Wandering Sword is probably the closest attempt that any company has come to matching the open ended feel of SquareEnix’s Saga series. Designed in beautiful 2.5D graphics, it is hard not to take notice of even from the briefest of videos. This is all held together with one of the most interesting level up systems in recent memory.
The first thing that anyone notices about Wandering Sword is how it looks. Amazing 2D graphics interact on a detailed 3D background. This is done in such a way that puts the graphics of Octopath Travel to shame. This is one the few experiences in gaming that you can feel that the intent of the artist was fully realized by the end result. Colors pop, the shadow effects from are done well, and each sprite is distinctly unique enough that it never really blends into the background. There is very little room to complain about how the game itself looks.
Possibly one of the biggest downsides of the game is the extremely steep learning curve. This is done through overly complex systems and the random lack of explaining. The latter of the issue is best seen in how the game doesn’t state of to get information about an item. For the first several hours of my experience I would simply have to use something in my inventory to see what it did, and swap equipment to see if it was better that the currently equipped items. I only found out later that by pressing R3 all of that information would appear in a popup.
The other major complaint would be that it feels that the game was designed for the mouse and keyboard, and controller support was only added as a last minute, tacked on “feature”. The game is entirely playable, start to finish, with the controller. This does not stop it from feeling overly arduous task to simply select a character, then move to the inventory to use an item on them. This carries into almost any facet of the game that is menu drive. Using a mouse and keyboard simplifies everything as selecting things is suddenly lightening quick. Information on items also instantly pops up when using a mouse.
The best way to explain many of these quirks can be seen with the leveling up system. Best described as, “once you get used to it you will love it.” The states of any character is based off of one set of skills—their mediation skills. These can be acquired through various methods, including befriending NPCs to teach them to you and simple story progression. The issue then becomes that this level doesn’t have that much impact on the damage being done, that is based on the level of the weapon usage that character has. This has to be increased with an entirely different set of skill points, through skills that must be learned in the same way that the mediation skills are. At first this system seems as if it has several steps to many, but ends up actually being rather enjoyable once it is gotten used to.
One of the biggest highlights of the game is that almost any NPC encountered can be fought for items that they are currently holding. This is accomplished by befriending them to a certain level and challenging them to a duel. If you win that battle you receive a random item that character had on them. This can range from healing items to weapons, but the best are the training manuals that can teach new skills or recipes to be cooked. This ends up being a rather interesting way to get the play to interact with every single NPC they meet as any of them could possibly be holding something extremely valuable.
While Wandering Sword might only bring people in with how it looks, what is going to keep people is underlying gameplay. What seems needlessly complex quickly becomes understood and accepted. The entire open ended nature of everything makes all choices truly feel like they belong to the player. While this might be overlooked by many people for being an odd genre title, that is a travesty. Wandering Sword is a solid and well built game that everyone should play.
RATING
OUR RATING - 8.5
8.5
SCORE
A Saga game not made by Square that looks like Octopath Traveler.
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