Undead Knights

What do you get when you combine elements of Chaos Legion and Pikmin? Something not quite as good as either by the looks of it, but definitely looks like it has some interesting mechanics going on.

I've never played it, but it's one of the games I wanted to buy a PSP for way back. This video contains the first stage which acts as a tutorial. Skip to 6:12 which is where the stage starts. The first part is the intro cut-scene.



Here's what I know plus some thoughts. You can see some of this in the video.

-After weakening an enemy, you can grab and transform them into a zombie who will then fight alongside you. Seems you are stuck in place until the meter fills but could be cancelable, however, there is also a faster version which appears to be done from the attack string. Might just be faster depending on their HP.

-You can pick up and throw zombies. It seems to act like a projectile on smaller enemies, but on larger ones they will latch on. See the fight with the big guy. Once a certain number are hanging on, the enemy will be stunned. When the character attacks the enemy in this state, it seems to be a powered up version.

-Zombies are also used to tear down gates and other structures.

-You can command a group to drag an enemy to the ground and eat them, but I'm not sure how it works. I'm guessing lock-on and send like CL and a certain number of zombies? Maybe weakened enemy state? I saw a few enemies not going down from a group attack right away.

-A held zombie can be used as a shield.

-Not sure what can be cancelled. I've seen a dodge roll and jump, but no idea if these can cancel animations. I hope so.

-No idea about the melee attacks of the character as the player is just repeating the same string.

Game looks very interesting, you can see that some elements are very basic and with TK behind it you can expect a level of dead AI. One thing I always have with summoning enemies is that I don't really feel in control, as in it isn't me doing the killing. Though killing by proxy probably also has its appeal. Also that music haha! Just keeps going.

I am curious to see how it plays out near the endgame though. Usually games like these start of simple but can get very interesting lateron.

Dead AI.
Was that intentional?

One thing I always have with summoning enemies is that I don't really feel in control as in it isn't me doing the killing
I get that. Personally I don't mind who lands the hit, but rather the overall control I have over my minions and what they're doing.

I play quite a few games with AI partners and some have far less control than others. It depends.

Like Dragon's Dogma has very basic orders but pawns can be programmed to an extent and learn from others. Another thing you can do is equip them with only one skill so they use it often, or stock them with certain items depending on tons of stuff like build and inclination. Other than that, they move freely but that's the whole draw to the system.

Games like CL look chaotic, and if you choose you can let the legions attack without you having input but it's not effective. When you know how to use them they are more an extension of the character, only appearing in short bursts. You can summon and delete them from the field as you please to avoid damage so they're never this wild element on screen that you can't do anything about. A lot of games with AI partners/summons don't let you recall them any time.

Then there's Haunting Ground, OZ, Rule of Rose, Folklore, Overlord, Ni no Kuni 2 and more I'm forgetting. Would take me ages to explain them. Might make Ni no Kuni 2 topic just to talk about the Higgledies. They're really the only reason I play it.

> dead AI
Intentional ;p

> summoning
One thing that adds to this mind you is having played games that did it badly. Like I love Dragon Age, you can program all your characters but even then I control them all because I don't trust the computer to do what I want.

There's also the issue of what style you're after.

-A chaotic free-for-all brawl with no player control over them?
-Programmable AI?
-Partners that can/can't be hit/killed? meaning something like a timer or using a resource to have them on the field.
-Using as a distraction so you can set something up?
-AI that you can build relationships with that affect performance?
-Something in-between? A combination?

I haven't played any Dragon Age games but I've seen someone play them so I know about how you can set them. No idea on the effectiveness. Did you find they didn't respond well or your settings were inferior to what you could do yourself?

The good thing about CL is it can be a free-for-all if you want it to be, or a more focused playstyle where the legions are more an extension of the character.

I'm not a fan of the free-for-all type. Not really much to it in my experience UNLESS you can customize or build them in some way then let them loose.

While Undead Knights does appear to follow this style, I think it's more unique because you can turn enemies into zombies. It also seems to share a few aspects with CL/Overlord, like being able set your zombies upon an enemy, which looks very similar to CL's lock-on+force attack.