It's amazing how video games, and technology in general, have changed in 20 years. In 1992 if I wanted to play Street Fighter II with my friends, they would have to come to my house, or I to theirs. And of course I would have had to pay $40 for the cartridge. Flash forward two decades, and I can play a free game online with someone 6,000 miles away, each of us on a different operating system. The game in question is Spiral Knights, a free-to-play, Java-based game available on Steam for PC and Mac. Like all MMORPGs, Spiral Knights is better played with others, and best played with friends...

Evan (Faithhammer): Well, I somehow convinced you to play another co-op game, probably against your better judgment. But it was a good experience. And it was a first for both of us: my first free-to-play game, and your first massively multiplayer role-playing game. Spiral Knights is a charming, likable, and user-friendly game, but for me the novelty wore off quickly. What were your impressions?

Beth (Shmoopette): Spiral Knights was a great way to get my feet wet with a massive multiplayer role-playing game. I could be wrong but my impression is that it doesn't have all the complexity or depth of some of the other games in its category. That being said, I found the missions, items, and rewards structure easy to understand, and personally enjoyed the point and click nature of the weaponry. I particularly think that the free-to-play aspect is brilliant because while we didn't purchase anything, I can see how easy it is at every turn to put down a couple of dollars to enhance gameplay. It's different than any game I've ever played before, but I like the customizable aspect of it.

Energy units, seen in the bottom right, deplete as knights descend into the clockworks.

Evan: I agree the free-to-play business model is intriguing, although I concur with Jack Tretton who recently said the model isn't sustainable. It's basically free to play, pay to win. Spiral Knights is no different. In a 24 hour span, each knight has 100 energy units with which to do as he pleases. Once those units are exhausted, he needs to purchase more energy with real dollars or call it quits for the day. You and I smartly called it quits once we ran out of energy, but surely not everyone does. That's why Spiral Knights is ideal for short bouts, not for extended play.

Beth: I agree wholeheartedly that this game isn't really great for extended play. That being said, part of the reason I feel that way is the lack of an overall story arc, or goal that needs to be achieved. Even individual missions, while enjoyable, do not have a particularly powerful or moving goal and I often felt like I was just trying to fight my way through a series of enemies to finish a mission without a real goal or something I could feel passionate about. The same could be said for the entire game. Having never played any other MMORPGs, I'm curious if that is a flaw with the genre overall? Certainly it doesn't have the same heart and soul of other games I've played.

Knights are equipped with melee and projectile weapons. Unlike most RPGs, players do not evolve; only weapons and armor do.

Evan: I wouldn't call it a flaw. Massively multiplayer games are more open-ended by design. They don't operate within the same story structure as traditional games, in large part because the thousands of people playing them all need to feel as though they play an important part in the action. That's not to say Spiral Knights has no story. A group of interstellar soldiers crash land on an alien planet called Cradle, and are forced to explore its mechanized core for an energy source to power their escape. Not a bad premise, right? The bigger problem is the level design; it often felt like we were replaying the same five or six levels. Even the "prestige" missions, unrelated to the central plotline, are often recycled.

Beth: One thing I particularly appreciate about Spiral Knights is the ease of learning, as you go along in the game. As you play missions, you are introduced to different aspects of the story as well as instructions for future gameplay. It's a nice way to ease into the game and to have the depth of it revealed as you go along and master certain elements. For example, while you can explore most of the home base named Haven from the beginning of the game, you don't understand how to use or interact with most of it until the game is certain you've mastered the basics. I really like that element of it, and I think it makes the game accessible to all kinds of players.

The town square in Haven, complete with auction house.

Evan: Definitely. There's not doubt Spiral Knights is accessible. It's mechanically accessible because of tutorials and the gradual learning curve you mentioned. And it's financially accessible because it costs nothing to play, at least not at first. For those reasons I think Spiral Knights is an ideal game for families or younger players who don't want to get bogged down in the minutiae of bigger games like World of Warcraft.

Beth: Along those same lines, I particularly liked the graphics in Spiral Knights. While not particularly sophisticated, I think the graphics in the game present a fun, not-to-serious setting for the missions. Though enemies are hard to defeat, they are borderline cute. The same is true for avatars, who are relatively small and simple and lacking the more mature features that you might find in avatars from other MMORPGs. The result is endearing and gives the game a light-hearted atmosphere that I for one really appreciated.

Good teamwork is essential to survive in the Clockworks.

Evan: I think we've covered all our bases here. Only one thing left to do. It's time to score Spiral Knights. Although there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the game, I can't give it great, or even good, marks. There just isn't enough substance to keep me coming back for more. For that reason I give Spiral Knights a 6.0. I will say this however: Spiral Knights is a completely inoffensive and family-friendly game. If you're looking for a community-based RPG with less baggage, you should give it a try, and decide if it's worth your time or not. It's free to play, after all.

Beth: Maybe it's just because I'm still a newcomer to video games in general and therefore got a little bit more out of it, but I'm going to be a bit more generous and go with a 7.0. I found Spiral Knights to be enjoyable, and I appreciated the way it helped ease me into this genre. I think if I had to pay for the game I might also have given it a 6.0, but since it's free to play, that pushes it over the edge for me to a game that I could definitely recommend, and might even go back to again at some point.