What better way to have some fun with the traditions of fantasy video games and nerd culture than through a game where you role-play as a role-player? That’s the premise of the Knights of Pen & Paper games, which see you gather up a brave party of adventurers… then sit around a table and tell the dungeon master what you want to do. It’s a strong central conceit, adding a meta-commentary to what would otherwise be a solid but familiar RPG backbone, and this sequel expands neatly on the systems and presentation of the original. It’s not quite as tactically deep as it could have been, nor does it have the end-game I would have liked to see, but Knights of Pen & Paper 2 is thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless.
Starting out at Spawn Point Village with a quest that involves the village rats from the rat traps that have been set up about the place, you learn that the world is in peril from a character calling himself the Paper Knight. He has strange, mystical powers - second edition powers in fact, while your campaign, and everything in it, is meant to be first edition. The only thing to do is find the Disc of House Rules and strip him of his OP abilities.
That description alone should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect here. This is a game with its tongue firmly planted in cheek, and every piece of dialogue is essentially a vehicle for jokes and pop culture references. The adventurers keep up a running commentary on everything that’s happening in the game, frequently dropping geeky references and joking about the DM’s ability to craft scenarios. It’s highly entertaining, albeit ultimately not that substantive.
The gameplay is geared completely around turn-based battles, and there’s a fair bit to wrap your head around, starting with character creation. Sure, there are the usual class choices like warrior, mage and hunter – each of which has unique stats, traits and skills, but you also choose a race – human, elf or dwarf, and a social group - each of which has its own perk and set of stats. Do I want to be a rich kid for the boost to gold find or should I be a lab rat and get an extra trinket slot? These add up to some entertaining combinations. In my current game I have a lab rat elf ninja and an exchange student dwarf cleric, to name just a couple.
It’s really fun discovering how the various combinations play out as you level up and put stats into different abilities, and you can swap players in and out of your party at the tavern. I never had enough gold to really build out more than five characters in my first play-through though, and in fact, I only added a fifth character towards the end when I realised my cheerleader elf paladin wasn’t enough support to get through to the story’s conclusion. I wound up adding a cleric as my fifth character to bring in another way to heal, not to mention regain energy (mana) and dispel negative status effects.
In addition to deciding how to spend skill points every time you level up, each character can also be given weapons, armour and trinkets that can have effects both positive and negative. A weapon might boost damage, your critical hit percentage and introduce a chance to wound an enemy, but it might also increase that character’s threat level, making it more likely enemies will choose to attack him or her. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you have a warrior, for instance, you can bulk up his health and armour so he can take the hits, then level up his passive ability Riposte for automatic counter-attacks. Having one character drawing most of the aggro also means you can build out your other party members a little differently. If you have a character that can stun enemies, for example, you can choose gear and trinkets that boost their initiative to ensure they have an early turn in every encounter.
Those are just a couple of examples, but chances are you’ll get through just fine without a crazily optimised set of characters with all the right gear. For the majority of the campaign I found Knights of Pen & Paper 2 hit a good difficulty level, perhaps erring on the side of easy. I encountered one significant spike towards the end that forced me to go and tackle a bunch of side-quests – and add a cleric to my party – but that made coming back and pushing through that fight all the more satisfying.
I do feel, however, like Knights of Pen & Paper 2 was building to something that it never quite reached. Just as my characters were really getting powerful, and the game was promising to kick into a new gear, I finished it and that was that. No new game plus! That really took me by surprise, and I was left craving a meatier challenge for my party… not to mention a compelling reason to max out my gear and unlock all the crafting recipes.
It’s a shame, but there’s always the option to start again with fresh characters… which is exactly what I did, and I’m enjoying my second time through, particularly since it gave me an excuse to try out some of the new classes and social groups I’d unlocked. I’m now in the process of building up a party that plays completely differently to my original crew. My rocker elf warlock curses enemies, steals their health, summons demons and can use his own health to fuel his magic when needed. My jock dwarf barbarian hulks out, dealing and taking massive damage. My lab rat elf ninja can stun enemies on mass, has high initiative and crit stats and wounds enemies when he lands a critical hit. Who else will I add? I’ll wait and see what I need.
I should also mention that starting again isn’t quite starting again. You’re able to purchase furniture for the game room that gives stat boosts across saves. That arcade cabinet? +2 to initiative. That sofa? +2 to damage. Gold also carries across, so I was able to kit my new characters out with decent gear right from the start, which in turn means I can take on higher level quests, or at least experiment with less conventional party builds.
Speaking of gold, Knights of Pen & Paper 2 have micro-transactions, allowing you to buy everything from a modest amount of gold for very little through to a ridiculous amount of gold for not that much more. I can definitely see a situation where someone might spend all their gold on gear before a battle then feel pressured into paying for more if their characters all die and they don’t have enough to resurrect them, but as long as you have a small buffer – and remember you can run from fights – the game is balanced so that buying gold is a luxury, not a necessity.
Special mention must also be made of the visuals, which represent an enormous change from the original’s deliberately chunky, 8-bit pixel art. This sequel has stepped into the modern era and looks the business.