GB Feature: Frayed Knights Review

Our full review of Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon is now online, and at five pages in length, it will likely have the answers you seek if you’re still on the fence about buying Rampant Games’ ambitious RPG. A little something to get you started:

The underpinnings of Frayed Knights’ character development are pretty much standard for the CRPG genre, and overall are quite robust. There is no class system to speak of, and while the four characters (who you can’t customize the names or appearances of) start out roughly adhering to certain archetypes, you can very quickly change them to fit just about whatever role you want. On a basic level, characters are governed by five attributes: Might, Reflexes, Brains, Charm, and Luck, and these are fairly self-explanatory. Might operates pretty much as you’d expect, increasing damage dealt, Health, and allowing characters to use heavier weapons and armor; Reflexes increases chances to hit, improves defense (or dodging), and increases speed in combat; Brains improves the effectiveness of spells and Endurance; Charm improves Endurance and priest spells, and has a minor effect during certain conversations; and luck governs resistance to spells, chance to avoid traps, as well as a number of feats. In addition to these primary attributes, there’s two derived attributes: Health, which shouldn’t need explaining, as well as Endurance, which is effectively mana and stamina, though it’s consumed for most tasks, including standard attacks, feats and spellcasting. Last, there’s a couple more attributes, such as Speed, and Accuracy, which are derived from and enhanced by equipment and spells.

On top of this, Frayed Knights features an extensive number of different proficiencies, spellcasting feats, enhancements (passive bonuses), and skills (active feats). All of these, in addition to the primary attributes, can be increased using character points awarded on level up (done on a per-character basis); you’ll get two points every odd-numbered level, and one every even level, and while the vast majority of upgrades cost a single point, some requires two, especially as you get into the higher levels. To be frank, Frayed Knights has some of the most satisfying leveling-up I’ve had the pleasure of in a long time. The game’s level cap is a mere 13, and I finished the game at level 12 after doing absolutely every single side-quest and exploring every dungeon, so you’ll have to really work for each level-up, not to mention that the number of points you’ll have to spend is fairly limited. This means that you’ll frequently be making some very tough decisions about what to upgrade. I found myself mostly leaning towards passive upgrades as I made my way through the game, but the sheer number (approximately 80 in total) and the overall usefulness of all of them meant that I found myself agonizing even after I knew exactly what I wanted. I haven’t looked forward to leveling up, and then had so much trouble making up my mind about it, since the original Fallout, and I mean that in the best possible way.