FlyKnight is a $6, first-person RPG in the King's Field/Lunacid mold that whips ass, looks like Old School Runescape, and feels like it could have asked for twice as much money and still been a bargain.
That alone makes it one of my easiest recommendations on Steam, but it also just got a free update of the GOTY/Enhanced/Definitive Edition variety, from its solo dev, while still only asking new players for $6 upfront—$4 at the time of writing, thanks to a sale running through September 30. Here are the big Enhanced Edition additions:
- Multiple difficulties, with a Miyazaki's Choice™ poison swamp exclusive to Hard
- Item and enemy randomization, with savable procedural generation seeds
- Four new weapon types, and an unspecified number of additions to previous weapon categories
- Performance improvements "especially noticeable on Steam Deck"—which is great, because that's definitely where I most recommend playing
- Graphics, UI, and balance tweaks, plus bugfixes
The update's pound-for-pound beefiness is appropriately proportional to FlyKnight's own: I loved the seven hours I spent with this game on Steam Deck last year, and always meant to revisit it—now I have the perfect excuse.
FlyKnight has the vibes and the charm down, but so do a lot of entries in this growing subgenre of indie King's Field-alikes. What set it apart for me was its excellent combat. FlyKnight has this very unique, satisfying system of locational limb damage, letting you priority target weak spots or weapon-holding appendages. It also only just clicked with me how appropriate that is in a game about anthropomorphic bugs, which notably take severed limbs like champs.
It's very slow-paced, but high-skill, like a classico survival horror game. Think less dodging and i-frames, more controlling distance, taking advantage of stagger opportunities, and perfect blocking. I can't recommend FlyKnight enough at the price of "a pretty good cup of coffee," let alone "a slightly worse cup of coffee" on sale. Check it out on Steam.
