I don't like Knight Lore. Yes, it's very highly regarded by many people, yes it helped both to kick start and also define the isometric 3D arcade adventure genre. And yes, it's graphically very good, but I don't think it's much fun to play. And a game without fun is pointless.
Seeing Knight Lore for the first time was a revelation. As I've said before, I think that setting eyes on Knight Lore for the first time must have been like seeing King Kong on the screen back in the 1930s when the film was released. It (Knight Lore) was the single most staggering thing I've ever seen on a Spectrum. Of course it's been (far) bettered as a game since, and many other Spectrum games and especially demo programs are much more impressive now, but it was Knight Lore that staggered me more than any other game on any machine before or since. Nothing can take that away from Knight Lore.
But where's the game play? Alright, so it's not a terrible game, but it's not much good, and there are a huge number of more playable games on the Spectrum, so why should I want to play this one? It's an extremely impressive game graphically, and is devoid of bugs or glitches, which is all well and good, but it doesn't exactly grab me and scream to be played. Some of the screens are empty (how pointless is that), the puzzles are largely too simplistic to be fun, frequently you change form at the wrong time, which results in you getting killed as you are rooted to the spot when you change from a human to a werewolf and vice versa, and if you use the keyboard then it has that horrible rotate-and-move-forward control method, as opposed to the move-in-the-direction-of-the-key-that-you-pressed method which is far superior.
Alright, so I'm maybe in the minority here (I do seem to be, but I suspect that many people only rate the game so highly for nostalgia - how many of them do load it up and play if for fun?), but I don't see the fun in this game. When it was released it was OK due to being a newish game-type, but it was quickly overshadowed by vastly superior games like Fairlight and Head Over Heels. Just my opinion, but an honest one.
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