“Ditto” is a cursed sword and once a kid picks it up, they become a hero and are tasked with defeated the evil wizard Mormo, who rises to power once every 100 years.  It’s an endless cycle.  Gameplay is similar to a top-down Zelda title, with a lot of cartoon humor and randomness thrown in.  You’ll explore an overworld, collect tools, and venture through dungeons.  But after six days, you’ll have to face Mormo.  If you win, the land will be at peace for 100 years.  If you die, Mormo will reign for 100 years and either way, you’ll play as a new kid in 100 years and start the cycle over with a new map and dungeons.  The game is available to download on PS4 and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

Like any top down Zelda title, you can swing your sword to dispatch enemies and chop down bushes to collect coins, healing items, and other goodies.  Another button performs a dodge roll move, and you can assign tools to use with the D-pad.  These tools come in the form of toys, like a NERF style gun or a remote control drone, keeping with the whimsical feel of the game.  You’ll collect and use these tools in dungeons to solve puzzles and bypass traps and obstacles.  You can also visit lots of shops, houses, and caves to take on mini-side quests.

But don’t dawdle too long, as you only have six days to defeat Mormo.  You must destroy anchors in dungeons that’ll deplete Mormo’s power, but no matter what you do, in six days you’ll have to face Mormo no matter what.  You can reverse time by a day, but it takes a lot of certain kinds of items to do that.  Whether you win or lose, the game will start anew with a different overworld and dungeons for the next round with Mormo.

I really wanted to like this game.  I loved the top-down Zelda gameplay, cartoony visuals, and silly toy weapons and tools.  In the PS4 version, there’s even a mini-quest featuring Loco Roco, one of my favorite PSP games.  But I just didn’t like the randomness of the dungeons, and I think this caused some bugs in the game, too.  Sometimes I couldn’t figure out how to move in the overworld, even though a path was clearly there, and it happened in a dungeon, too.  And I didn’t like the time limit thing either.  These things prevented me from being able to find the Loco Roco quest, which is what I really wanted to do and what made me interested in this game in the first place.  This doesn’t mean the game is bad, it’s just that my personal preferences in these kinds of games got in the way of my enjoyment.  I just prefer a single, well thought out overworld and dungeons over random ones.

Kid Factor:

The Swords of Ditto is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence.  You can hit enemies with swords and such, and they just disappear in a puff of smoke when defeated.  When you die, you just fall to the ground.  So it’s no worse than a Zelda game, although it does feel a bit weird to pick up the sword from another kid’s grave.  Instead of a fairy, your companion is a magical dung beetle, so there are some poo jokes here and there as well.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, and younger gamers may need help with the tougher challenges and random gameplay.

Tags: Game Reviews