Kingdom Brawl is a game that has been out for quite some time on other platforms, but it’s now being brought to the new Oculus Quest. What this means is that you can carry a VR headset with you anywhere and have access to an excellent arena fighter while still in VR. This review will be focused on the Oculus Quest port of Kingdom Brawl, which was just released today. It’ll cover some basics if you’re completely new to VR or whatnot, so there’s no need to worry about the quality of your experience.
In terms of Gameplay, Kingdom Brawl plays similarly to games like Power Stone and Wavedash games dropped recently such as Brawlout. In fact, had it not been for these dropped games I would have likely never discovered Kingdom Brawl. The goal is to knock your opponent off the edge of the map, pick up better weapons along the way, and be able to take out other players faster than they’re taking out you.
The game also features a few different modes that have different objectives for players to accomplish or defend. Tower Control, which was first introduced in Splatoon 2 a little while back, is a mode in which you ride a platform towards an enemy tower in order to destroy it. In this mode, there’s no direct fighting with the opposing team until someone reaches close enough to the tower and begins destroying it. However, when going towards an enemy tower if your character gets hit too much they’ll be knocked over and easy prey for enemies. There’s also a new “wanted” mechanic in the game, in which players will have a wanted level and become more visible on the map when taking damage. If two opposing players meet it becomes a fight to the death unless someone else interrupts their duel.
The final mode, Elimination, is somewhat similar to Tower Control but instead of riding something towards an endpoint each player spawns into an area with no weapons or health and needs to be the last one standing in order to win. This means that you’ll need to carefully manage your time because if you run out of time without killing anyone there’s no victory for you. These modes are enjoyable and provide a decent amount of variety between play sessions.
Although they aren’t too different, there are some notable changes to the game that make it unique amongst other games in this genre.
One of these is their implementation of “jump pads.” Jump pads, for those who don’t know, refer to objects you can jump on to reach new heights or cross gaps. These jump pads allow you to fly over enemies and platforms alike which can be necessary to win battles. Then there’s Skystones, cards obtained by playing the lottery machine which gives players random effects for a short period of time. Some include slowing down enemy movement speed, increasing your own speed, becoming invisible, and more. The use of these cards adds an extra layer to the game that makes it much more interesting than just regular brawling with friends online or local co-op.
Graphically the game is well done, including both in-battle and battles elements. The background areas are engaging and have a variety to them so that you don’t get bored with constantly looking at the same thing constantly. I suppose this would be one way to ensure people don’t just camp on the map when playing online, although it might still happen sometimes because what can you do? As for your characters, they aren’t anything special but have detail enough that players won’t confuse themselves when fighting two other players who look different from one another.
Overall, Kingdom Brawl has been quite an enjoyable experience on the Oculus Quest and will likely provide hours of entertainment for fans of local multiplayer games or arena fighters in general. If you have a Quest, I recommend it.
Skyworld is available for purchase on the Oculus Store for $19.99 with a free demo available as well which allows players to try every mode without needing to unlock them through normal gameplay. There are also regular updates that are promised by Captive Media Games to keep their game fresh and exciting for fans of arena fighters, although many might argue there isn’t much here that’s new in this genre itself. It will be interesting to see if they can maintain interest in this past launch, but I personally hope they do because Kingdom Brawl is very enjoyable right now with the amount of content currently available.
Overall score: 10/10 – Nothing too major wrong with this one!