Developer: HugePixel, ChiliDog Interactive LLC
Publisher: HugePixel, ChiliDog Interactive LLC
Platforms: PC, Switch
Tested on: PC, Switch
Glittering Sword – Review
Have you ever wondered how action games looked like before you were born? Well, with Glittering Sword, you won’t have to look further as it definitely resembles some of the fine games that were published in the past when the focus wasn’t set on the graphical quality of a game. Glittering Sword combines the classic gameplay of the past with some puzzle mechanics that resemble Sokoban puzzle games, with an original twist.
Story
Glittering Sword starts with a very short sequence where your character, the hero, and his female lover are together when suddenly his beloved gets captured by an evil force. From this point on, it’s your task to rescue her. To do this, you’ll make your way through many levels filled with enemies, obstacles and puzzles. As you progress, no story content will be seen anymore and we see this as a missed opportunity.
Graphics
Glittering Sword resembles old classic action games that were available on platforms like the Game Boy, but with modern touch-ups, making them relevant for our current generation of games. The creatures, environment and obstacles all have a lot more details, while still retaining the arcade look of retro games. The screen is always quite filled with clutter, which adds a bit of life to what is happening during each level. While colorful, the palette used is fairly soft and subtle.
Sound
The music in Glittering Sword is very calm and sounds quite nice. It has a certain familiar ring to it that we couldn’t place. Unfortunately, the game only has two different tunes; one for all the normal levels and one for the boss levels. When the tune reaches its end, it will just start over again in an endless loop, which can get quite annoying after some time. Combining this with a lot of deaths and suicides, because you made some mistakes, makes the annoyance even worse.
Gameplay
Glittering Sword is an arcade action-adventure game where you, as the game’s hero, must find your way through levels filled with puzzles and enemies to eventually reach your beloved that has been captured by an evil force.
The controls of Glittering Sword are fairly simple. You can swing your sword at your enemies and you can use a magic attack that shoots a ball in a straight line with a magic resource. In the first level, you’ll find your sword laying around behind some pink obstacles. Pink crystals are scattered around each level that will remove the pink obstacles when you’ve gathered them all, so you can continue to the next level. In many levels, you’ll see a vendor where you can buy potions for coins that are dropped by enemies and chests. The red potion will restore your life and the blue potion will restore your magic power.
Each level is also filled with many traps that you need to traverse in a quick and subtle way or you will be killed instantly. There are holes where spikes will go up and down in a rhythm, pressure plates that spawn spikes after being walked over, and totems that shoot balls in the direction of your position. As you progress, the levels will have more of these traps and make it even more difficult to reach the end of the level. Making one mistake can lead to you getting stuck behind spikes and you need to kill yourself to try again. The further you get, the more you need to plan your route before you act, or you won’t be able to make it to the end. The pressure plates are quite simple traps, but the challenge is to press them one by one as you can easily walk over two at the same time. Activating them both and losing the opportunity to use the other one may end up being fatal. This is also the case for most levels in the game, where one mistake can mean you’ll have to try again.
The enemies in Glittering Sword are fairly easy to beat. The game features a variety of enemies that you’ll encounter, such as spiders, wolves, bees, and more. These enemies are all fairly easy to beat, as with each swing of your sword, they’ll be stunned for a moment and knocked back a bit, so you can keep on swinging to kill them. Good positioning and timing will make you practically invincible. Some levels will also have living plants that shoot balls at you. These are pretty easy to kill as the only thing you have to do is wait for them to look in the opposite direction so you can slice them down.
Glittering Sword also features boss battles that appear after every few levels, before you enter a new chapter. Each boss has its own special skills that you need to find your way around to take them down. Some will shoot aerial attacks at you while others inflict area damage around themselves when you hit them. A careful approach will most certainly be your way to victory in this game. These boss battles will keep on getting more difficult as you progress, and at some point, you’ll even get multiple bosses to fight against.
Conclusion
Glittering Sword is a classic action-adventure game where you need to rescue your beloved by crossing many levels filled with enemies, traps, and puzzles. The gameplay of this game is very simple, making it quite accessible for most people. The challenge in this game lies in finding your way through all the traps and puzzles without dying. The game doesn’t really feature story content, but the gameplay alone can keep you occupied for quite some time. If you like a game where you need to think before you act to get past a level full of traps and enemies and challenging puzzles, we’d definitely recommend this one as it will keep challenging you with an increasing difficulty.
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