Asdivine Knot is a mobile game that was recently ported to PC and every single major home console. Those who read that and may have immediately feared the implications of what being designed for mobile devices entails should not worry at all. While this title features many monetisation options and gacha elements, they are extremely non-intrusive and don’t affect the experience in any major way. This version of Asdivine Knot is a complete game through and through and can be enjoyed without spending a single additional cent.
Needless to say, Asdivine Knot is a 2D sprite-based JRPG in the spirit of classics like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, or Chrono Trigger. As a matter of fact, it feels like a love letter to those titles, complete with conventional turn-based combat, special skills/limits that can be used in battle, characters that embody different individual classes, a complex narrative, and a lot more.
Fortunately, however, while Asdivine Knot clearly borrows various elements from classic JRPGs, it still is perfect for any potential newcomers who may not be too familiar with the ins and outs of the genre, as its mechanics were tailor-made to prevent them from feeling overwhelmed or confused. Combat is incredibly simple but effective: battle speed can be altered with the switch of a button, it has auto-battle mode (which is perfect for grinding), there’s a specialised item that basically deactivates random encounters, and the cutscenes even have a dialogue log that allows players to read back any vital information that they may have missed.
Asdivine Knot not only is very accessible and entertaining thanks to all these features, but they also expose its origins as a mobile game. There are times in which it feels like it should be played with a show or a video in the background, as the party crushes enemies with the auto-battle feature while they level up and grind for both items and experience. While that’s perfectly fine, it does create a bit of a dichotomy against its convoluted narrative, as it’s quite big and dialogue-heavy, and it’s not really the type of game that encourages players to skip and/or ignore every single cutscene.
Gameplay-wise, Asdivine Knot’s biggest flaw is a lack of ambition and originality. Yes, its simplicity is perfect for newcomers, but anyone who has a basic understanding of the JRPG genre will find it to be quite derivative; it lacks a unique gimmick that can help it stand out in a sea of similar-looking JRPGs. On top of that, its repetitive gameplay designed for casual play on mobile devices can come off as boring at times, and as a result, may often fail to engage the player in the long run.
One of Asdivine Knot’s sole interesting ideas is its airship customisation. Just like in the many Final Fantasy games that inspired it, at one point the party unlocks an airship that not only can be used for transportation but also serves as the main base of operations. As the player advances through the adventure, they can use resources to build various useful rooms in their airship (like a bazaar, an item crafting room, etc.) and even recruit NPCs in the overworld to run them. It’s not the deepest or more groundbreaking mechanic, but it does add some much-needed flavour to an otherwise mundane JRPG experience.
The exact same can be said about Asdivine Knot’s narrative. It tells the story of Verselio, a former cleric who lost everyone he loved in the name of the deity of the world, Treises, and vows to take down every single one of their symbols, even if it means having to face their devout followers. Along the way, he meets other colourful characters who’ll join his adventure and slowly make up his party, including an optimistic healing maiden named Marlie, a strong and stern swordswoman named Rhys, and a sadistic and kooky musician named Musika.
Truth be told, the story of Asdivine Knot does touch on some fascinating themes of personal belief, sacrifice, religious extremism, and societal corruption, but it’s admittedly quite generic, as it feels like the quintessential “destroy god” plot that most JRPGs are guilty of using. This lack of originality also applies to the writing of the characters themselves, as they are all quite likable but also feel extremely one-note, as if they were created to fill in a different JRPG archetype: Verselio is the “edgy” one, Marlie is the cute one, Rhys is the stoic one, Musika is the weird one, and so on and so forth.
On top of that, the pacing of Asdivine Knot’s story is all over the place. While traversing the overworld and exploring dungeons is quite dynamic, the game is also filled to the brim with long, mandatory segments of dialogue and cutscenes that can often be tedious to watch, no matter how engaged the player is in the plot itself. The fact that said cutscenes are made up of sprites moving around and portraits to display the expressions of a handful of important characters, and none of them ever try to do anything interesting to elevate the storytelling (like implementing animation or switching to a different art style), makes the overall experience even duller. Whether this is a positive or a negative depends on the player’s tolerance for long, drawn-out cutscenes that feel like they came from the most basic visual novel.
Fortunately, however, the rest of Asdivine Knot’s presentation is quite solid, with detailed and colourful sprites crafted for both the overworld and the battles, and a soundtrack that, while very beautiful and moving at times, lacks a bit of variety. Fun fact: Musika has a special ability that allows her to change the battle music with the press of a button, and it can feel like a breath of fresh air from time to time.
At the end of the day, Asdivine Knot is a very basic JRPG that ultimately does nothing special but will be perfectly serviceable for anybody who’s looking to experience some fun, turn-based combat in a game they can boot up whenever they’re doing something else, which makes the fact it’s available on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 especially convenient.
