Video Game / Fight Knight

ALL problems can be solved with his fists!

FIGHT KNIGHT (yes, in all caps) is a 3D First Person dungeon Beat 'em Up, by indie game studio Team Sorcerobe. For all intents and purposes, it's Doom mixed with Punch-Out!!! and God Hand, with some hints of Dark Souls (the character was partly inspired by a fisticuffs-only Souls build). The gameplay involves exploring a grand tower while battling random encounters and bosses in a two-lane corridor while blocking and weaving around enemy attacks while delivering powerful counters. Oh, and your only form of interaction is punching.

A mysterious tower ascends from the ground across the land, appearing without warning and before long disappearing just as mysteriously, and its interior is no less mysterious, with areas taken from various completely different locations. And dangerous monsters roam its halls. Dark sorcery is afoot, no doubt. But who would be brave, powerful and skilled enough to claim the prize at the peak?

The player assumes the role of the eponymous FIGHT KNIGHT, a crowd-favorite of the gladiatorial circuit and master of arms. However, he has been away from the arena for some time, pursuing the tower for some unknown reason. And on top of that, despite being a known weapons-master, he refuses to touch his many armaments, instead utilizing just his fists - in fact, it seems weapons outright shatter in his hands, possibly due to a curse. Fortunately, that is not a problem, for FIGHT KNIGHT's fists are satisfactory to get the job done...

The final demo version of the game was released in 2018, and can be downloaded here. The full version, following some delays, was released on November 30, 2021.

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FIGHT KNIGHT contains examples of:

