O Holy Knight is the best example of why AI should not be used in games that the anti-AI crowd could ever hope for, to the point it almost feels like a false flag attack, despite being unfortunately just that bad by accident.
Singleplayer.
AI created many of the art assets used in O Holy Knight, something that is not only glaringly obvious but has not been denied by the developer, with the developer stating that much of the game, including the banner, sprites, icons, and even textures were created by AI, as he feels that AI could do a better job than he could, and it is “Pretty much like hiring a talent, except this one is in my workstation 24/7”.
While I am not opposed to AI in moderation when AI-generated assets comprise the bulk of a title, the end product is often substandard and woefully substandard, in the case of O Holy Knight.
While I acknowledge that O Holy Knight is still in early access, that is no excuse to include nothing in the way of a tutorial or documentation, and forcing players to figure out how to play via trial and error is not only not consumer-friendly but makes an already shoddy and unpolished product feel all that much worse.
While the developer has admitted that many of the game’s assets are created by AI, he has yet to admit if the game itself was at least partially written by AI, which appears to be the case, with dozens of obvious balancing issues existing, and many game mechanics not working as intended or sometimes at all.
One of the mouse glaring balance issues involves player-controlled units refusing to fight against encroaching enemy units specifically, resulting in the player’s forces being decimated. In contrast, at other times, the same units, positioned in the same location and facing the same enemies, will cut through enemies like butter.
I have personally witnessed a single tier 3 knight wipe out an entire enemy swarm of units without damage, only to witness a row of tier 5-9 knights backed up by healers and archers get decimated by a much smaller swarm of the same enemy units, without managing to land a single blow.
While these issues could get resolved during early access, I cannot help but feel the developer is using an AI-assisted program to fill in the lack in his programming knowledge, and fixes will be a long time coming and at the mercy of AI even when they do arrive.
While I prefer playing action roguelike games with a controller, O Holy Knight is the first game in the genre that I have reviewed that essentially required a player to use a controller, with not one, but two messages warning players to use a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard appearing before the player even reaches the main menu.
O Holy Knight is a action rogue-like video game developed and published by Terapoly, it was released on 6 Febuary 2024 and retails for $5.99.
O Holy Knight is available exclusively on PC.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
O Holy Knight is unrated and contains:
O Holy Knight feels like a game that is more the product of AI than a human developer’s passion and creativity, and while I am sure that a human designed some parts of the game, it is, without doubt, one of the most soulless and uninspired games I have ever had the misfortune to play, and I would rate is 0 out of 10, if our review system allowed for such a rate.
Overall, it is a terrible, lacklustre game that is an insult to gamers and a disgrace to the action roguelike genre.
