Swordigo is a side-scrolling action adventure Metroidvania style game, where you use your sword and magic to kill the evil and corrupted.
Swordigo is a side-scroller adventure-action game with RPG elements. It’s like Legend of Zelda, but it’s a side scroller. It also has some hard puzzle elements to it. Some of them are extremely tedious, but it’s fun all the same. An avid fan of Swordigo, ToothFairy (Found right about here) described it as a very hard puzzle game. Whilst he thought it was a fun game, he did think that there were too many puzzles. He didn’t really like puzzles, so if you like long and hard puzzles, you might really like Swordigo. Some of Swordigo’s puzzles are tedious. In one of them you needed to push blocks here, pull a lever, tonnes of enemy’s spawned, and then you got the boss fight. Also, that was one of the easier puzzles in the game!
Swordigo also has trinkets you can put on your armour, weapon, or your magic. There are three trinkets fire, ice, and shadow. Fire does the most damage, ice freezes, and shadow on armour gives passive life regen, but on anything else will give your weapon the life drain ability.
passive life regen, but on anything else will give your weapon the life drain ability. With all this good there must be some bad. That is because it’s a mobile game, and everyone loves those. Ok, I know everyone hates mobile game, especially ones that are free to play, but this game is something special because it’s hard. Well, when I say hard, I am not saying you will break your phone, but it is harder than most mobile games. The reason for this is probably bad game design, but because of this it’s fun! Because of how your sword swings, two side swings then an overhead swing (unless you are in the air, then only one overhead swing), it’s a lot harder to hit some things. Also, because of its mobile game controls, it’s hard to parkour, but after you are used to the hard controls you will feel more accustomed.
By the way, it’s not a short game as it can last about nine hours! For a mobile game that is crazy long and that’s not even 100%ing the game. It is not hard to 100% the game after you beat it even if you never look anything up. Oh, and about it being a free mobile game, when playing it you don’t have to pay a cent. What you can buy is currency, but it is out of the way, and you can only find it if you are looking for it. Plus, it’s not even worth it to buy anything. From what I remember, you can buy some of the currency, but with like less than ten minutes of grinding you can get anything you want. So, it’s not paying to win, but if you spend your money in this game, you aren’t fully wasting it.
So, if I had to compare this game to other similar games, I would say Castlevania or Metroid. I know I have said this is a Metroidvania games, but it is quite a bit different from those games though my guess is that Swordigo was based on Legend of Zelda. People even say it’s like a side-scrolling Legend of Zelda. I would even say that the unnamed main character looks like a blue haired Link even though that’s a very far-fetched main character comparison. Also, spoilers, during the final battle, the boss will turn into a copy of you. Legend of Zelda fans will find this very familiar as in a couple of Legend of Zelda games Link fights Dark Link, an evil copy of himself. And let’s just say Legend of Zelda was made awhile before Swordigo. I would say the gameplay is closer to Castlevania because of the platforming. It could also be compared to Hollow Knight. They might have a lot in common. Firstly, they are both side-scrolling platformers, second, they both have conceptually similar bosses, and finally, they both have a lot of secrets. I can’t think of another game that has more secrets than these games. Although if you are fighting both games bosses, it would feel completely different.
If you want to beat the game, not 100% it, you need to defeat the final boss. I know, how scary! But it’s hard to get to the final boss because the game makes all these bosses that seem like they would be like the final boss, but they are the calm before the storm. First of all, the final boss, is… you? Ok if you read the first spoiler the final boss it a dark copy of you, who is fully covered in black. He is also very skilled. When I fought him without cheese (for those who don’t know cheese in video games is if you employ a cheap tactic to complete a difficult task easily), I could not kill him, though I was close. ToothFairy didn’t finish the game either, he didn’t know the name of the boss, almost none of the bosses have names, but he said it was two before the final boss. Meaning that he was up to either the boss in the Chamber of Flames, or The Dwarven King in the Hall of the Dwarven King. This demonstrates how hard these bosses are. I couldn’t beat the final boss with cheese, and ToothFairy couldn’t even get to the final boss!
Whilst I am sure that a more skilled player than me could beat him, I am yet to meet anyone who has. The thing is that he would always hit me from a little bit further away. Also never use magic against the final boss because he reflects magic back at you. He is a difficult boss, but he can’t go all the way into the corner of the arena. If you just stay in the corner of the arena and sometimes hit him while having shadow trinket on your armour, you will be able to hit him without taking damage yourself. If you take damage, you can go back and heal. I do find this method really dull though, even though I used it myself. I would recommend doing it legitimately because cheesing the final boss is pretty dull.
To complete this game 100%, you need to find all the secrets in every stage, get 15 achievements (some you can only get while playing through), explore the entire map, get every sword and armour, kill every boss in the game — and do all of this on a mobile device! Ok, so just to clarify, you can go through the entire game without going to some areas of the map or fighting some bosses. I would say just do it though so you can be as prepared for the final boss though You should also take the time to kill every boss before the final one.
