The King's Bird Reviews
The King's Bird is a tightly designed precision platformer whose gameplay loop consists of retrying the same frustrating areas until reaching the satisfaction of conquering them. Lather, rinse, repeat. The moments of flying through a dreamscape and sticking the landing are a true delight, at least. For fans of hard-mode platformers, this may arrive as a welcome treat and worth sinking a handful of hours into for that sweet payoff, but those with other tastes may want to keep looking elsewhere.
Hardcore platformer fans will love the challenges that The King's Bird presents while less skilled gamers can still appreciate the gorgeous game world via the incredibly helpful Assist Mode.
The King's Bird is a beautiful game. It's easy to learn, with movements that make for a unique take on the classic 2D platformer, set against a bold and stunning backdrop.
The King's Bird is a game in a truly magical environment. The soundtrack is delicious and the gameplay is great. But in the last the game stutters a lot. Sometimes the character doesn't act right and you will die instantly. This becomes a frustration.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
The Kings Bird is perhaps one of those games suited to gamers who love speedruns, where twitch platforming comes second nature and has the patience to really stick with the game. I enjoyed the first few levels, but the shortcomings of the controls and the haphazard nature of if they work or not kind of distracted me from what is an interesting and challenging game to play. Perhaps I need to just get better and these types of games, but having played games for 27 odd years I like to think I have the skills necessary to at least get to grips with the most challenging of games. As it stands The Kings Bird is hard to recommend to the casual gamer, but speedrunners will probably get the most out of this if they can get to grips with the somewhat broken mechanics.
There isn't really much to say about The King's Bird. It's a simple looking game that comes down to using the world around you to propel yourself forward. At times this can be fun and other times extremely frustrating. When push comes to shove, it's good enough that I can see the value in it and has more than enough to keep someone interested, especially if they want to improve on previous runs.
The King's Bird has a lot of potential in both the challenging and the serene, but its tolerances for mistakes get just a little bit too tight. It wants to be two games. On the one side, there's an almost Journey-like indie with beautiful gameplay, audio, and visuals that calm the mind and soothe the soul. On the other, Serenity Forge wanted to create tough challenges that would feel like a triumph to overcome. While I was completely on board with the marriage of ideas at first, the two began to clash somewhere along the way as the trials no longer supported the gameplay. What Serenity Forge managed to do with the visuals and sound is on another level, but the loose gameplay mechanics never quite fit into how precise the challenges are designed to be. I wanted more of what The King's Bird was, and less of what it became.
The King`s Bird is a beautiful ID title though that will find a core of gamers that love it. Just be prepared for some patience and learning.
The King's Bird has the potential to be wonderful—and in its art and music, it is. Based on that alone I would play it all day. But the sense of freedom it is trying so hard to evoke is held back by its finicky controls, and since the game's very foundation is meant to be freeing, it falls short. Altered controls and a slightly wider margin for error, especially on console, would really let The King's Bird soar beyond the confines of its cage, and boost its mechanics up to the high tier of its design.
The King's Bird fails for its imprecise and unnecessarily complicated gameplay for a platform game, making the experience more frustrating than fun. Even though the game has a stupendous look and a high quality soundtrack, it is difficult to recommend only for its technical side.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
A beautiful game marred by repetition yet incredibly playable.
The King's Bird is a good example of a platform game that follows the old adage "easy to learn, difficult to master", as its demanding controls will demonstrate. Players who muddle through it with patience and perseverance, however, will find a work that is very rewarding, and not just because of its marvelous art style. A very welcome addition to the Nintendo Switch catalogue, which could perhaps improve on its gameplay's repetitiveness in some instances.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review