• Action Commands: Each special move comes with an action command that, when performed properly, improves the special's power or duration. For example, the 100-Inch Punch requires punching when a slider on the command bar crosses over a section on the end of it, with the size of the section decreasing and the speed of the slider increasing the more you pull it off.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: It's revealed on the final floor that The Tower is run by an A.I. originally created to "fulfill all directives" given to it, hence the rumor that The Tower grants wishes. Unfortunately, the A.I. had its own ideas about what its creators meant when they said they desired peace and stability in the world, and thus went through with what it calls "The Collective Directive", with the first iteration implied to have been the complete annihilation of the civilization that created it.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The camera will bob, duck, and zoom during combat to give the impression of high-speed movement. If it gives you motion sickness, you can reduce those camera effects in the options menu.
  • Enemies turn a different color as they prepare to attack. Furthermore, if you're punching something while a different enemy begins winding up an attack, the camera will turn to highlight said enemy so you notice it easier.
  • The speed of combat can be freely changed in the options menu, in case things are moving too quickly otherwise... or not quickly enough.
• Blood Knight: FIGHT KNIGHT is this. When the Archive claims that FIGHT KNIGHT lacks purpose, they then ask him about it. He responds with a few gestures ending with a double thumbs down which somehow translates to them as a "True Challenge". They then calibrate to grant his wish and sends him sky high, following him as the Archive tears the tower itself apart and turns it into a dragon and fights him.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Quite literally. In the aftermath of the Final Boss, it's revealed that when FIGHT KNIGHT punched out the Archive's dragon form with his left arm, he had broken it, though the credits scene and Captain Cooke's dialogue imply it's been healing ever since the Archive fight.
• Challenge Seeker: See the Blood Knight section.
• Circles of Hell: The Archive's aim is to fulfill the "directives" of all people: it achieves this goal in part by consolidating all people with similar "directives" in the same place, in a manner similar to Dante's Inferno.
• Continuing is Painful: Since you can only save the game by resting on the ship, dying in the tower can revert a lot of your progress.
• Cursed with Awesome: FIGHT KNIGHT apparently is cursed and unable to pick up a weapon without destroying it. Not that this is a major handicap for him, and possibly why he can defeat enemies with fisticuffs in the first place.
• Dem Bones: Animate skeletons called "Skellies" serve as common early monsters. There's even a skeletal minotaur as a boss encounter.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: FIGHT KNIGHT literally does this to every boss. He does end up breaking it in the final fight against the Archive, though.
• Down the Drain: The Flooded Aqueducts, the first section of the tower. FIGHT KNIGHT has to punch switches that shut off its waterfalls to make progress.
• Draconic Humanoid: The Blacksmith that switches out gauntlets is one, referred to as a 'draconid' by the game.
• Fanservice: A minor one in-universe: June thinks that King Casket's second phase is pretty hot. And she also admits to ogling the football players in the colosseum.
• Funny Animal: A good amount of them. The two NPCs who reside in the archives are both anthropomorphic mantises named May and June, and the blacksmith is a dragon (or "Draconid", as the game calls him).
• Genre Shift: The game suddenly goes from pure fantasy to Science Fantasy when the core of the Tower is revealed to be an ancient computer system using Magitek. Most of the final floor takes place inside a virtual world created by the Tower A.I.
• Gladiator Games: FIGHT KNIGHT is referred to as a "Gladiator" by the Prince. Also, there's a colosseum area that features a red hot Football Gladiator and an icy cold Hockey Geisha who constantly bicker with each other. During the Prince's speech about how FIGHT KNIGHT revealed to the crowds the fact that the Prince has a false arm, it takes place in an arena, and the Prince was "Undefeated" before FIGHT KNIGHT came along, implying that an Arena Fight is a special occasion when it involves the Prince.
• Glass Cannon: Naturally, FIGHT KNIGHT can't take too many hits, but he can deal damage in spades. Fighting is about evasion and carefully-timed blocks in order to deliver counter-attacks.
  • The Gamblin' Gunslinger gauntlet takes this up to eleven. FIGHT KNIGHT has even less health while wearing it, but both his movement and attack speed is upped, and he gets some powerful charge attacks. The result is that FIGHT KNIGHT can dish out huge amounts of damage, but really has to avoid getting hit.
• Ground Punch: Kongo Wollop, where FIGHT KNIGHT leaps high into the air and comes crashing down with both fists hitting the ground so hard it literally sends the enemies midair and stuns them.
• Hailfire Peaks: The Chaotic Colosseum shifts constantly between a Lethal Lava Land with football and baseball themed hooligan enemies, and a Slippy-Slidey Ice World with hockey-playing ninja and samurai.
• Heroic Mime: FIGHT KNIGHT doesn't talk. He only punches.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: There are enemies that throw bombs at FIGHT KNIGHT, who can send them back with a punch, or even just step away and let the bomb do its thing in the enemy's face.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Your first fight with Rivali at the start of the desert floor will end with him knocking you down with his new Rocket Punch, resulting in the player being left at zero health once the fight is over. You can win the fight, but this only causes Rivali to shoot you with the Rocket Punch early, and the game will continue as if you lost anyway.
• Instant Knots: One of the mentioned enemies that is basically a riff of Indiana Jones uses a whip, although it's used to tie you up just by striking you. Not that it helps them much.
• Ironic Hell: FIGHT KNIGHT's curse was intended to be one by The Prince. Since FIGHT KNIGHT disarmed him - literally - by pulling off his prosthetic hand, he asked The Archive to curse FIGHT KNIGHT, who made his name in gladiatorial combat as a powerful swordsman, to never be able to hold a weapon again. FIGHT KNIGHT proceeded to take time out of the scene to adapt as he tracked down The Prince and The Tower. He doesn't seem to be all that miffed about being unable to use weapons, though.
  • It's also implied that this is where The Tower sends people to "grant" their wishes.
• Limit Break: There are super moves, and even a three-stage gauge!
• Meteor Move: FIGHT KNIGHT delivers an immense one to The Tower after it admits defeat to ensure it stays down and doesn't enact its Collective Directive. Also Overlaps with Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu, quite literally.
• Mighty Glacier: The Stalwart Samurai Gloves, which allows you to freeze enemies at the cost of slow punching.
