Portal Knights (PS4)

I like Minecraft, sort of. Graphically, it is a hard pass.I've no idea how to play it per-se, don't ask me how to craft anything, I haven't a clue.My children do, I play with them and how I play is, I say I need a something, say a pickaxe, they say 'what type', I say whatever, they make it & throw it at me. I go and mine, and inevitably die, respawn, rinse & repeat. Need some torches now, yeah, I still ask. Armour, god for sure, weapon, goes without saying. In truth I do not need to know how to do it; they know and that's all I need to know.But I need a quest to do something. Anything. To me Minecraft is just about the caves, exploration and death a thousand times.I need a purpose.I need … Portal Knights !But it isn't much fun alone and I don't have a ps+ subscription, so when my child (16+) want's to game, it's taken a while to get my them away from Minecraft, or whatever, (at least for a bit) and into Portal Knights.We had a Wii, then a Wii U, and having played a variety of "My Sims" games on them (Original, Kingdoms, and Agents), to customise the look of characters, go on quests and do general stuff, they instantly compared Portal Knights to them.And so has some instant appeal.Cute character generation; Oh how many days were spent in the past, going through this and that option again and again changing hair or eyebrows, back on the Wii, the hilarity of a grumpy face and "it's just like you Dad" !Ah nostalgia, even for the younger generation, is still apparent.Big tick there.And it's like Minecraft, so a tick there too.Graphically, it looks better, but with cuter styled everything, with the characters it shows the demographic this is aimed at. Yeah, I sort of miss a Zombie groan to freak me out in a cave. You don't get that here. That said, falling off an Island, sparked a real stomach churn, which was very odd, similarly, almost falling off had the same feeling. (Is that an age thing?)Quests can be a little vague at times; do this for them, go there and do that, but where is there, and where do I find that though, trial and error, and most times we get there in the end. Error usually means I had the great idea to dig down, not realising I was only 1 block away from peril and a free fall to death. Hilarity for my child, along with 'said it was a bad idea', hrmpfhhh from me.Mining and building are the same as Minecraft, why do it in Minecraft, just because.Why do it in Portal Knights, same reason.Build a house, improve on it, lock yourself away from the baddies.Move to a new island, build another, if you so desire, or portal back home and rebuild it.Although, the baddies are pretty much zoned to an area around where they spawned, and they don't move, certainly have found that in the first 5 or so islands, perhaps it'll change as we progress. But there isn't that sense of dread.In Minecraft though, you can always just dig down, there's like a limitless amount of blocks you can mine. In Portal Knights, you are limited on the size of the Island you are on, so there is a finite amount of resources. Trees and stuff do grow back eventually, but I've not see rock blocks respawn.I like the questing aspect of Portal Knights. I like having something to do, clear direction. Rather than in Minecraft where you do your own thing. Sure Minecraft is fun, like everything, starting out with a new world and building for safety. Or building some huge masterpieces, works of art re-creating Harry Potter, or the whole of Norway, or whatever. Kudos to them. It's just not me.To me Minecraft can only be played in Survival mode. And that's how we play in Portal knights.We are pretty early on in our Portal Knights days, and we both like it.I like to game with my children, it is a great way to spend a least some time with them, they don't realise it yet but that's what I enjoy, above the game itself.So, Portal Knights, it's different to Minecraft. But not a lot. And yet with all the quests, it is a lot different.You cannot get away from drawing similarities.Dragon Quest Builders next. For exactly the same reason.And why not.Until Minecraft with ray-tracing and I can do it with VR, with a graphics card that can handle it, which costs next to nothing. Ha ! Just need to wait for it ... ray tracing Minecraft in multi-VR with the grand children, maybe. Now who's going to make me a pickaxe ?

My son absolutely loves this game. Was a bit of a gamble as it was not one I had heard of but he loves the cross between Minecraft and adventure games. One of the best game purchases we have made for the PS4. Came the next day.

Was hoping my daughter would like it was supposed to be similar to Minecraft. No idea why there could be good reviews for such a difficult game. It's obviously aimed at kids, but there's no instructions, no walkthrough, you're just supposed to pick up and 'discover' how to play.Even after we watched a few YouTube vids, we still weren't much wiser. It also looked extremely boring. Stick to Minecraft.

Let's cut the crud here. This game is a MINECRAFT clone but that is not a bad thing. It looks allot prettier than MINECRAFT and it has RPG online and offline game play with quests,stats,levelling up and portals to other parts of the world.It is like if minecraft met that Japanese Monster Quest version of it but it leans more towards Minecraft than the MQ game.From what I played so far it is a good game and if you like Minecraft or any other block building games than give it a try and you don't even need the internet connection ether witch is a rare and good thing if you don't like online only games but you do need to update it online to get a better version but after that you can just go offline again.

This game plays very similar to Minecraft . . Creative and adventure modes, yet with a much better laid out storyline in adventure mode with interactive NPCs, pre-built castles and villages to explore. 'Islands' regenerate on world gen, so replay-ability seems pretty good. It just looks better and removes the hassles (tools that wear out, etc.) It's only two player locally, which means my three kids have to take turns and players / world gen. are linked to account / not HD, so that's an issue - but it's still a fantastic option that leans closer to RPG than Minecraft.

I am wondering if there should have been a manual. As there wasn't it took quite a bit of time to work out the controls. Thank goodness for the internet. For such a cute game I am tending to die a lot. It's not easy whichever class you play. I read on the net that the Mage was supposedly the hardest class, that the Fighter was best when starting out. However I find ranged attacks keep me alive for longer. I don't know how you play online and I can't seem to find the option/control that starts it. The game has been compared to both Diablo and Minecraft. I can see that however it's no way as good as either of them hence my rating. Once I have finished Dragon Quest Builders I will give it a good go.

My two boys love this game. 6 and 8 year old. I even get pulled in to play with them and I like it too 44 years old. For the price you can’t go wrong and along the lines of minecraft and Dragon Quest builders. (Dragon Quest beats this though I am told by my two, so you might want to check that one out too)

You’ll read a lot of reviews form parents who say “my kids love this”. Unfortunately it wasn’t the case for my 8 yr old who just didn’t click with it.The game was just like Minecraft (in soo many ways!)... so my son would ultimately get fed up and just switch over to play Minecraft instead.I’m sure it’s a good game like others say... but it wasn’t for us.