Fights in Tight Spaces is one of my most played games. The simple-but-deep gameplay grabbed me, and I must've put hundreds of hours into the game. Knights in Tight Spaces, its sequel, was high on my radar of most anticipated games of the year. I admit to being nervous that the new gimmicks might break the flow of the game, but after spending a good long chunk of time playing through the story mode as every character, I can say that Knights in Tight Spaces is a darn worthy follow-up.

Knights separates itself from Fights by moving to a more medieval aesthetic. Gone are the ninjas, secret agents, and thugs. Instead, this title is based around a more traditional sword-and-fantasy setting. You play as a nameless layabout who accidentally wanders into a conflict that involves magic users called the Attuned and a mysterious group known as the Eleven. After gathering a party of heroes, you stab, shoot and fireball your way across the land trying to learn the truth about who's the blame and who you need to punch to stop them.

You begin each round by choosing a character from a set of fantasy archetypes, ranging from sorcerer to swordsman. Each character is defined by a few important things, and each character specializes in certain skills. A ranger can use bows but gains an attack penalty to melee attacks, while a brawler has powerful unarmed attacks but can't use weapons. Each character also has different equipment options, with some characters being able to use any piece of equipment and others limited to a weapon or a consumable item.

After that, it depends on the mode you're playing. In the default Story mode, you're put into an adventure where you follow the now-standard node tree going from fight to fight, with occasional pauses for shops, taverns, or special events. The story mode follows the same events every time you play, but there are hidden secrets that can take you on different plots, with different bosses, and different outcomes. It's more fun than the Fights version of the story. Events are much better implemented, and the choices feel more meaningful when compared to Fights, where I basically routed to hit the gym every time and most events felt too risky to bother trying. There's also Endless gameplay if you're looking for something more hop-in-and-play, so you don't have to bother with all of the messy story stuff.

The core combat in Knights is very similar to that of Fights. You're dropped into a grid-based arena and given a hand of cards. The cards represent everything you can do, from attacking to moving to blocking. Using momentum (your basic resource), you play the cards to perform actions, and once you're out, the enemies get to act. Each enemy has tactics and attacks and will approach your character in an attempt to deal massive damage. Assuming you survive the round, this repeats until one side wins or is dead.

The biggest element that separates Knights from something like Slay the Spire is that it is all about positioning. You move your character around the map using cards, and every enemy attack pattern is shown, so you can tell where an enemy is going to attack on their turn. Some enemies shoot across the map, some will attack if you step in front of them, some will teleport across the map, and more. However, this is a double-edged sword. Improper positioning can make you take damage, but by using cards and abilities that manipulate or move opponents, you can make enemies damage their allies. With proper movement and positioning, you can turn a simple "swap places with an enemy" card into a boatload of damage.

The overall power level of cards in Knights feels a tad higher than in Fights. There's a lot of reoccurring cards that appear in both games, especially in the Unarmed attack tree, but the new barrage of swords, bows and magic all have some supremely powerful effects. Magic is phenomenally strong, allowing for long-range, high-damage attacks, massive AoE blasts, instant teleportation, and other cool things. If anything, magic may be slightly overtuned. It felt significantly easier to dish out massive damage to any square on the map.

Also new is equipment, as previously mentioned. Each character can equip an item, and most can also equip a weapon. Some can even don armor and shields in addition to that. Each piece of equipment has different benefits. Armor grants a passive amount of blocking ability in every round or special passive bonuses, such as allowing non-magical characters to use magic. Meanwhile, weapons can amplify the power of attacks or even yield new attacks. Equipment can also be upgraded to modify its effect, and some high-end equipment is worth its weight in gold.

Perhaps the biggest change from Fights in Tight Spaces is that you can have a three-person party rather than one individual fighter. When you recruit a character, they join your party with a small selection of cards and give you extra momentum. In battle, your deck and momentum are shared between all party members. Some cards can be used by any party member, while others require specific skills, such as magic requiring you to be Attuned or arrows requiring bows. You can swap between characters at any time, but every character is capable of performing Support Attacks, which are free bonus actions that activate automatically if you attack an enemy who is in range of the character. If you attack an enemy standing across the map from a bow-using ranger, they'll follow up with a free bonus attack.

Overall, I like the party system but still think it has some flaws. All of the decks are shared, so if you want a diverse party, you risk bloating your deck. This can make players focus on one specific character's cards and use the other characters for support attacks or drawing enemy attention. There are enough "catch all" cards that this isn't a huge problem, but it made me see extra party members as disposable meat shields and free bonus momentum. The difference in equipment options makes them more viable. Melee fighters can equip armor that gives them a free bonus block every round, and long-ranged archers excel at support attacks.

The enemy AI did seem to have a tougher time prioritizing who to attack, so Knights lost a little bit of what made Fights so exciting. Having five different attacks coming in at once and needing to figure out the exact set of cards to get out of it was one of the thrills of that game. When the enemy is divided on who they are attacking, it often becomes a much simpler affair. On the other hand, the moments where you are in a tight spot are immensely satisfying, since you have to juggle three different characters.

I came away from Knights in Tight Spaces feeling like it was more of a lateral move than an upgrade. I like some of the changes, especially to the general structure of the game, but it felt like there was less razor-tight balance in the game. It's super fun to create a team of awesome adventurers who tear through enemy groups with incredible skills and abilities. Knights didn't scratch the same itch as Fights did, even though it was a lot of fun in a slightly different way.

Visually, the graphics are a minor upgrade to Fights' simple silhouette aesthetic. The environments are busier and more complex, everything is done in an ancient paper style with simplistic colors, and the animations are more varied. It's still very recognizable and looks really cool in motion. Some of the color palettes are too close to one another, so it's a little difficult to identify enemy types at a glance. The music is solid, and it does a good job of setting the game's mood.

Knights in Tight Spaces is a very worthy sequel to Fights in Tight Spaces. Not every new gameplay mechanic hits the mark, but there are enough fresh cards, fresh features, and fresh concepts to make it a genuine delight to play. The party opens up a whole new degree of freedom, and creating a Rube Goldberg machine of chained attacks is fun enough that it could be a game all on its own. Besides, who doesn't like hitting evil skeletons with lightning?

Score: 8.0/10