  • The Leather Manhandler, like the Gamblin' Gunslinger, takes this up to eleven through its 36 HP (the most you can get), and its powerful yet slow punches. You can even Flip the Bird with it!
• Mook Maker: Bone Gobbos create Skellies by tossing bones onto the battlefield. Punching them consistently prevents them from tossing the bones. Also, there's the Mymmynancer, who instead revives enemies instead of summoning them.
• Missed Him by That Much: A running gag with May and June - they both go into the tower, but instead of waiting for each other to come back once they return to the library, they end up going back in to the next highest floor FIGHT KNIGHT has reached. Even when May figures out June has been back at the library, she still goes back in! June realizes what's going on when she gets May's note later on, causing her to stay back at the library until May returns (though she still complains about May going in even when she said she didn't want to), and eventually the sisters finally meet up and decide to go in together, just in time for the final floor.
• Mummy Wrap: One of King Casket's snakes is mummified, and uses its wraps to tie you up.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: Punk Croc, the boss of the Swamps.
• Obviously Evil: The sketchy-looking "Nightwatchman" who is apparently out to kill the Nightwatch - he looks the part and he talks incredibly suspiciously. Except his stated intentions are genuine and that if he was ever evil he's genuinely trying to turn a new leaf. The Nightwatch still accept him into their ranks with open arms despite his failure to save anyone, and it turns out his whole manner of speech is just a thing he does and he's trying to work on it.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: The Skellotaur, a bony minotaur boss in the Flooded Aqueducts.
• Pun-Based Title: It doesn't help that the entire game takes place at night as well...
• Punch Catch: Happens at the conclusion of the second Rivali fight, as previously FK gets knocked down back at the desert floor.
• Punny Name: Loads of them, from FIGHT KNIGHT (A KNIGHT that FIGHTS), to Prince Rivali Rosencranz (the RIVAL to FK), and even the aforementioned Punk Croc (Saying it fast makes you say "Punk Rock" instead). There's also May and June, named after adjacent months of the year.
• Pummel Duel: Attempting to use the Starry-Eyed Special on Puppet Knight has him counter with his own version, resulting in one of these.
• Quicksand Sucks: A context-specific version. In the sand area, all the upper floor "out of bounds" sand tiles cause you to sink to the lower floor, but the rest of the sand only sinks when you step on specific tiles within two tiles away from the stone faces, which immediately Turn Red and cause you to sink. Being constantly aware of where you can step and where you can't is a vital part of solving what is effectively one big navigation puzzle, and later you need to figure out which tiles to step on to deliberately sink yourself to reach certain blocked-off lower floor areas you can't reach otherwise.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Goes without saying. While the player can unleash incredibly fast rapid attacks normally, the Star-Eyed Special, the very first special move you start with, takes this above and beyond in a way that would make its inspirations proud.
  • Not to mention the Glass Cannon gauntlets of The Gamblin' Gunslinger, who can unleash an even faster volley of punches.
• Rated M for Manly: It's about a knight who storms a tower, with no weapons (and that any he picks up outright shatters in his own hands), and punches everything to death.
• Retraux: An interesting variation. It mixes classic sprite-based first person visuals ala Doom or Wolfenstein 3-D, but with pseudo-3D dungeon crawling with a deliberately limited colour palette.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: One of the enemy types has a revolver, complete with classic ricochets, manually loading bullet by bullet, and the good ol' revolver spin.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Good lord are there loads of them.
  • FIGHT KNIGHT himself is the brutish, testosterone fueled Red Oni to:
    • The much more chill and less combat focused Captain Cooke's Blue Oni
    • The more elegant and graceful Rivali Rosencranz's Blue Oni
  • June appears to be a Purple Oni, as she's the Red Oni to:
    • The calm and collected (though not without her moments of energy) May's Blue Oni
    • But acts as the Blue Oni to FIGHT KNIGHT's quiet yet Hot-Blooded and combat focused Red Oni.
  • The Chaotic Colosseum is home to the red-hot Hotrock player Hot-Head and the ice queen Icepuck player Glacia.
• Shockwave Stomp: Kongo Wollop. Jump high, Plant the sides of your fists into the ground, and watch the enemies fly.
• Shout-Out:
  • All three of the "interesting armor" pieces featured in the demo are quite blatantly Shovel Knight's helmet, boots and shovel, which is lampshaded with the helmet. Nevermind the entire plot of a knight using an unusual means of combatting his foes while going after a mysterious magical tower...
  • There's an enemy type that is basically a riff of Indiana Jones, complete with a monster party name called "Temple of Doom".
  • One of the groups of enemies is called Notorious R.I.B..
  • One of the Fight Knight's supers is called the 100-Inch Punch, another is the Star-Eyed Special.
• Talk to the Fist: Literally. FIGHT KNIGHT communicates purely by punching. NPCs seem to be able to understand what he tries to communicate with his punches, with exception of the town guard.
• Violence is the Only Option: Quite literally. Everything you do outside of combat, from opening doors to talking to people, involves punching things. This eventually gets on the nerves of June, an adventurer mantis who left the library in search of new things to write about, as you eventually knock down a sarcophagus and reveal the boss of the Desert Section, King Casket.
• Unexpectedly Dark Episode: The Graveyard Grove, which is the floor comprised of what was once the town's graveyard, is the horror-themed floor that only has a light flavor of horror until go into the catacombs, which amps up the creepy atmosphere, and and pick up one of the crests. The Butcher then immediately starts pursuing Fight Knight, and the only way to get rid of him is to either escape (which is difficult), fight him off (not as difficult), or force the Butcher onto the hook at the back of the arena. The whole sub-plot implies that the town's former butcher was engaging in cannibalism, and he's become so consumed by ravenous hunger that he's turned into a horrifying abomination.
• The Unfought: Hot-Head and Glacia don't actually end up fighting you at the end of the Chaotic Colosseum, but instead Rivali knocks them both out due to getting tired of their bickering, and fights you instead.
• Villainous Breakdown: Both Rivali and the Tower undergo this, but especially the Tower as it struggles to fulfill (or even comprehend) FIGHT KNIGHT's wish, continuously giving him stronger adversaries until it concludes that it needs to fight him itself, transforming into an enormous draconic golem for a brawl in the sky.