BeastKnights: The Feudal Tamers

BeastKnights: The Feudal Tamers is a fighting video game developed by Draconian Games and published by The Deviant Fighting Company, released on August 9, 2016, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows via Steam. It's the second game in the DraconianVerse.

Taking place in the year 1521, the plot follows a conjunction of warriors from around the world, each one with their own motivations to fight. Most of the heroic warriors are going to eradicate Deathstructor from erasing all lifeforms while a few evil ones are either following his will or have a hidden agenda against him.

Gameplay and Features
BeastKnights is a 2.5D fighter inspired in the Mortal Kombat series but incorporates elements of the Soul Calibur and Samurai Shodown series, with elements of Mace: The Dark Age added in the mix. Just like Battle Rhythm, the game has a six-button scheme.

The major highlight of this game is the Spirit Indicator, which serves them to summon their animal spirits by unleashing their special attacks. Summoning the spirits costs half of the Spirit Indicator.

The signature attacks of the game are Limit Breaks, and each character has three of them. The first two cost one third of the Brave Indicator and resemble the traditional Super Moves of each fighting game, whereas the Maximum cost the full indicator and is more cinematic in nature.

The Fatalities of the game are called Murder Acts, and each character has two types: Physical and Spiritual. Physical Murders involve killing the opponent either with their weapons, elements or bare hands, while the Spiritual Murders involve the same but with the Animal Spirit doing the killing part, often assisted by the owner of said Spirit.

The Story Mode will have 7 regular matches, followed by the Rival vs. Rival match taking place in the desolated land and concluding with the two final matches. In the Story Mode, after you choose a character, a prologue is shown in form of book pages, similar to Soul Calibur III 's Tales of Souls. The ending cutscenes, on the other hand, are cinematic. There are also interlude cutscenes in Story Mode where characters will interact with each other right before the fight and then after the fight, but you cannot perform the Murder Acts in said matches.

The Combo Breakers are also present but done more in the vein as the Mortal Kombat series, as it costs two thirds of the Brave Meter. The Training Boot Camp stage is a place which resembles a medieval boot camp, hence the name, and has many weapons in its walls, as well as straw dummies. The game runs on 60 frames per second on everything, save for the opening cutscene which runs in 24 frames per second and the cutscenes involving the introductory and victory sequences, as well as the Maximum Limit Breaks, Murder Acts and the story mode cutscenes, which run on 30 frames per second.

Story
Long time ago, spirits started to roam Earth since its formation. Ever since the origin of mankind up to the rise of the first civilizations, said spirits are starting to take form of animals to interact with them, forming a strong bond. However, Deathstructor and his army of undead, started to invade the land of the living through a war against mankind. The ancient Animal Spirits sealed the Deathopian Lord deep down in the Box of Laments. Now, in the medieval period, constant wars and bloodshed caused the seal to be broken, allowing Deathstructor to escape from the box in order to resume with the invasion, and only a select group of warriors will stop his reign of terror.

Characters
BeastKnights launched with 18 playable characters, of which two of them are unlockables: Mantigore, the sub-boss and Deathstructor, the final boss. Eight other fighters were DLC characters.

Stages

 * Amazonian Rainforest: Paulo's stage
 * Assassin's Camp: Assad's stage
 * Brazilian Waterfall: Mirina's stage
 * Caerphilly Castle: Rudolph's stage
 * Capitoline Hill: Ignatius' stage
 * Core of Earth: Mantigore's stage
 * Cossack Training Camp: Lena's stage
 * Council of Shamans: Ousmane's stage
 * Dakota Grasslands: Red Axe's stage
 * Dark Forest: Shadoz' stage
 * Deathstructor's Throne Room: Deathstructor's stage
 * Gretchen's Lab: Gretchen's stage
 * Holy Roman Empire's Throne: Luther's stage
 * King Henry's Tournament Arena
 * Massacre in Prague Streets: Funzo's stage
 * Nagoya Castle: Yuka's stage
 * Outside Deathstructor's Castle
 * Papal States' Headquarters: Iron Crusher's stage
 * Pirate Dock: Jean's stage
 * Roderick's Forge Workshop: Roderick's stage
 * Scottish Village: Tifa's stage
 * Sengoku Battleground: Haruto's stage
 * Shaolin Pagodas: Lang's stage
 * Spanish Royal Throne: Alejandro's stage
 * Tenochtitlan: Xochitl's stage
 * Torture Chamber: Rottex's stage
 * Training Boot Camp
 * Village of Vikings: Gunnar's stage
 * Welsh Mountains: Krolk's stage

Development
Development began for BeastKnights two months before the release of Battle Rhythm. Saúl Saavedra H. assigned a secondary team to work in a weapon-based fighter taking place in the medieval years while his main team was developing Battle Rhythm. The decision for the game to be part of the same universe as Battle Rhythm is done on purpose as the creator wanted his works to be interconnected with each other, thus officially forming the DraconianVerse.

Voice Cast

 * Devon Aoki - Yuka Kazama
 * Troy Baker - Ignatius Meridius
 * Steve Blum - Iron Crusher
 * Emilia Clarke - Mirina
 * Stephen Dillane - Luther Schneider
 * DC Douglas - Krolk
 * Richard Epcar - Funzo Jack
 * Stephen "Sheamus" Farelly - Roderick O'Hara
 * Crispin Freeman - Gunnar Rulfson
 * Mark Hamill - Announcer
 * Adam Harrington - Deathstructor
 * Mila Jovovich - Lena Shapolova
 * Archie Kao - Zi Lang
 * Michael McConnohie - Alejandro Barragan
 * Rhassan Orange - Ousmane Kaba
 * Jamieson Price - Shadoz
 * Philip Shahbaz - Assad Kadar
 * David Sobolov - Jean DuBois
 * Daniel Southworth - Haruto Kazama
 * Tara Strong - Gretchen Eillan
 * Fred Tatasciore - Rottex
 * Christina Vee - Tifa Eillan
 * Roger Velasco - Paulo Agostinho
 * Elijah Wood - Rudolph Barrett
 * Maisie Williams - Xochitl

Sequels
The first sequel, BeastKnights II: Sins of War, was released in 2020, four years after the release of the first game. A second sequel, tentatively titled BeastKnights III, is currently in the planning stages.