Cyber Rhino Studios created a fun throwback to games like Mega Man and Teenage Mutant Turtles in their game, Gryphon Knight Epic. You play a knight named, Sir Oliver, who rides a Gryphon. The retro game play in this Shoot ‘Em Up is a great reminder of how fun these games were, but is that enough?
Take to the skies
This game does a good job at combining the side scrolling nature of Shoot ‘Em Ups with the exploration of an adventure game. Even though you move forward automatically, you can change directions and move around at any time. Each enemy has their own attack and style that you’ll have to carefully avoid.
The difficulty is what you’d expect from a game like this, so there’s a lot of dying. The good thing is that there are 3 difficulties to choose from if things get too difficult, or not difficult enough.
There are also runes to find throughout the game that gives bonuses, such as extra magic or the ability to breathe underwater. While it is fun to discover these runes or get extra money, there is little reason to do this more than once.
Use your enemy’s weapon against them
Gryphon Knight Epic borrows the Mega Man idea of defeating bosses, then taking their weapon to use later. This is a core part of the game and they did a great job at it.
Each weapon is unique and has upgrades. Levels can be done in any order, which gives players more freedom to choose how they want to complete. Some weapon help in other stages, so it is fun to try different paths through the game, and it adds more replay value.
It takes a while to upgrade the weapons, but they greatly enhance their abilities. This is helpful when playing higher difficulties, but if you only want to complete the game, you do not need to do this.
Prepare to laugh
Something you may not expect from this game is comedy, and there is plenty of it. The profiles of the bosses you will fight usually have some funny moments in them. My favorite is Eugenia.
The shopkeeper also has some hilarious dialogue, so I suggest you just sit in the shop reading it for a while. The humor comes sometimes when you least expect it, and that is one of the best parts about this game. I just sat around looking for what other funny things I could find before moving on to another level.
Worth a purchase?
I would say yes if you long for retro gameplay of a 2D side-scroller, but once you have fulfilled your nostalgia, you may not come back to it. Overall, this is a well made and fun game. It is fun now, but would have been a huge hit if it came out during the 80’s and 90’s.
The game is good for its price of $13, and achieves exactly what it sets out to do.
