More PS Vita reviews
Its a familiar tale, but way back when, I remember being in a school book club and every few months a new choose-your-own adventure would turn up. The mental imagery that went into following the numbers and creating a story was great fun, but Swordbreaker dials that up a notch for kids today.
I also remember the PSP versions of those original Ian Livingstone titles, including Warlock of Firetop Mountain, which even digitally felt like something off an early printing press. But, Swordbreaker feels thoroughly modern with its off-beat knights and aliens tale, and hints at mature-level themes, stupid deaths and gory endings.
Gameplay is simple, with a quick batch of text to read and 1, 2, 3 or sometimes 4 choices to make. Three lives means you can learn from your mistakes, but with quite an expansive tale to tell, you'll need to really remember the routes and decisions, or scribble them down as you go to reach the many endings and die in the most inventive of ways (there's a handy map to see where you've been between games).
Played out over 300+ scenes, there's a lot of exploring to do, and the strong attention to graphics and neat background music ramp up the atmosphere. If you play this with a Monty Python (or Knight's Tale) filter, you can over look the odd typo or odd phrase.
For me, playing it for a few goes, putting it down and coming back after playing something else works well, and it doesn't feel boring retreading those early steps. The only shame is there's no point looking at the scenery for clues, or trying to discern the intentions of a character, every choice is trial and error (although slapping a girl's bum was never going to end well).
Sometimes, a character can offer to help, adding a joker card to your options, which adds a little bit of spice but mostly we're looking at interesting ways to battle and kill the wide array of monsters lurking in every sewer, garden or rampart.
If Swordbreaker sells well, it'd be cool to see a sequel or another story that has just a bit more adventure or skill base to it. Or, I'd be happy if DuCats just keep doing this, with Swordbreaker Origins underway, hopefully with some extra proofreading and wilder scenarios, and perhaps dial up the rating to full adult? That said the in-progress sequel "Back in the Castle" is a full 3D affair, so maybe not for Vita.
Score 3/5
Price: £4.99 (PSN)
Developer/publisher: DuCats Games/Sometimes You
File size 223MB
Progress: A married man!
