Swordship Review on Xbox

Swordship is a futuristic lightning-fast dodge’em up which attempts to revise the traditional arcade shooter. All reviews (unless stated otherwise) are based on the Developer/Publisher providing myself with a review code, which i am grateful for, but does not influence my outcome.

The premise is that after global warming, humanity has taken refuge in three gigantic underwater cities at the bottom of the ocean. Those who are expelled from the cities, barely survive on the burned lands. The underwater megacities exchange millions of containers loaded with goods every day over the surface. You take command of an ultra-fast boat who steal these precious containers, in order to deliver them to your fellow banished. Rob the rich to give to the poor.

The game boasts tactical gameplay in which you dodge attacks to survive and trick your enemies into killing each other. A variety of ship variants and playstyles, RNG like up-grade system and randomly generated levels.

Accessibility

With regards to accessibility, there is only subtitles, and here they can be turned on or off. The game does allow remapping of the buttons but not the thumb sticks precision. Visually there are no colour tone options and mass carnage on display, things can get visually hectic for those with out visual issues. You can adjust the warning distances and acceleration of your swordship which will give you more time to react, but nothing more. This means in general if you have motor skill issues or visual issues, you really won’t be able to play this. Fingers crossed some of these issues are patched later with more accessibility options.

Gameplay

The gameplay starts with you taking control of your Swordship, a yellow Wipeout style water craft that uses its small size to steal lost containers on the ocean. The big difference here is that you cannot shoot…

Because of this you have to use fast precise movements to dodge incoming attacks and lead them to kill each other. Using speed, you trick the enemy drones, missile turrets, mine deployers, and super cannons, amongst others, into killing each other. Sounds simple, but is far from it as this involves, for example, letting mines track you, leading them to other enemies. Or turrets from either side, locking on to you, and quickly speeding away right at the moment they fire, killing each other. Drones require you to leads its spherical blast radius towards a turret so it will wipe it out. Doing multiple of these elements create combos, which often leads to big score bonuses, which in turn help you get unlock new aspects like permanent upgrades, weather conditions, different ship abilities, and even different difficulty settings and concept art.

When navigating the relentless ocean floor, you do have an ace up your sleeve with the ability to dive. This allows your craft to temporarily submerge beneath the water and is your get-out-of-jail-free card when things get hectic. Time it right, and it’ll save your skin. Get it wrong and you’re vaporised in the blink of an eye. Like dodging, precision of when to use it will be paramount. Also depending on your ship type, enemies sometimes drop energy which after a number collected, mean you can use a ship’s wide area attack.

Of course this is useless if your not doing your job of stealing the containers that will keep your people alive. To do this you need to pick them up and this is done by placing your Swordship in the direct lane of said container in order to pick it up. Thankfully, this is easy as it appears as a bright yellow line appears on the screen, which if you do, you collect it in no time. 

With your container in your possession, you have two options. First is that you can use it as a bomb to wipe the screen of enemies, or you can bank it, which means waiting until a drop-off point appears on screen and hovering there for a few seconds. Banking it will help you give you more options once you have completed a level. Here you can use the container to boost your score or provide a RNG upgrade that could help you in further levels.

One big element to understand is that once all your lives are lost, you are back to the beginning of the game, not the stage, regardless of difficulty. Online leaderboards are available after completing a run in every city without losing your available lives and getting a game over.

This simple but intertwined set of actions and random generated choices makes the game hard to pin down as one run could be the easiest thing you have done, only for a single mistake to make it horrendously challenging.

Graphics

The game visuals are a superb smooth cel-shaded graphics and stylised transitions that make the game a joy to behold. Bright big fonts pop up everytime you do something awesome with slow motion close ups for the more explosive results.

There are three main sectors you will be playing across regardless of difficulty, with each showcasing their own individual style and selection of enemies. The low-poly graphics that burst with colour, or the brisk zip of the animation really is something to see and when there is a large number of enemies on the screen, colour is a wash of style. The biggest visual impact is the boss at stage 4, which takes up the entire screen with size and attacks. Keeping an eye for visual ques before being shot is paramount.

Enemy design is somewhat varied however the real changer is the weather which can drastically alter the visuals in a blink of an eye.There are no visual options on the Series X version but the frame rate maintains a perfect 60 FPS, with its industrial periphery altering between cities and the colour of the seas moving through several pastel shades.

Sound

The game has a superb ambient techno soundtrack that really works well with the futuristic style the game is going for. This switches up depending on stage so as not to get too repetative, but as there is only 4 stages, this will be depending on how often you go through them.

Combat is punchy and deep with explosions being the most impactful of all the sounds. Dynamic sound is here when listening for pitch changes when it comes to mines or guns charging up, but it can be almost hindered when there is multiple attacks coming at you all at once.

My recommendation here would be a good quality soundbar or headset to really get the best of these tones as you stylishly show off your dodging skills.

Verdict

This leads me onto the rating of the game:-
Now I rate games in order of, avoid, on sale, great purchase and must own. My rating for Swordship is a "On Sale.

The game whilst fun and addictive, is abit repeative due to its limited stages and because its about precision, this can be a hindrance due to inability to refine the thumbsticks controls.

The game is currently priced on Xbox at £16.99 or approx. $20 and depending on skill and patience would give you about 4+ hours worth of gameplay. However with the upgrades, other difficulties, and additional outfits to unlock, you can add another 4+hours to the mix.

Whilst I enjoyed my time with this game, I did find the jump in difficulty a little frustrating. Its clear this is a game geared to towards precision experts who enjoy the open ended challenges and fast paced action, one for which I am not, but you may well be...