After your plane crashes, you find yourself in a lost world full of magic and monsters. People from the outside world like you are called “Strangers” and are generally stronger than the regular inhabitants of Sword City.  So it’s up to you to form a party to defeat monsters and gather crystals to gain power and save the day…somehow.  Stranger of Sword City is a PS Vita RPG dungeon crawler that’s very similar to classics like Wizardry.

In the main town in the game, you’ll sift through menus to edit your party, buy items, talk to people, and go on quests. Once you enter a dungeon, you’ll find yourself viewing the mazes in a first person perspective, which is a lot like Wizardry.  Although you do get some nice modern amenities like a mini-map so you can see where you are going.  Battles are also like Wizardry in that you face them head on, and use menus to fight and cast magic spells in turn-based fashion.

At the start of the game you can edit your character in many ways, and you can do some cool stuff in the dungeons like choose to ambush enemies for a chance at greater treasure (as long as you have enough Morale Points to do so). My only problem with this game is that it may be too obtuse for beginners, as the learning curve can be a bit high even though they explain the rules of the game pretty well.  And the PS Vita has such a big bright screen, so why does the text have to be so small?  But if you enjoy classic RPG dungeon crawlers like Wizardry, you may want to check this one out anyway.

Kid Factor:

Stranger of Sword City is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Mild Language, Partial Nudity, and Violence. Really the bloodiest things I saw were just in the animated intro.  The drug references and language are mostly in the text and used sparingly, and some of the fantasy character class designs wear skimpy outfits.  Reading skill is a must, and because of the complexity of the gameplay, it’s best for older gamers anyway.

Tags: Game Reviews