Something that this game has that a lot of games struggle with is that you can explore a lot. In most stages they have at least one hidden chest or secrets you can find, but in 75% of the stages have three hidden chests or secrets. You will, by the end of the game, think you got everything, but when you complete the game, you will see the ungodly number of things you haven’t found yet. Although I have played through the game when I was younger, I could never find everything. I looked everywhere and I thought that there was nowhere I had not gone. But in the end, I still had a few places I did not get to after years of playing. I could never 100% the game, but now with my modern knowledge gained from of looking up stuff, I was able to find the hidden secrets I had never found before. I will just say that some of the secrets were so out of the way that I bet you if you gave me another century, I would never have found them.
Unlike other things I have spoiled, you can find out how hidden these secrets are by playing the game. I want people to find out how hard it is to find these secrets, but it’s unfortunate as hardly anyone seems to have even heard of Swordigo I will say this now, itisn’t like a AAA title game, but it still has Its charm and is fun to play.
I personally think this game is good. It’s no game of the year, but still good that it is worth playing. Firstly, I would say that you could probably play through Swordigo multiple times because just finding all the secrets of the game is surprisingly fun. Also, the start of the game feels just as fun as when you’re about to fight the final boss. The lack of any fleshed-out lore is disappointing, but on the upside, there are no long cutscenes to get in the way of your enjoyment.
This game also has some of the best fast travel in any games you will play. ToothFairy attributed fast travel as one of the key mechanics that made the game so playable as it made getting around so much easier.
Toothfairy also rated some of the level designs as being a key component for eh games success. The He liked the caves. “There was one cave that just felt like it went on infinitely, but you could still find paths that lead you to all sorts of rooms.” He mentioned that the caves looked like something out of Sonic, but I thought they looked fleshy like the crimson in Terraria.
Now onto another amazing thing about the game is that all the bosses feel a little similar, but at the same time verry different. One has fire shooters whilst some have hard to stand on platforms. It’s all different. I just wish there were more bosses. ToothFairy’s favourite boss was the first boss. The dual-bladed Corruptor in the chamber of the Mageblade. His favourite stage was the same stage as that boss too.
The game really has an amazing start. When you’re starting the game, you can feel the magic of it. it’s just so fun starting and exploring everywhere. Finding secrets that you didn’t think where possible. Plus, when you are replaying the game, you get the biggest hit of nostalgia that you could ever get. Especially finding secrets that you had forgotten because it of how long it takes to finish the game The best thing about the game is finding the pieces of the Mageblade which is the best sword in the game. For one of the pieces, you even have to damage boost over a lava lake to get to it. Another you need to fall down a tunnel with way too many paths. The last two, you get after boss fights. I just love how you get the Mageblade because it’s not just you need a lot of health (I am looking at you Breath of the Wild), but you need skill. The best feature of this game is the total lack of lag probably because of the lack of good graphics it runs smoother than a smoothie. No lag at all.
Now to discuss some of the flaws about the game. If you want it to look better than The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, then no it looks ok, but not anywhere near as good as a console game. The parkouring might be easier if it was on PC too, but the mobile controls are a little (if not completely crap) something that ToothFairy agreed with wholeheartedly. And don’t get me started about ice. I swear ice physics are just atrocious. Let me explain, crappy controls plus ice physics make me want to violently end the person who decided that there should not be a port for pc. I will not talk more about ice parkour because if I did, I might break my laptop by how angrily I will be typing.
Also, it is important to discuss the clunky sword swinging mechanics. Like I have said in earlier paragraphs the sword swinging is extremely limited. You can only do up swings when you are in the air or on your third sword strike. The sword swings towards the ground, sideways, and then in a big downward swing that hits above you. The thing is this is an extremely big inconvenience while playing through the game because a lot of the time you need to hit above you, and you need to jump to do it. I really wish they had different buttons for each.
to do it. I really wish they had different buttons for each.
Another poor design choice could have been improved by making different movement and jumping controls. Moving feels like sometimes you just need to move a little bit, but you just go a bit more then you need and then you fall. Also, the jumping sometimes feels inconsistent. Sometimes you jump high, but other times you hardly go half your normal jump, consistency is important when it comes to movement in a game.
This game has a lot of problems, but most if not, all games do. Throughout this article I have been trying to convince you to at least try this game, and if I have dissuaded you, I am truly sorry. This game is a goldmine of fun. If you give it a try (its free), I know you will find it’s as enjoyable as I did. The reason is that I just love this game is because it was my childhood, and I am upset that no one has ever even heard of it. I find its crazy that no one knows about this game because when I was a kid, I would play this game till there were permanent marks on the screen! Okay maybe not that much, but I played it a lot!
I just hope one day people start loving it like I do, so maybe they might make a Swordigo 2 and fix all the issues with the old game, and port it to pc (okay even I know that’s a tall order because it was made 11 years ago, and Touch Foo is a mobile game only company.) In conclusion, I hope people find out about this game, start to play the game, and start to love it Then hopefully Touch Foo will finally make Swordigo 2. It would be a dream come true.