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Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia is out now, and it isn’t often that you can say that everything about a game is quite poor, yet you end up really enjoying it. This is definitely for the fans of the anime, or anime fans in general, because unfortunately as a stand alone game, it doesn’t offer much.
The series came out in 2015 and is a Netflix exclusive. The second season is currently airing, but only subtitled, and it will most likely be closer to Q3 2018 by the time we see the dubbed version. As animes go, SDS is one of the most enjoyable watches and even though the game isn’t great, I couldn’t get stop playing it.
SDS completely follows the story line of the anime. You take control of all the characters and start off in the hunt for all the other of the Seven Deadly Sins. Unfortunately, for the game, the relatively blasé storyline doesn’t quite grip you the same way the anime does. This is probably due to the simply-worded dialogue and out-of-sequence scenes. Saying all of this, I absolutely loved the story because I was aware of it previously, having seen the programme. Equally, I was annoyed when the mission had me randomly fighting as Gilthunder, seemingly to pan out the story and show a character you can play with online.
The gameplay is pretty basic, but seems to offer the most confusing training system in the world where you will read about five pages of information, just to discover you only have basic attacks, and then if you hold R1, those attacks will change to magic attacks. Each character varies in magic and physical attack strengths – noticeably, you will be taken aback by the sheer power of Diane. She is a blooming giant, though. Your characters will level-up, and you can add extras to them by upgrading. I didn’t find any of the add-ons that useful, and spent hours reading all of them…
There are about four different types of missions, and a couple of them are absolutely awful, but in the main, you just have to beat up all the innocents within the time limit. However boring the missions were, I found myself continuing to play them. Simply put, you will spend most of the time moving around on a pig and finding missions to beat up people. PS. the pig moves slowly. Too bloody slowly.
The online mode to Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia doesn’t offer much, but adds a little lifeline to the relatively short game. You’ll get to fight in duel mode as the characters you have collected against others. I didn’t spend much time on it and was out off by the odd matchmaking, but it was fun to get my ass kicked. I was level 0 and my opponent a mere 57,637.
Nowadays, graphics aren’t always the most important aspect of current gen games. This is normally because it’s hard not to make a game that looks good. However, it seems that they really haven’t tried very hard with this glitchy little masterpiece. The characters, for some unknown reason, don’t even perfectly resemble the character animation in the show. I was surprised with this as it surely wouldn’t have been that hard to copy the exact style. Not only do the characters look pretty bad, but so do backgrounds. Maybe I have too high expectations due to watching Studio Ghibli and playing modern games, but I feel that they could have tried a little bit harder here, and they could have been a damn gorgeous game. I appreciate that they must have taken a little longer putting together the skin textures as you constantly get treated to up-skirt scenes(!) Once again, this completely follows the anime and is as raunchy as ever.
The sound is one area where they have also managed to replicate the anime, apart from the most important part which would have been the game-changer: If only Hawk made the piggy noises whilst moving. This is one of the best moments of the anime and considering you spend most the time moving round on Hawk, it would have been a welcome addition. The rest of the sound fits the common anime convention, but doesn’t astound in any way. Unfortunately, at times, the sound doesn’t quite match the drama, and this can cause for confusion.
As I suggested at he start of this review – and after ripping most areas to shreds – I must now state all the reasons why I actually liked this game. I was able to ignore the poor graphics, frustrating amount of information overload and simple story. I found myself remembering what it was like playing Attack on Titan, and enjoying simpler things. Even though it didn’t match the anime enough, I love the characters and enjoyed getting to know their fighting styles, even if they weren’t particularly varied. At the end of the day, I just found this game fun, and even though it won’t score so well, it was a journey I don’t regret taking.
Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia is out now on PS4 and PS4 Collectors Edition, and click on the packshot for the full-size version.
Important info:
- Publisher: Bandai Namco
- Players: single-player, multiplayer
- HD options: up to 1080p
|
GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT |
5 7 6 8 |
| OVERALL | 6.5 |
I have been a video game player since 1993 and a music fan since I can remember. I studied Film and Journalism at university and ended up becoming a Primary School teacher. Video games changed my life and sent me on the right track and have stayed with me ever since.