Developer: Experience Inc.
Publisher: Experience Inc., NIS America
Platform: PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows
Tested on: PlayStation Vita
Stranger of Sword City – Review
NIS America is to RPGs what Koei Tecmo is to games about taking down giant armies single handedly. It’s safe to say with the amount of RPG’s NIS has made, they know what works and what doesn’t. That doesn’t mean they don’t try out new things. The latest newcomer to the RPG table is Stranger of Sword City. A mix of Sci-Fi and Fantasy and a whole lot of turn based combat.
Story
You are a ‘Stranger’. This is the name given to you by the inhabitants of the world you crashed into. You read that right, crashed into. The plane you were on crashed into another dimension and you are the only survivor. As far as sci fi goes that’s quite high up on the list, alongside actually surviving a plane crash. You wake up to find yourself immersed into a world of armoured fellows and pointy eared creatures, so that’s the fantasy part covered.
The world you are traversing is huddled under a curse and you have to take down lineage types, beasts that want your hide, to find out exactly what happened and why you were drawn into this dimension. Progression on the story goes slowly as the game relies heavily on grinding, but this isn’t really a bad thing, it just means you get more bang for your buck.
Graphics
Stranger of Sword City is the same as Operation Abyss, it’s a non animated turn based rpg. This is probably due to the amount of detail set into the characters and having to animate these would probably cause a lot of clipping. The game does come with a second set of visuals. If the character design isn’t to your liking, you can always shift them to a more ‘chibi’ version of themselves.
This is in stark contrast with the first visuals as those are quite detailed and the other version somehow doesn’t really mesh with the overall feel of the game. It is a bleak setting and the secondary visuals make the characters feel out of place.
Sound
This is where the game loses some points, as a lot of the sounds are re-used. Having played Operation Abyss, you’ll notice it. The sounds of the doors, the footsteps, the voices used in combat. Then again, it’s only a problem if you really pay attention to them. It wouldn’t be fair to say that the game blatantly copied everything, clocked out and called it a day.
The developers have simply recycled some aspects and added onto it to create Stranger of Sword City. The musical score during battle is quite envigorating and the voice overs for the conversations, though in japanese, are quite well done. Without the subtitles you might not understand what’s being said, but the voice actors clearly acted quite well and give a great performance.
Gameplay
Stranger of Sword City is a turnbased action adventure rpg. The creatures you’ll be fighting are Lineage types and those come in all sorts of forms, shapes and sizes. It doesn’t mean that size equals strength and you’ll be wise to never underestimate an enemy.
When you start the game you’ll get to choose your age, this will affect a couple of things and you’ll have to think ahead just how you want to play, because some perks might suit your play style better,do you want your character with more adrenaline points or want him/her to have a smaller revival time? After that it’s the usual rpg format of name and character choice.
You’ll fight alongside a team of up to six allies and placement can make all of the difference. There is the front and the back, the front is best used for melee fighters and the back more for the healers and long ranged fighters. This doesn’t mean you don’t have to be prepared to have things changed up a bit, because some enemies might drag out your party in the back to the front making them target to some damage. So equipping them with strong gear becomes a necessity, even more so later on in the game. As you beat the Lineage types, you and your team will gain experience, the bigger the group, the smaller the amount every character gets. Upon leveling up you can distribute points into strengthening your stats.
When you beat certain Lineage types you’ll gain blood crystals which will unlock additional powers. These powers can be useful inside or outside of battle. The first one is really useful, however relying too much on it might be your downfall. You see, when you run out of adrenaline, you can’t use them any more, and the first power you unlock is the ‘Flash Escape’. With this you’ll be able to escape battle anytime anywhere.
This is great, but when you are out of adrenaline and you fail to escape battle and your team gets wiped by a really weak monster that got buffed by another monster, and you have to start over from where you saved, you might be put off. Saving is only possible in the Guild, so saving causes you to backtrack. This isn’t a bad thing. Picture this however, you’ve been grinding for several hours.
You’re ready to head back and encounter several enemies on the way back, use your powers and are knocking on deaths door because you are injured and out of healing items, with your healer down. A buffed imp one shots your team, taking away a sizeable amount of work. It feels cheap that the enemies you can oneshot can one up you in a matter of two turns. Then again, this keeps you on your toes and makes it so the game doesn’t turn stale.
Conclusion
If you are looking for an rpg with quite some content that doesn’t hold back and keeps you on your toes, then Stranger of Sword City is just right for you, with a decent price/content ratio and some really interesting mechanics. Be ready to sink in several tens of hours into the game when you purchase it, however, don’t underestimate enemies.
Stranger of Sword City - Review,
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