Delivery! It's Postknight 2 for Android

What if delivering mail was actually exciting? Postknight 2 dares to dream that dream.

As you might be able to guess from the title, Postknight 2 casts you in the role of a titular Postknight, an important job in the land of Prism that combines delivering mail with protecting the people. It's almost an absurd idea, but against the game's rough and tumble medieval fantasy backdrop, it makes a bit more sense that your local mailman might need a sword and shield out in the field.

Postknight 2 isn't revolutionizing genres or serving up wild new mechanical intrigue, but it's one of the better casual games I've played that wasn't packed to the gills with ads or aggressive in-app purchases. I'd say this charming little title could easily earn a comfy spot on our list of best casual Android games.

As an up-and-coming Postknight trainee, you'll have to successfully complete deliveries to improve your rank and formally graduate to official Postknight status. Deliveries come from main or side quests, and, assuming you succeed, will net you some gold, items, and experience. Main quests progress the story, while side quests exist to get a bit of extra quick cash.

Combat didn't seem interesting at first, but managing your cooldowns gets more strategic as you progress.

The way these deliveries play out didn't immediately grab my interest, but the more I played the more I found myself enjoying the flow of combat. Each delivery functions as its own level, and in each your knight will run from left to right on the screen without needing your input. The inputs that you do have at your control are your attacks, defensive maneuvers, and healing, represented by tappable buttons at the bottom of the screen.

It's a very simple setup, and struck me as painfully boring at first. However, once you start to get out of the tutorial levels, the difficulty ticks up and things get more strategic. Each of your actions has a cooldown time and enemies will continue to come at you until you finish the level. This means that if you poorly manage your cooldowns, you'll leave yourself open to some brutal punishment and may wind up dying with undelivered goods weighing down your poor corpse.

Failing a delivery sends your unconcious body back to the village in shame, but success will net you gold, items, and XP.

Although, you don't actually die, you just faint and get teleported back to the village in shame. If you faint, you have to wait while your health slowly recovers until you can get back out there and give it another shot. This can take a few minutes, which is a little annoying, but it's an understandable means of motivating the player to actually try during runs. Some levels even feature bosses at the end, so managing your resources well throughout each run is necessary to succeed.

The combat is further helped by the addition of different types of weapons, like your standard sword and shield, dual-wield knives, and hammers. They may all function with the same three buttons, but there are some notable nuances in how you properly wield them. For example, the sword and shield are better for defense, while the dual knives leave you open to more attacks, but can be deadly if you're good at parries.

There's a cute little story woven into this charming realm, too. I wouldn't say that it's one of the better games for narrative interest, but the dialogue is solid and there are a few NPCs with fun character arcs and development. Plus, the character designs themselves are very cute. Games like KonoSuba Fantastic Days have given me pretty low standards in the story department for free-to-play RPGs, so Postknight 2 did better than I thought it would.

It's not hard to see how gameplay could get repetitive over longer play sessions.

One of the main points of criticism that can be lodged against Postknight 2 is that, just like in the first installment, the gameplay can get repetitive during long sessions. There's not much variety to the gameplay beyond different types of enemies and the various weapons, which could get boring for power players. I would argue that Postknight 2 is a better experience if you play for about 20-30 minutes a few times a week so it feels fresher, longer.

Finally, Postknight 2's monetization isn't terrible, which is rare among free, casual mobile RPGs. As a free-to-play experience, Postknight 2 monetizes through ads and in-app purchases. However, I've been playing for quite a few hours, and I have yet to encounter a single ad, so I'm not sure where they're at if they exist.

The in-app purchases are a little more prevalent, but they're not as conspicuous as they could be. There are definitely a few "skip the line" items that are heavily incentivized by intentionally long refresh times, but you can go without paying a dime and still have a good time. The bigger things you'll probably want to buy are crystals (the in-game premium currency), which you can use to buy fun cosmetics like new armor sets or stupidly adorable accessories for your pets.

At the end of the day, Postknight 2 is a solid successor to the first beloved installment and I expect that it will quietly amass a decent following. The graphics are truly gorgeous, the soundtrack is delightful, and the core gameplay is well done, if a little repetitive. For a free casual gaming experience, trying out Postknight 2 would be an excellent choice.

Sponsored by USPS (it's not, that's a joke)

Postknight 2

Free w/ ad, IAPs at Google Play Store

Making mail fun!

A casual RPG adventure game, Postknight 2 gives mailpeople everywhere a good name.

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