Harmoknight review: Out of step

I love Game Freak. The studio's rise from being Satoshi Tajiri's one-man doujin strategy guide production house to creating Pokémon, a franchise beloved the world over, is both incredible and inspiring. But Pokémon's success also came with a cost. Before addicting a generation to pocket monsters, Game Freak made games of all different genres across multiple platforms - the awesome action/puzzler Mendel Palace for the NES, Jelly Boy and its sequel on SNES, and my personal favorite, Pulseman - a Mega Drive title I rank among the best 16-bit platformers ever made.

Since Pokémon took Japan by storm in 1995, however, Game Freak has devoted the vast majority of its resources to making more critters for us to catch. It's only made three non-Pokémon games since, most recently 2005's distressingly overlooked Drill Dozer on GBA. Now, 8 years after Drill Dozer, we've finally got another new and original Game Freak IP in Harmoknight. As a longtime fan of the developer - and someone very hungry for something new - I was eager to get my hands on this one.

Gallery: HarmoKnight

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Harmoknight review: Out of step originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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