It’s finally here.
After months of weird videos and vague release info, along with an extra month of waiting for non-iPad owners, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP has finally been made available for mass iOS consumption. This level of anticipation and hype has almost certainly been a boon to sales, but it also ends up being a double-edged sword for adventure game connoisseurs such as myself, who’ve been waiting with bated breath and ever-tightening pants.
Sword & Sworcery tells the tale of the Scythian, a warrior monk on the hunt for The Megatome, as well as the Trigon Trifecta. Little reason is given for her quest at first, but it certainly makes for a more interesting motive than rescuing a princess. The bulk of the exposition will come through entries in The Megatome once you acquire it. As you progress, the overly-cumbersome book will fill up with the thoughts of the supporting characters, giving you hints on what to do next, as well as a tiny bit more insight as to what exactly is going on here. It’s no sweeping epic to be sure, but it doesn’t feel like recycled garbage either, unlike the majority of games released nowadays.
As an experience, Sword & Sworcery is absolutely stellar. Everything from the retro-inspired pixel art and simple, but intuitive controls, to the spot-on sound effects and unparalleled soundtrack comes together perfectly. Play it with a pair of headphones and you’ll be so thoroughly absorbed by the whole thing that the rest of the world will cease to exist. Seriously. You wouldn’t even notice swimsuit models having a pillow and honey fight.
It’s really hard to break the game down into different parts, because each aspect feeds into the others. The visuals are fantastically stylized, with an obvious nod to classic adventure games while maintaining their own unique and distinctly modern look. Deer and rabbits will flee into the foliage as you approach, dust motes will float around in beams of light shining through the tree tops, and bushes will rustle as you brush them with your finger. There’s a staggering amount of visual detail here, especially considering just how minimal the visuals really are.
As wonderful as the graphics are, Sword & Sworcery wouldn’t be half as euphoric if they weren’t paired with such amazing sound work. Each and every audio effect has a purpose, whether it’s the distant rumble of thunder or the steady pluck of guitar strings from a dreamwalking minstrel. These minute, but high-quality effects are married perfectly to the visuals and make the world feel alive.
However, the soundtrack is undoubtedly the biggest star in the lot. It’s difficult to truly convey just how amazing Sword & Sworcery‘s music is. Each track has a purpose, and fulfills it flawlessly, but unless you’ve played the game or witnessed the proper scenes in context, you won’t be getting everything you can out of them. If you listen to the soundtrack without playing the game, you’ll probably find it either “good” or “great.” If you’ve experienced firsthand just what each song pertains to, you’ll probably find it “fantastic” or even “transcendent.” Jim Guthrie won’t be hurting for work after this, let me tell you.
Control-wise, it’s incredibly easy to get into. You can double-tap anywhere along a path and the Scythian will automatically walk there while you enjoy the sights and sounds of the world around you. You can also tap and hold to make her walk in a direction if more direct control is your thing. Eventually you’ll recover The Megatome and gain access to Sworcery, which will have you tapping, swiping, shaking, turning and pinching your device to solve a number of quirky puzzles involving spirits and such. It’s simple, effective, and often yields nifty results.
Combat is a separate beast, requiring you to turn your device 90 degrees in order to unsheathe your sword and start swinging. The fights consist of rudimentary Punch-Out!-style bouts of you trading attacks with your aggressor. Tap the sword icon to attack and hold the shield icon to block. Simple. The only trick to it is to only attack while your opponent is open, such as following a successful block or dodging a strong attack. Take too much damage and you’ll wake up broken and bruised nearby, probably in need of a bit of health before attempting the fight again. You can recover health by holding up your shield for several seconds during combat, but it takes far too long to be effective when fighting anything other than a boss. Conversely, you can also heal by resting in a cabin or eating one of those mushrooms you’ve undoubtedly scrounged from the forest floor.
The only real issue I’ve had with Sword & Sworcery is unfortunately kind of a big one: the pacing. Everything started out great, with recovering The Megatome and hunting down the first Trigon, but once the third session began, I found myself retreading the same areas over-and-over again, desperately wishing for a way to speed things along. This has everything to do with the game’s focus on the lunar cycle. Two of the three Trigons can only be recovered during specific phases of the moon, both in-game and in real life. The “real” way to handle this is to play until you can’t go on, then wait for the proper phase to come around. What you do in the meantime is up to you.
Another method (the one I used) is to find and unlock a hidden chamber that allows you to mess with the lunar cycle in-game. It enables you to speed things along without cheating, which I’ll get to in a moment. The biggest downside to this second method is that the effects are temporary and, even worse, they go away immediately if you exit the game for any reason (i.e. answering a text or call for iPhone users). This led to a whole lot of backtracking, as I was constantly trudging from the area I needed to be in to progress, back to the chamber to change the moon, then back again, then inevitably back to the chamber again because I got a call, etc…
A third method involves changing your device’s calendar settings so that the game thinks it’s later in the month, but this is considered cheating. It won’t actually cost you anything and the game won’t chastise you for it, but it will also supposedly cost you a “100%” completion. So if you’re one of those people who have to complete all of the side quests and mini-games just so you can see a full progress bar/meter/thing, you’ll want to avoid doing it this way.
All total you can probably finish Sword & Sworcery in a couple of sittings, and once you’re finished there’s really not much else you can do, aside from starting over again. I can’t help but feel like some kind of arena mode where you can choose to fight different characters or bosses would have added at least a little more longevity to the game, but that’s not how it is, so I suppose there’s no real point in complaining about it. Still, it would be nice.
So yes, as an experience Sword & Sworcery is about as good as it gets. Especially for iOS users, as their devices are typically lacking in well-rounded, experimentally artsy forms of interactive entertainment. As an experience, it’s near flawless. As a game it’s great, but also a bit lacking in places. Ultimately, the verdict on whether or not Sword & Sworcery is worth the download is up to you. Some people may find it dull, pointless, and ugly. Others might think it’s “okay,” but a little short. Personally I think it’s a fantastic package that will require the occasional replay every so often.
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Things We Liked: Quirky and weird presentation that doesn’t so much break the Fourth Wall as it openly mocks it and hurts its feelings. Fantastic soundtrack. The audio and visuals are the perfect pairing of old-school awesome and modern minimalist style. Combat is simple, but fun. Again, fantastic soundtrack.
Things We Disliked: Not much of a reason to keep playing once the story is finished. Taking almost a full lunar cycle to complete session 3 is a neat idea, but it feels like the game punishes those who don’t want to wait that long. An irritating lack of multitasking support on iPhone that leads to a lot of unnecessary backtracking if you aren’t playing “the right way.” Not counting the whole “wait a month” thing, it’s not a very long adventure.
Target Audience: Old-school adventure game fans. Audio snobs. As much as I hate to say it, probably hipsters.
(Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP – Developers: Superbrothers, Capybara Games. Publisher: Capybara Games. Available for for iOS devices via the iTunes App Store – iPhone “Micro” version reviewed. Unfamiliar with CFD!’s review system? Read our newly revised explanation here.)
