Elemental Knights R Nintendo Switch Review

Bruh, Elemental Knights R and its developers, Winlight, should be ashamed of themselves. This game is the most obviously forced cash grab, micro-transaction riddled mess of a mobile game port that it has ever been my misfortune to know.

The game is F2P on Android and iOS, and guess what? Both of the mobile versions of this game have in app-purchases as well. That’s no surprise considering the game is free-to-play for mobile devices, but with a price tag of $22.75 on the Nintendo Switch, it is surprising to see the micro-transaction model still being so heavily pushed. Perhaps surprising isn’t the right word here, I guess I should instead say disappointing. I feel like a parent scolding their child for attempting to con gamers out of money and if I were in fact their parent, Winlight would be getting grounded for an undisclosed amount of time for this abomination.

The first two paragraphs now have been me avoiding going into the actual review. This was entirely unintentional, but just shows how much of a cluster this game truly is.

Poor Translations

First things first, the game’s translations are hilarious. Elemental Knights R was clearly not originally developed with English as the primary language. Its translations are laughable, with many of the scenes having broken English that seems to have been ripped straight from Google translate itself. The localization team, if there is one, should be fired on the spot. There were multiple times where I was genuinely convinced that the game was throwing hidden sexual innuendos at me, but these in fact were just horribly translated broken English.

Decent Soundtrack

Before I go on, I feel that I might as well give this game some amount of credit where it’s due. The soundtrack isn’t terrible. There, I said it – the music in this game is not the worst I’ve heard and overall it was relatively enjoyable. That’s not to say that it is anything outstanding, because it’s not, but I do feel the need to state that some songs were nice. Now back to the rest of this painful review.

Terrible Graphics and Art Style

This game’s graphics and visual appeal are bad. It feels like the designers really didn’t try here. You’ve got that forced, stereotypical anime look, lacking in any real depth and style. The characters themselves are so rigid and stiff that you’re surprised to see any actual visual animation, and the game’s backgrounds are simplistic and boring to look at.

Lazy Controls

Elemental Knights R didn’t even take the time to optimize the game’s controls from the original touchscreen version. In order to pull up the in-game menu, you have to hold down the ZL button and use the joystick to move the cursor and do many necessary tasks in the game. Whoever green-lighted this probably did so because that addtional $20 in development work to assign the game’s menu to a button press was clearly out of the question.

Lackluster Gameplay

Oh my, where do I begin with this one? In order to initiate a battle, you have to press a button to begin. Walking up near an enemy doesn’t start combat. While this personally feels unintuitive to me, maybe not everyone would agree with my opinion, and that is understandable. Battles are auto-attack, with players not even needing to engage. You do have spells and items just like most other RPGs, but with how terrible the English translation of this game was, I couldn’t fully understand exactly how I was supposed to be using these. That’s fine though, because you really don’t need to do anything aside from letting your player auto-attack every single enemy. There’s no skill or strategy necessary here.

Riddled With Microtransactions

This was previously mentioned at the beginning of the review, but for a port of a mobile game that costs $22.75 on the Switch, the audacity of this game to push the microtransaction model as heavily as it does is mind boggling. To give you an idea both of what items are available for purchase as well as an example of the level of English in this game, here is the info from the Nintendo Switch eShop for Elemental Knights R:

“You can purchase items such as unique items and cool items, items that can temporarily power up ability, items that can enjoy adventure such as hair style, hair color and face change items by EKOpt!”

I don’t know about you, but I’m sold. I also have no idea what I’m buying exactly, but I’m ready to buy all the “EKOpt” I can get my hands on! The listed purchases available on the eShop range from $4.39 all the way up to $43.86.

In all seriousness, in the game, these purchases are touted as cosmetics. When microtransactions in games are purely cosmetic by nature, I have less of an issue with them. Even though many developers ride the fine line between predatory behavior when it comes to “gacha” elements in games, that’s not even the case here because the items available in the game aren’t purely cosmetic. These items available have a direct effect on your character’s stats and are hidden behind the classic lootbox model.

The Verdict

This review was written as an attempt to help you avoid the same fate that I unfortunately suffered from Elemental Knights R. This game was an obvious cash grab fever dream gone horribly wrong. The English translation deserves an entire review on its own, it is that bad. There is nothing here that is remotely close to redeemable for this title and in my opinion, you should not bother wasting either your time or money on it. Even if this game is on sale for $0.01, it’s not worth the time and space it would take to download it.