Sir Lovelot (PS5)

Sir Lovelot’s quest sounds a bit cliche when you first see it, the little knight heading off to bravely overcome danger and climb up into the tower a princess is kept captive in to receive her love in return. Sir Lovelot doesn’t seem content with just one woman though, since throughout the fantasy realm of Lululand there are around 40 princesses all trapped in towers, their Rapunzel length locks an invite for heroes looking for some romantic reciprocation for their bravery. While a trophy implies he is looking for his one true love, Sir Lovelot certainly isn’t afraid to love them and leave them in his short but swift platforming adventure where a night with the princess caps off each stage.

 

Sir Lovelot cares very little for a story or framing even, the name Lululand for the setting even having to come from outside materials as you’re thrown into the action immediately to the point you don’t even have the controls explained. Sir Lovelot mostly relies on his double jump to get around, it a bit weightier than a regular platform game hero’s so it takes a bit to understand its limitations. You can also opt for a midair dash instead of the second jump if distance is more vital than height in the moment though. Sir Lovelot can scale walls by jumping on them repeatedly, but as you experiment with the buttons, you’ll find his handful of abilities also includes the ability to fire yellow bullets rather rapidly. The many monsters across Lululand always take more than a few hits to put down with this attack, this otherwise speed-focused adventure sometimes requiring you to come to a brief halt to open fire on some creature in your path, but it’s usually not too much of a hitch to have to blast a few fish or bats on your path to reaching the local princess.

The levels in Sir Lovelot are made up of single screen sections where a lot of danger will be cramped together, making it into a bit of a precision platformer but with a remarkable bit of kindness in that regard. While Sir Lovelot does take the smart approach of having a death lead to a quick restart in the current area, there is really no other penalty imposed for dying. Every level has a few collectibles, some necessary like the flower to impress the princess but coins, geese with golden eggs, and area specific goodies like diamonds and lollipops can be picked up to impact a post-level score. If you grab these collectibles and immediately die, you will still get to keep them, and what’s more, most actions with an impact won’t be reversed either. Kill an enemy, and for that level, it’s gone for good. Reveal a secret area, and even on death it will remain visible. Sir Lovelot doesn’t even have any requirements for what you need to collect beyond that flower, there are no secret levels or completion rewards so you are free to pursue them as you like. While levels have a death counter, they also allow a few deaths without impacting your level completion rating. Sir Lovelot seems to want you to enjoy the search for 100% completion on its own merits rather than gating anything off if you choose to ignore it, but perhaps this wasn’t the best approach in the end because overall, Sir Lovelot really struggles to do much that stands out.

 

The platforming levels in Sir Lovelot are enjoyable in a simple straightforward way. A lot of jumping around spikes and swinging blades to survive, levels are quick to complete and not too difficult, but even as you get to the later areas of Lululand that nominally take place in regions like a swamp, the action doesn’t change up all that much. The swamp does introduce swimming sections that are slower but usually fine unless they’re particularly dangerous and thus eat up more time after potential deaths, but otherwise the new ideas introduced after swimming is added to the fold are basic and don’t disrupt the kind of action you’ve been participating in since the start. You’ll see new enemies like a large green ape whose tantrums make rocks fall from above and later stages will have lava hazards, but these new concepts are usually just slight upgrades to pre-existing hazards. The lava for example is just like when spikes are scattered around save for the risk of little spurts of lava leaping up from time to time, so really the only disruptions of particular note is a true final boss fight and the rare level where you’re running away from a giant rolling skull. Every other level feels pretty similar, the kind of level where you do need to work to overcome its dangers but not really in new or interesting ways that would keep progress stimulating.

Secrets are meant to add some more to do in a stage, but they’re handled in a very basic way throughout. Coins are often either floating in the air to encourage some more platforming or they’ll be contained in lanterns and monsters, so you just shoot all of those you find to make sure you get all a level’s coins. The geese sitting on golden eggs though will always be found hidden behind false walls. Rather than having any clue to suggest where they may be (save for the rare times you might hear them honk), the geese will just be hidden behind standard looking walls you need to touch to dispel. This means in a level you pretty much just need to rub up against every stretch of wall or ceiling you can feasibly reach if you’re going for the rewardless 100% level completion. This will technically put you in more danger and ask for a bit more exploration so it’s not a bad addition, just a plain one that again won’t vary up how you approach stages. Speedy movement means it doesn’t waste too much time, but it does start to lead to the game’s flow homogenizing because while the exact shape of the obstacles in your path is shifted up enough to keep things involved, there aren’t really any exceptional moments that feel like huge tests of your skills or your eye for hidden secrets.

THE VERDICT: Sir Lovelot’s promiscuous princess tour across Lululand ends up being the most notable part of a platformer that can’t quite find an identity through its homogeneous gameplay. Precision movement is still tested well enough, but stages blur together as there is little ramping up in terms of the dangers you encounter or the mechanics at play. It does squash some of the thrill in searching for secrets by making them basically require just testing every wall you see, but the game remains speedy and has a decent sense for challenging level designs so you can easily experience its more effective if not exactly noteworthy moments.

 

And so, I give Sir Lovelot for PlayStation 5…

An OKAY rating. While I do appreciate a precision platformer that respects your time with the collected goodies and defeated baddies staying that way after a death, this forgiveness being a noteworthy feature sort of hints at the greater underlying issue with Sir Lovelot. It’s not a bad game at all, it can lay out some effective levels for its simple but challenging platforming, but it’s missing the kind of elements that can grab or hold someone’s interest. You’re given decent platforming but it doesn’t muster up many new ways to test it, and ones like swimming aren’t exactly an improvement since they’re not too involved or variable either. The levels with the rolling skulls are a good step in the right direction but the only step really, nothing else really working to push you to play in new ways or consider how you approach an area. As soon as you see a new screen, you identify the visible collectibles, work out which walls will need some rubbing if you’re looking for geese (or shortcuts if you’re aiming for a quick completion), and then can usually just head forward and take on all dangers as you approach them. Your attack feels like it is out of place in the game’s design, not only because it has no logical reason to exist but because it doesn’t engage the best with enemies. Stopping for a bit to fire at a foe slows things down and some enemies like frogs who lash out with their tongue might have worked better as level hazards that can’t be killed, but then the apes who make rocks fall are annoying so leaving them as unkillable obstacles would make them too bothersome.

 

Sir Lovelot himself may be in search of that one princess that will be his true love, but his game feels like it’s aimless in trying to figure out how to build an exciting precision platformer. It doesn’t have the teeth to really keep the player invested with high difficulty, but it’s not coming up so short that you feel like you’re coasting through either. It’s a platform game in need of greater variety or depth, but like it’s hero, it’s happy to hop between similar areas because they are fine enough that they at least provide some fleeting if basic entertainment.