Genre: Sandbox
Developer: Keen Games
Publisher: 505 Games

Portal Knights' aesthetic, from its almost Roblox-style character designs, Flash-lookalike menus, and dismal icon art reminds one of a fifty cent mobile game. Most annoyingly though is the fact that a notion which simply can't be screwed up-- that of a colorful, voxel-based world-- in fact can, as Portal Knights' almost unbelievably aliased models and lower-than-original-PlayStation texture resolutions will attest.

Some fellow named Blake Robinson delivers the musical score, and it's quite possibly the most grating music this reviewer has ever heard; its whimsical, Harry Potter-like chiming grinds on infinitely in the background, and is simply intolerable for more than a few minutes at a time. The game's limited sound effects and voice acting sound like they were farmed off of a collection CD.

With Minecraft on one end of the open-ended spectrum, and Dragon Quest Builders on the more scenario-driven side, Portal Knights operates like the latter; the player moves from island to island, taking quests from non-playable characters while killing enemies with the simplest of possible combat schemes, and moving about blocks. It plays fine, but gives only limited mechanical inspiration for the player to push on.

It's difficult to believe that the developers of Portal Knights thought this was a sellable product-- and even more difficult to believe that there are people in the world who play and enjoy this abomination-- yet this is the industry environment we're in. In a universe replete with Minecraft clones-- not to mention the long-legged, ever-improving grand daddy itself-- Portal Knights is in a nowhweresville of awfulness.