The Sword of Hope has such an intense name that you automatically assume you are going to be playing one of the best games out there. Unfortunately I am here to assure you that this is not the case. There are some interesting ideas here and even some great quality of life features but it is all tarnished by the game’s overreliance on RNG. Gone are the skill based matches of old. Now you must effectively hope in the roll of the dice at every turn. Not a good decision to be honest.

The game basically starts with the main character needing to use the Sword of Hope to slay the villains and save the day. The only problem is that the sword has been depowered for a very long time. The hero will now need to visit the 4 legendary spell crafters to see if they can fix the sword. Along the way he will fight many powerful enemies and so taking them on will be his true challenge. He has no other party members to help him so this will be a very long journey. Can he really pull it off?

Right out of the gate I can tell you that I appreciate how there is no such thing as a game over in this title. When you die, you just get warped back to the starting village where the sage tells you to try again. You keep all of your items, EXP, and gear. So dying is only a setback and you do have quick travel to all of the main locations. Those are two absolutely great features that I can’t rave enough about. I was really impressed here and additionally I like the fact that the upgrades you obtain are permanent and make a good difference in your defense and attack power. Each level up also dramatically increases your stats which makes sense since the game only goes up to level 31.

Now here is where the cracks in the armor start to appear. The way you inflict and endure damage is done through RNG. When an opponent his you, they have a minimum and a maximum range of power that spans multiple levels. So sometimes they will deal you 1 damage, other times they will deal around 40. This makes any kind of strategy completely reliant on RG and will cause you to have to replay the battles way more often than you should. This gets more and more crucial as you get deeper into the game.

Several of the final bosses can basically take you down in a single strike. So with the Switch Online’s rewind feature you are all set here and things aren’t bad but without it I feel like people must have taken ages to complete the game. You would certainly have to power level several levels above the recommended final battle level in order to increase your odds of success. This is such a bad mechanic that it basically slashes the score right away. I cannot in good conscience call this a solid game as a result. It should not be forcing you to have to account for luck in such a constant way.

The other big problem with the game are the countless puzzles. So every area allows you to perform 4 actions, “look” “open” “use” and “hit”. You can perform these actions on every object in the room which is usually around 3-4. Using the right option on the right location will give you an item, activate a boss, or clear a new path. So this means a whole lot of clicking and there are over 200 rooms in the game. Several of them are teleporting paths meaning if you get even one direction wrong then you have to start that puzzle from scratch.

After a point this goes from being immersive and challenging to just being rather drawn out and boring. You’re not having fun when you have to worry about all of these technical gimmicks instead of fighting enemies and getting stronger. I wanted to continue with the story, not be distracted by an endless array of puzzles. If I wanted a puzzle game then I would have played something like Professor Layton instead which is far better on the puzzle aspects. Yeah, this was definitely not the title to check out.

The graphics are okay but they do have to reuse character models a whole lot. Get ready to see the same lady showing up over and over as different people throughout the same game. The soundtrack is a bit catchy though, I like the main battle theme. They actually tried pretty hard on that one which I can appreciate. The game’s soundtrack will stick in your head for a while even after completing it.

Naturally there is no real replay value within the game but just completing it will take you long enough where you won’t mind. I can at least say with confidence that the game gives you a lot of value for your time here. The main campaign is technically beatable very quickly but good luck solving the puzzles in that amount of time. Personally I think this one will end up lasting for a whole lot longer than you might have been expecting. If you do like the idea of just being lost and trying to get out on your own, then this one could be worth a shot. It’s the only way I could possibly recommend it and even then you have much better options.

Overall, The Sword of Hope is a game with a lot of potential but unfortunate mechanics really set it back. This one was definitely a real challenge to complete but unless I am having a lot of fun, the challenge doesn’t move me. If this game got a modern PS5 remake it could end up being a solid title but until that happens, I just don’t see this game ever mounting a comeback. Even with the Switch Online there are far better games and I would recommend you play one of those instead. There’s no real reason why you would need to play this game in particular.

Overall 5/10