Game Review: Postknight

Postknight attackPostknight is a free mobile application adventure game by Kurechi. The story follows you, a young knight who delivers mail, through each of your jurisdictions as you incidentally thwart nefarious deeds. You start with a tutorial in the quaint town of Pompon Village. A falsely-rumored dragon has scared off the inhabitants, and in your travels to deliver mail, you retrieve them. The tutorial is a bit confusing at first, but hopefully, this post will help break down the mechanics.

This game is a semi-auto-scroller with three available actions. As your knight moves through an area, you can dash, block, or heal. Though it seems like a straight-forward dungeon crawler, this game has way more to offer.

Go! – The Main Story & Towns

From any town, press the “Go!” icon in the lower right to continue on the main story adventure. Be aware – if you press “Go!” you’ll continue in the story where you left off, no matter which town you may currently be in.

After you complete the objective of one town, your Postknight mentor will add another town to your jurisdiction. Each town has five areas, except for the last one which has eight. Within each area are five sections, and the last section features a boss battle.

Postknight townsShello Bay: A seaside town with a pirate problem.

Griffondell: A town on the edge of a forest that loves all feathered friends, but the birds are starting to disappear.

Caldemount: A charming city with dark rumors swirling about the south monastery.

Valley of Gold: A mining city establishing trade with the local goblin population, but someone is sabotaging their efforts.

Fractured Forest: An outpost near a ghostly forest where alchemists and volunteers have gathered to collect herbs to curb an illness epidemic.

You can view each town and their areas by clicking on the wooden directional sign. After completing a full section, you can revisit each one. Unlike the main story, you must complete each section as a whole and it is no longer divided into five parts. There will be a half-way point that allows you to heal up some health if you want it. This is the best way to farm materials, gold, and experience points.

Townfolk

Innkeeper: The innkeeper can help with your recovery and stats. Using gems, you can re-allocate your stat points or refill your health. Using gems to refill your health isn’t necessary, and there are better things to use your gems on.

The most important feature the innkeeper has is the Recovery Upgrade. Use gold to purchase the upgrades, increasing your resting health point regeneration while in town.

Blacksmith: Upgrade your armor or see what armor sets are available.

Alchemist: Increase the abilities and effectiveness of your health potion by turning in ingredients. You can increase the amount of health it gives you (red), the cooldown (blue), and the amount of bonus (varies depending on the town) from your potion (green).

Merchant: Trade materials and gold for items you may need or rare items that don’t drop anywhere else. Watch ads to reset what the merchant carries immediately. The required materials for an item can change. For instance, a silver bar may cost 10 silver ore one time and several thousand gold the next.

Postknight adventureMailbox

Click the mailbox in each town to see available mail deliveries. Depending on the town and your current rank, you can earn blue, silver, gold, or crystal tokens for completing each delivery. Redeem these tokens by clicking on the letter medallion icon on the lower menu screen. Swipe over the medallion box to switch which kind you’re turning in.

Increasing your Postknight ranking gives you bonus experience points, gold, and an increased offline reward time.

Adventure Board

In each town, you can click on the adventure board to see the bounties available. Run mailbox missions or replay sections of the area to fulfill the bounty requirement. You’ll earn chests with material rewards which may include gift items and gems.

Postknight relationshipsRelationships

Through the course of the main story, you will meet and unlock six maidens. You can both give and receive gifts from them. Increasing their affection awards better items in return. Maxed relationships can reward you with trade-only items like gold bars and gift items. During events, fulfill specific requirements to unlock sweet images with the object of your affection.

The player character appears androgenous, and there is no gender indication when starting. However, later conversations confirm that your character is indeed a male. I’m not sure I understand why there is no choice of gender since other knight characters are not exclusively male. In fact, your mentor at the start is a woman. I wish there was a female choice and male characters to increase affection points with.

At each town, a wandering pet will be available for you to adopt. Once adopted, you can feed and receive gifts from it. The wolf puppy is 50,000 gold, but pets after that require gems. Pets only like food gifts, and rare food gifts can be purchased from that town’s merchant.

One of the nice things about this game is that it shows you what gifts you’ve given previously and what their reactions were to them. There’s no need to write it down or accidentally give a hated gift twice.

Final Thoughts

The game has lots of favorite RPG features like catchy music, a well-designed layout and art style, and achievements. Eventually, you can unlock a Pottermore style competition and join a faction to compete with. During the competition events, certain items will be asked for, and each batch submitted is more points for you and your team.

The game itself starts out a bit challenging until you get your bearings. After that, it feels rewarding to max out a gear set and rip through story quests like a hot knife through butter. Even at max level (99) and with maxed-out epic tier 5 set, the last area, Fractured Forest, still poses a challenge. You’ll find yourself changing up your sword and shield combos and resetting your skill points to find the perfect balance.

Beating the final boss feels rewarding after a challenge like that, though the aftermath is a bit underwhelming. The game is over after that. You can go back and try hard modes, beat your course times in previous towns, or participate in the global faction competition. Otherwise, there’s no need to continue. For me, it was an unexpected gem in the games I’ve played this year and worth at least a main story play through.

 

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