Developed by Ancient
Released for XBLIG (5/2010)
Protect Me Knight (also known as まもって騎士 Mamotte Naito) was a true hidden gem in the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace. It was listed in the store by it's Japanese title only and due to this was extremely hard to find in the massive library of games available, even if you knew what you were looking for. The game was developed by Ancient, a company founded by veteran music composer Yuzo Koshiro and co-founded by Tomo Koshiro, Yuzo's mother. Yuzo Koshiro is well known to retro gaming enthusiasts, as he composed music for classics like the Streets of Rage series, ActRaiser and Shenmue just to name a few. While Ancient was conceived way back in 1990, they typically just worked on soundtracks for various developers and as far as I can tell Protect Me Knight was the first game I've been able to find released under the company's name.
Right off the bat the game lets you know this is going to be a throwback to the days of gaming past. Upon booting the game up you'll be greeted to a first-person view in front of a television screen, blowing on the cartridge trying to get it start but it keeps loading up a pixelated mess. You'll pop the cartridge back out and press the A button to blow on it and re-insert it, only to be greeted with the same mess of pixels. Anybody who used to game on the old Nintendo Entertainment System will definitely remember these days, and already right from the get-go Protect Me Knight gives you a nice feeling of nostalgia. You can press the start button to skip past this screen at any time and as far as I've been able to tell no matter how many times you blow on the cart it never loads up properly.
Once you press start you'll be greeted to a title screen composed of nice bright pixels and some appropriate chip-tune music. The graphics have a much higher pixel count than the old 8-bit classics, but they still feel like something that came from that era of gaming. The sound is also very true to it's 8-bit roots as well and the presentation on the whole has a very authentic feel to it. If you leave the game idle at the title the game will display profiles for each of the characters, complete with poorly translated "Engrish" to even further cement the retro feeling (these can be viewed here).
Protect Me Knight shares elements of a tower defense and hack 'n slash game. Although there are no actual towers here, you'll be building and maintaining barricades to keep the princess safe from harm. It's up to you to attack the monsters that will try to break through the barricades by utilizing your attack and special attack (called the "killer shot"). You can also guard by pulling the triggers while being attacked. You have the ability to build new barricades at the cost of "love points." Love points will be gained for taking down enemies and racking up big combos. When you attack next to a barricade it will repair it and if you hold down the build button the barricades can be upgraded. When a barricade is fully upgraded it turns into a catapult that the player can get on and launch boulders at the enemies, taking out groups of enemies if they're bunched together. You don't want to use up all of your MP on building barricades because at the end of each round you'll be able to spend them to upgrade your skills in four different categories: attack, speed, killer shot and defense.
Protect Me Knight has four different classes: fighter, ninja, amazon and mage. Each has their own killer shot attack that can be utilized with the B button, which will consume some of your MP. The fighter throws tomahawks, the ninja drops decoy bombs, the amazon tosses a boomerang and the mage can shoot fireballs. Each of these killer shots are effective in battle and will get better as you level them up. Your regular attacks will also improve as you level them up, and what started as a 1-hit attack will end up as a lethal 3-hit combo. The enemies you'll be defending the princess from come in a nice variety, including goblins, ghosts, minotaurs and dragons to name a few. Some of the boss enemies are pretty huge and the detail in the pixel sprites is quite impressive.
Before starting a game in Protect Me Knight, you have the option to listen to all the music and adjust the volume or you can go ahead and select your character and color. Once you've chosen your character there are two different modes to choose from: arcade and survival. In arcade mode you'll fight your way through ten stages, while in survival you'll face an endless horde of monsters to see how long you can hold out. Both modes support up to four players who can join in at any time. There are also four difficulties: easy, normal, hard and hell. While arcade mode is relatively short and ends after only ten rounds, the replay value is rather high with having four unique characters and also four difficulties to choose from. While some may view the games shortness as a problem, I personally thought it was just right. There's no option to resume your game at a later time and the short length makes it very feasible to complete a game in a sitting. You also can't die, since when you run out of HP you'll respawn back in after a few seconds. You can still lose however, as at the bottom right corner of the screen you'll see the HP of the princess, and if this is depleted then it's game over, but the game is generous enough to allow you to continue from the beginning of the round you died on. The additional difficulties are a nice challenge, but I wouldn't count on beating hell solo so try to have some friends over if you plan to attempt that one!
It's an absolute shame how overlooked Protect Me Knight was, mostly due to being listed only by its Japanese title and probably not reaching most of its target demographic having been released onto XBLIG. This is yet another case where Microsoft should have stepped in and gave the game a promotion to XBLA (online co-op support would have been great!). It's a unique tower-defense/hack 'n slash hybrid and sets a prime example of how to really nail the retro aesthetic. Protect Me Knight is easily one of the finest titles released for XBLIG, the music is outstanding as you'd expect from Yuzo Koshiro and the gameplay is incredibly fun. There's solid replay value thanks to the variety of the characters, the various difficulty settings and the option for up to four-players to join up is an excellent bonus. It's also worth noting that Ancient would release a sequel for the Nintendo 3DS in 2014, titled Gotta Protectors.
Final Verdict: Protect Me Knight is a fantastic mix of tower-defense and hack 'n slash with a true retro presentation. Easily among the best games ever released on XBLIG!
Related Links:
Protect Me Knight Profile Screens - Xbox Overview
Ancient - Official Website
Protect Me Knight Trailer - YouTube
Protect Me Knight Article - Wired
Protect Me Knight - GameFAQs
Protect Me Knight - Hardcore Gaming 101
Protect Me Knight Review - xblig.co
Protect Me Knight - Giant Bomb
Alternate Japanese Artwork
