Screenshot: Sir Lovelot
The release of
Super Meat Boy Forever left me wanting a new, tight platformer in the vein of
Super Meat Boy.
Forever’s endless runner format just didn’t really give me the same amount of fun I got from
Meat Boy when it was in a platformer format.
Sir Lovelot, while not exactly a successor to
Super Meat Boy, really gives me some of those
Meat Boy vibes. But instead of a jumping meatball, you’re a little randy knight looking for love in all the wrong places.
Sir Lovelot is super tight platformer with some action thrown in. You play as little Sir Lovelot—an adorable knight on a quest for love. He doesn’t just settle for one maiden, however. The world of
Sir Lovelot is filled with tower-bound damsels who seem to seek love more than rescue. But they won’t accept that love without the proper gift, first—namely, a flower, which you have to procure during the course of the level.
Screenshot: Sir Lovelot
As Sir Lovelot you can run, shoot, swim, double jump and dash. He’s also great at clinging onto walls, which you can slide down while shooting at enemies. Unlike
Super Meat Boy, Sir Lovelot occasionally has to stand his ground and fire projectiles at his enemies. But most of the time the goal in
Sir Lovelot is just to live to collect those presents to woo the next princess. After you collect the requisite offering, the princess will let down her hair and you can climb up to new found love. It’s not long before you’re kicked out, however, and forced to find the next damsel that need’s Sir Lovelot’s help, with four areas full of tower-bound ladies to love.
The platforming in
Sir Lovelot is tight, and reminiscent of
Super Meat Boy, mostly because of the unforgiving jumps full of spiky obstacles, but also enemies. The enemies work a lot like obstacles to be avoided. There’s a timer at the top of the screen urging you to complete levels as quickly as possible. You don’t have a limited amount of lives, so you can try as many times as you can stand it—though your deaths are tallied and considered in your score at the end of a level.
Screenshot: Sir Lovelot
It seems like
Sir Lovelot is built with speedrunning in mind. There are plenty of secrets to find, some containing collectibles for each level—but many of the secrets are paths that cut corners and shave chunks off of your time. Half the fun I had in
Sir Lovelot was discovering new, faster and less dangerous paths to take in lieu of the obvious ones. This adds a ton of replayability to the game, which is good, because getting through
Sir Lovelot’s four areas and 40 levels is a lot faster than you might expect. I would love to see more levels added in the future.
Sir Lovelot is a charming game, with a lot of its charm in its storybook pixel art style, and appropriately matching soundtrack. There isn’t a ton of visual variety between the different areas, but there’s enough to keep it interesting.
I really enjoyed my playthrough of
Sir Lovelot. I won’t be going back to try and optimize my run or get all the secrets, but it’s not a wholly unappealing prospect.
Sir Lovelot is a charming, tight little precision platformer that I enjoyed very much—I just wish there was more of it. But what’s there is lovely and fun.
Sir Lovelot is available on
Steam and Atari VCS,
Xbox One X,
PlayStation 4 and 5, and
Nintendo Switch.
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