AdventureQuest 8-Bit: Dungeons & DoomKnights [Review]
AdventureQuest 8-Bit: Dungeons & DoomKnights is an epic NES adventure that lives up to the greats.
Image credit: Artix Entertainment / Nami Tentou
Artix Entertainment’s AdventureQuest 8-Bit: Dungeons & DoomKnights is an authentic 8-bit NES game, released on cartridge and ROM in 2022 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. The Switch and Steam (Windows, Mac, and Linux) ports launch today. I missed this game when it was originally released; I’m really happy to have caught up with it with the Switch port.
Dungeons & DoomKnights is one of the best NES games I’ve played. The best way I can describe the game is that it’s The Legend of Zelda 3 in a world where Nintendo made an NES sequel that built on Zelda II: The Adventure of Link rather than scrapping the formula to make A Link to the Past.
According to the Pretendo Empower magazine, the game has some impressive stats, making it a beefy NES adventure: 500+ screens, 19 music tracks, 120+ monsters and NPCs, and 3 endings all in a 512KB ROM. I completed the game in around 5-6 hours and saw two of the endings; I may have been able to do it more quickly if I had a better sense of direction.
Image credit: Artix Entertainment / Nami Tentou
The player’s sprite is large, like Link in Zelda II. Rather than having all the action take place in side-scrolling levels, a huge part of the game is also a top-down action game like The Legend of Zelda, but with large, vibrant sprites. All of the 8-bit art is solid, clearly depicting the different biomes of the world and the large variety of enemies.
There are several dungeons and caves the player must explore to defeat bosses and find new passive abilities and spells. Thirteen of these are required, as each one gains one level for the player and he must be level 13 to enter the final dungeon. Some are completely optional. All of them have fun puzzles or decent boss fights.
Spells are assigned to the A button, cycled with Select. These include things like dropping an explosive wasabi bottle, deflecting projectiles, or summoning Daimyo the Zombie Killing Pomeranian. Some of the passive abilities include a stronger attack, darkvision, limited flight, or allowing the player to break new types of rocks and blocks. The game’s got a bit of a metroidvania feel since the player must often return to areas after finding abilities that make them newly accessible, but this is also normal for a Zelda game.
Image credit: Artix Entertainment / Nami Tentou
Though game’s story is a standard affair—the hero must defeat the DoomKnight to stop his undead army from taking over while helping the townspeople with their problems—the game’s sparse dialogue is often funny and made the experience more enjoyable. Some lines have fun references to other games or game memes. It was enough to make me never skip chatting with an NPC.
The controls and combat felt good overall, but that brings me to my only real complaint with the game. Environmental hit detection during movement often caused me to be frustrated. All too often, I’d get stuck to a wall while trying to move along it or turn a corner; the game should know to move me along if my movement is diagonal. This is especially irksome in some sections where giant boulders kill in one hit.
Image credit: Artix Entertainment / Nami Tentou
The game’s difficulty is well balanced though not often linear. Even with some frustrating areas, Dungeons & DoomKnights makes up for those spikes with a forgiving continue system. On death, the hero usually gets sent back to the last save point, but crucially he doesn’t lose items he collected and major enemies he killed remain dead. An great example of this in action is the final dungeon, a boss rush. Each boss in the dungeon the player defeats doesn’t need to be fought again if he dies. If this wasn’t the case, it would have taken me much longer to finish the game; this feature is a welcome convenience of modern game design that wouldn’t have been the case during the NES’ heyday.
This port, published by Nami Tentou, also includes some cool bonus features. Two additional, smaller NES games are included, along with “Chaos mods” and color palette swaps for the main game. Last but not least, it’s got the standard CRT filter feature most games like this include.
If you’re a fan of The Legend of Zelda, I highly recommend giving Dungeons & DoomKnights a shot. I had a great time!
AdventureQuest 8-Bit: Dungeons & DoomKnights is available today for the Nintendo Entertainment System (cartridge or rom), Nintendo Switch, and on Steam for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
