Black Clover: Quartet Knights is a pretty average 3D anime fighter/action game that succeeds in some places and fails in others. Its skippy framerate and boring story may make it a tough sell for anyone who isn’t into Black Clover, but its controls and enjoyable gameplay firmly cement Quartet Knights’s place as an alright anime game.
Black Clover: Quartet Knights
Developer: Bandai Namco
Price: $59.99
Platforms: PS4 and PC
MonsterVine was provided with a PS4 code for review.
As far as shonen series go, Black Clover is very “okay”. Though it’s begun to improve, the series has a lot of difficulty both in breaking free from the tropes of shonen or in exemplifying them to an exciting degree. I mention this because it’s also a good way to describe Quartet Knights as a game. It isn’t incredibly flawed or hype-inducingly fun, but it’s very average and functional. If you like Black Clover then it may be worth grabbing, but its your passion for the series that is the deciding factor here.
The story of Quartet Knights is original to the game, though it isn’t particularly interesting. It focuses on Yami, the leader of the Black Bulls Guild, and his temporally displaced 14-year-old self. Yami and the Bulls (or Asta, Noelle, and Finral really) must save Yami’s old friend from a cursed necklace that holds the spirit of a disgruntled ghost. The time travel gets needlessly complicated later in the story, and it becomes difficult to stay interested in the story enough to play through it more than once. Completing it once unlocks a playthrough from Yami’s point of view, and completing that story unlocks some EX episodes featuring other Bulls. The story is mainly presented through text boxes and static images of characters with animated segments and 3D cutscenes dispersed throughout. The animated sequences look quite nice and are a handy way to connect the game to the anime series, but the static images that make up most of the story make it feel lazy at times.
Quartet Knights plays like a smoother version of the recently released Shinobi Striker. Each fight is set in one of various 3D maps, each of which you’ll navigate to either capture a command point, escort a crystal to your base, or simply battle enemies. I like that there’s a variety of different modes, as it keeps the story and online modes from getting stale too quickly. Each character has a few different special attacks that are based on their magic powers, though some characters’ abilities are definitely better than others.
It’s fun to run around each map thanks to the inclusion of movement options like quick wall-running and character abilities. Slashing enemies and making combos can be fun as well, but the combat in Quartet Knights doesn’t do anything exceptionally enough to keep your attention for long. There’s a somewhat active online mode that lets you play with others, and while it’s totally functional, it feels like an AI battle that just takes longer to start.
The most glaring issue that Quartet Knights is its choppy performance. Every thirty seconds or so, the audio will cut out while the game freezes for about a second. It’s difficult to stay motivated during a fight when it randomly freezes for a moment, as this completely halts the flow of battle. This seems like an issue that can be patched out pretty easily, so I hope Bandai fixes this problem soon.
The visuals of Quartet Knights adequately adapt the style of the manga and anime it’s based on. Yuki Tabata’s basic but energetic artstyle, which works well in a fast-paced action game like this. The anime cutscenes and 3D models show this style off best, though some character attacks look pretty stylish on their own.
The Final Word
Black Clover: Quartet Knights is incredibly okay. Outside of some patchable technical issues, there’s nothing glaring that makes the game feel like a licensed mess. There’s just nothing that makes Quartet Knights stand out either, meaning Quartet Knights is probably best suited for diehard Black Clover fans.
MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average
