Game Reviews

How does Nonstop Knight compare to Dungeon Hunter 5, Loot and Legends, and more?

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| Nonstop Knight
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How does Nonstop Knight compare to Dungeon Hunter 5, Loot and Legends, and more?
|
| Nonstop Knight

Don't let the exterior of Nonstop Knight fool you. It is, to all intents and purposes, a clicker.

Sure, it stomps around like a dungeon crawler, but scrape away that monster hacking layer of polish and you'll discover you don't really have to do anything.

Okay, that's not strictly true. You can get hands-on in the fights, launching special moves when they're ready, but the game will quite happily play itself if you don't fancy getting involved. It's doing it right now, sat on my knee, while I type this.

At the heart of everything is the numbers, and doing your utmost to make sure they keep going up. It's about gold, damage, armour, and floors. The bigger the number, the better you're doing.

Nonstop, never give up

Most of the game is out of your control. The titular knight jogs around the level of his own accord, homing in on enemies. Once he finds some, he starts swinging his big ol' chopper around and cutting them down to size.

There are three special moves along the bottom of the screen. Tapping one of these unleashes it. They've all got cooldowns, and they're upgradeable as you work your way through the game.

The coins you collect can be spent on upgrading your gear, and the chests you receive when you kill one of the giant bosses give you new pieces of equipment you can strap on or sell.

And when you're not playing the game tromps on its merry way without you. You'll earn coins even if it's not open, and while you won't take on any bosses when you're not paying attention, you'll find your coffers bulked up when you return.

When you've earned enough of a specific currency you can ascend. This takes you back to the first level of the dungeon, and gets rid of all of your items, but gives you tokens to spend on increasing your character's stats.

But is it worth my time?

Well, it's about as casual as a dungeon crawler can get while still maintaining the basic shape of a dungeon crawler, but that's no bad thing. Sometimes you don't want to lose hours to a game. Sometimes you want to pick something up, poke it for a bit, then go and do something else.

And if that's what you're in the mood for, Nonstop Knight is wonderfully compulsive. It doesn't keep you away from any of its mechanics with its monetisation, and popping in and out to murder some skeletons is a lot of fun.

How does it compare?
  • Rustbucket - Nitrome's slightly casual take on the roguelike has more depth, but you'll need to pay some actual attention to it as well.
  • Dungeon Hunter 5 - Sits a little farther along the casual scale, but Nonstop Knight feels more honest and more fun.
  • Loot and Legends - A more midcore prospect, L&L is better looking, offers more depth, but again requires a little more concentration.

How does Nonstop Knight compare to Dungeon Hunter 5, Loot and Legends, and more?

A casual game that keeps the flavour of its inspiration without becoming too diluted
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.