Free to Play, Every Day: Spiral Knights

Welcome to another rendition of Free to Play, Every Day. This time, we have Spiral Knights, developed by Three Rings and published by none other than SEGA.

Just looking at screenshots of this game, the first thing that comes to mind is an old-school Legend of Zelda-like dungeon crawler, and you're mostly right. Dungeon crawling is a big part of this game, but as of recently, more features have been added that make the game even more fun.

Appearance

To be quite honest, the game looks a little childish. The NPCs you meet and enemies you fight range from downright cute to large and lumbering. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it hasn't stopped many games before, but it could give the typical ignorant moron the wrong impression.

Aside from that, the graphics are pretty nice. The environments tend to be a little repetitive, as many of the dungeon levels are randomly generated with certain "themes" attached, but that just makes it much more fun to explore. Each item, enemy, and NPC looks like it belongs in the world that has been laid before you, and that adds a lot to the overall experience.

Character Creation

Again, to be quite honest, the character creation is a little lackluster, and in the end, is mostly pointless for the appearance of your knight. The helmet, armor, and design you select will only last until you replace the gear pieces with better equipment (although you can transform pieces to look like other pieces; more on that later). Your personal color will be what mostly sets you apart from other knights aside from your name, and it gives all the gear you will ever wear a touch of whatever color you select. I'm pretty sure you can change it at will through some item exchange process, so whatever floats your boat works.

Overall, you'll look like all the other knights in the world. The gear you'll acquire has more variety than the character creation models, but not by a whole lot at the moment. Although I would like a lot more customization options, you are able to mix and match whatever you want, and having a simpler system like this allows there to be a smaller barrier of entry.

 

User Interface

There are quite a bit of menus in Spiral Knights, but they are very organized and easy to use. In the upper left are your typical Settings, Help, Mail, and Friend List buttons, and the upper right has your minimap. Attached to the minimap are several other buttons for your inventory (which is nicely sorted for all of your materials and weapons), your character's equipment window, and two other buttons that aren't pictured above for player-vs.-player games and equipment sets. Below the map is a list of missions that the game gives you, and in the bottom right is your energy meter, which the entire game practically revolves around. Your average chat box is also in the lower left, in case you didn't notice it before.

In combat in a dungeon, the interface stays mostly the same except for a health bar that appears at the bottom of the screen. If it reaches zero, you must either be revived by a party member, revive yourself by spending energy, or leave the dungeon.

Gameplay

This one's a doozy. There are several things you can do in Spiral Knights, but the main feature of the game has always been dungeon crawling. You meet several different types of enemies on the way, and even a few bosses. You can have two weapons equipped, or up to four if you buy special slot items, and you attack by left clicking. From swords to guns, bombs to rapiers, each weapon is mostly unique when they are powered up to their maximum potential through crafting. Crafting itself is a bit large, but basically you collect or buy materials and craft weapons and armor by spending in-game currency called crowns combined with energy.

Speaking of which, energy is an integral part of this game. You have a meter that caps at 100 energy, and it refills completely every 22 hours. There is another meter for crystal energy, or energy that you can buy either with real money or with crowns and store it for use when you run out of your regular energy. Many gates and items can only be accessed by acquiring and spending crystal energy, and each new floor in a dungeon requires you to pay 10 energy to move forward, so learning how to play the auction house and earning crowns is very important, unless you want to free up some of the cash hiding in your wallet.

Other than dungeon crawling, there are PvP games and quest-like missions. Currently there are two match types for PvP: a territory control game and a game that is exactly like Bomberman. Just that one alone makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, because Bomberman was ridiculously awesome, and it's PvP! With Bomberman! Holy crap! 

 

Missions are very new and I haven't tried them a whole lot, but so far they seem like a good way to teach new players and to give veterans achievements to work towards. They seem like a cross between your typical World of Warcraft quest and the tutorial found in League of Legends where it runs you through each feature in the game one at a time.

 

The controls are fairly straightforward. You can either use both mouse buttons to walk in the direction of your cursor, or you can learn what everybody else is doing and use your WASD keys. Arrow keys work too, but there's nothing compared to the efficient method of WASD-ing.

 

Summary

Spiral Knights can turn into a very big time sink if you enjoy the gameplay that it offers. The dungeon crawling is fun and the recently added missions and PvP give the game enough of a twist to keep you coming back. It looks and plays great for a free cartoon-like game. The experience can feel a little repetitive at times, but every free MMO has a little bit of grinding here and there, and grinding is essentially the work you must do towards the goal you set for yourself. Even if you don't really like dungeon crawling or even grinding, the management of your crowns and crystal energy gives you a feeling of accomplishment when you figure out an efficient exchange and you're able to play continuously. Go try it out and see for yourself on Steam (which is still awesome, by the way).

Oh, and it has awesome music. AWESOME. MUSIC.