Sooo...is this a portable Demon's Souls? Well, not quite, but Swords & Darkness gives the impression that A+ Games and Arc System Works wanted to create a sprite-based, sidescroller version of From Software's famous game. Incidentally, they tried to do the same with Armored Core in Damascus Gear, but failed miserably...S&D actually seems a much more better attempt at whatever thye were trying to achieve, though flaws are evident even after a couple of hours.
The story goes that a king uses the power of the Grail of Life to bring back from the dead his knights to fight a war, but then the king goes mad, revises even more knights, and these knights go berserk on the whole kingdom. You, as a young knight just back from some generic duties, undertake the task of bring back peace to the battered kingdom. All of this is told in the introduction movie, told in an hilariously overacting actress that, to me, seemed like she wanted to make a cornier version of Demon's Souls intro.
Controls are very easy to understand: analog (or d-pad) moves your avatar, Y for normal attack, X for strong attacks, B jumps, R brings up the shield. A...does nothing. L brings up the items menu, arranged in a cruciform pattern and activated by pressing one of the four face buttons...and you've got throwing knives...and the recovery items are green grass bundles...
Magic is performed through various combinations, one of the first is R plus Y to summon a series of light arrows.
Beating up enemies will give you experience points, and gaining a level brings a certain amount of skill points to distribute between stats, though curiously upgrading strenght does not give you more hitting power, as that looks like something only new weapons can increase.
There is a hub of sorts, where you'll be brought after dying. There there's a shop, a girl that restores your HPs and MPs, and a priest that...I don't know, he only talks and dialogues are in Japanese.
There are no levels per se, but you are in a castle and free to explore it as you see fit, facing bosses when you want to. There are multiple paths leading to various parts of the castle, and very little indication on where to go. Music is very subdued, you face undead knights, one of the bosses is an executioner with a brown hood and a giant axe, the castle is in shambles...yes, there are a lot of Demon's Souls references here, and probably those that, like me, faced Demon's Souls as a knight will have more than one deja-vu when playing S&D.
Graphics are cute, sprites have few frames but convey animations convincingly. All characters are blocky in their design, and I can draw comparisons to Rondo of Swords (rather unknown DS title) and Final Fantasy sprites on the SNES...the style is peculiar, but servers the game well. Backgrounds are polygonal and not particularly good looking. The touch screen act as map and equip screen, but the game pauses when changing equipment or assigning skill points.
The problems with the game are manly that there's no enemy variety: so far only three enemy type, two of which are recolours and the third is a recolour of a boss. Everyone attack in the same way and has too much health for standard enemies (a problem shared with Damascus Gear), a fights drag way too much.
Controls are very sluggish, though this might be linked to the character's stats.
Sword & Darkness looks like an interesting title, unfortunately right now only available on the Japanese eShop.
The story goes that a king uses the power of the Grail of Life to bring back from the dead his knights to fight a war, but then the king goes mad, revises even more knights, and these knights go berserk on the whole kingdom. You, as a young knight just back from some generic duties, undertake the task of bring back peace to the battered kingdom. All of this is told in the introduction movie, told in an hilariously overacting actress that, to me, seemed like she wanted to make a cornier version of Demon's Souls intro.
Controls are very easy to understand: analog (or d-pad) moves your avatar, Y for normal attack, X for strong attacks, B jumps, R brings up the shield. A...does nothing. L brings up the items menu, arranged in a cruciform pattern and activated by pressing one of the four face buttons...and you've got throwing knives...and the recovery items are green grass bundles...
Magic is performed through various combinations, one of the first is R plus Y to summon a series of light arrows.
Beating up enemies will give you experience points, and gaining a level brings a certain amount of skill points to distribute between stats, though curiously upgrading strenght does not give you more hitting power, as that looks like something only new weapons can increase.
There is a hub of sorts, where you'll be brought after dying. There there's a shop, a girl that restores your HPs and MPs, and a priest that...I don't know, he only talks and dialogues are in Japanese.
There are no levels per se, but you are in a castle and free to explore it as you see fit, facing bosses when you want to. There are multiple paths leading to various parts of the castle, and very little indication on where to go. Music is very subdued, you face undead knights, one of the bosses is an executioner with a brown hood and a giant axe, the castle is in shambles...yes, there are a lot of Demon's Souls references here, and probably those that, like me, faced Demon's Souls as a knight will have more than one deja-vu when playing S&D.
Graphics are cute, sprites have few frames but convey animations convincingly. All characters are blocky in their design, and I can draw comparisons to Rondo of Swords (rather unknown DS title) and Final Fantasy sprites on the SNES...the style is peculiar, but servers the game well. Backgrounds are polygonal and not particularly good looking. The touch screen act as map and equip screen, but the game pauses when changing equipment or assigning skill points.
The problems with the game are manly that there's no enemy variety: so far only three enemy type, two of which are recolours and the third is a recolour of a boss. Everyone attack in the same way and has too much health for standard enemies (a problem shared with Damascus Gear), a fights drag way too much.
Controls are very sluggish, though this might be linked to the character's stats.
Sword & Darkness looks like an interesting title, unfortunately right now only available on the Japanese eShop.
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