Eagle Knight Paradox Key Art
Image: Playstorm Studios & Visual Protocol

Giant robots somehow ended up a running theme today, huh? Not by choice, just happenstance. The third mech-battling release we're covering today is Eagle Knight Paradox, a short but (supposedly) reactive hybrid of narrative adventure and high-speed mecha platformer from tiny Mexican indie outfit Playstorm Studios. From a quick play through the first stage (thanks to the developers for a key), this one certainly feels interesting enough to dig deeper into, even if the weird sprite scaling gets under my skin a bit.

Eagle Knight Paradox bills itself as an interactive graphic novel. You play as Ian, a young reserve mech pilot aboard a military frigate, pulled to the front-lines when all of the other pilots go silent during a mission. Pilots in this setting, is seems, interface (painfully) with their mechs through a socket where a severed limb used to be, and so the early narrative segments have Ian taking things slow, as he shuffles around the ship using a crutch. From the little I've played here, exploration is encouraged, with optional little side-objectives to help people, and my investigations rewarding me with an additional move for my mech in the upcoming fight.

The combat so far feels a bit more Mega Man Zero than, say, Cybernator/Assault Suits Valken, albeit with limited-ammo weapons you pick up in the field. Not bad, although melee combat so far mostly involves mashing on the attack button like in Strider. Not inherently bad, but I do like my giant robot combat to be a little weightier and considered. Not that the high-agility style is a negative, and there's a lot to like here too. On top of some Mega Man-ish wall-jumping and sliding, you can just run up vertical walls too, plus air-dash. Repeatedly, once you've got the shield powerup that lets you ricochet from one aerial target to another.

My only real gripe is that while the sprites are fundamentally fine here, it feels like, as with so many indie releases, they were drawn at one resolution but end up looking rougher than they should when scaled and rendered out by the game. This doubles for some of the backdrop elements, which can often look a bit awkward and scribbly, with more effort clearly going on some sprites over others. Again, not serious critique, just observation. But it certainly has me curious to see how deep its rabbit-hole goes. Promises of a two hour run-time but with choices that do matter (hopefully leading to different combat encounters) have me intrigued.

Even early on in the game, it has presented me with a few interesting choices, and while I've gone for the clean-cut ones that seemed most likely to keep me on the straight-and-narrow path of military professionalism, I'm wondering just how far the story will swerve if I chose otherwise. Guess I'll find out later this week, if I can find room to carve out some more time with this one.

Eagle Knight Paradox is out for £9.09/$10, with a 10% launch discount.