Looking for Love in All the Wrong Castles

I’ve been playing a BUNCH of precision platformers lately, and the newest one that I came across is Sir Lovelot from Sometimes You and Pixel.lu. Although there’s a lot here that is normal for the genre, Sir Lovelot excels in what it does with a wonderful style and top notch polish.

Story wise there’s not too much here. You are Sir Lovelot, knight and lover boy, who is looking for love in all the wrong castles. Your end goal is to find that one special princess that will love and keep you forever, and to find them you need to woo multiple princesses with gifts ranging from flowers, candy, diamonds, and rings. Too bad for Lovelot that most of the princesses won’t stay with him for more than one night.

Although this game uses a very familiar pixelated graphic style, the presentation, colors, and animations stood out in a market full of similar titles. Each level is vibrant and really pulls together the themes of this game in a way that it brings this world alive! Each of the four worlds have a distinct color scheme and a few even have ambient background animations. Lovelot’s animations are smooth and almost all of the enemies are very well done! ( I say almost because the yellow blob thingys toward the end gross me out a bit. ;D ) Overall I’m really happy with how this game looked, and it’s now a top contender for my personal year’s best art direction / style.

Once again, gameplay is where it’s at and Sir Lovelot executes in a near perfect fashion. Movement is super responsive and any death feels like it’s your own fault. (Well, except for the hidden spike wall…). There’s your standard double jump, wall jumps, and dashes but Sir Lovelot throws in a mechanic I’m not used to seeing in precision platformers: a shoot button! The ability to actually fight the enemies gave me another level of enjoyment while maneuvering throughout the levels. This does bring me to my first con though. Once an enemy has been killed, it’s gone for good until you restart the level completely. Even if you die, the enemy is now taken off the board which in a way lowers the already moderate difficulty present. I believe that if they enemies were persistent in death that the game would present a more steady challenge.

Sound design in Sir Lovelot was good, but nothing really stood out as overly memorable. Music is well designed and fits with the overall theme, and the squishy defeats of the enemies is oddly satisfying.

My overall experience with Sir Lovelot was excellent, and I cannot recommend this game enough! If you like precision platformers then definitely look into this one, it will be well worth your time!