Surf your way through beautiful landscapes in this visually striking, peaceful experience.
What Is It? Sword of the Sea was created by Giant Squid, a development team that originally spun off of the group that made Journey, the influential PS3-era indie title. Sword of the Sea pulls heavily from that influence which is probably all many people need to hear in order to check out this game.
You are an unnamed protagonist with a sword. You have the ability to surf on the sword across any terrain and that is exactly what you’ll be doing for the 2-3 hours it will take to beat this game.
Basic movement is handled with the thumb stick. You can jump or charge jump to reach new spots. While jumping you can perform tricks by holding a shoulder button and hitting a face button. Tricks do nothing tangible in this game but are still a fun addition, I rarely made a jump without attempting to add a trick or two.
You progress through areas, finding the right spots to hit with your sword to open up the next along the way. The basic gameplay is slowly augmented with variety by way of storable boosts, double and triple jumps (the latter is actually just an air rail grind type move), and spending a decent amount of time riding sea creatures.
It is all quite peaceful. I was rarely stuck on where to go next, had fun discovering some hidden side content, and always enjoyed the view and the simple, effective controls.
The Best Part: The brief runtime. That is not a backhanded compliment. Sometimes a 3 hour game is exactly what you need and I’m always grateful when a game can manage to be fun and engaging over a brief runtime. I don’t think I would want a whole lot more of this game, so ending before it gets stale is a major plus for me.
The Worst Part: The game took me 2.5 hours to beat. In what is a recurring trend in indie games I’ve been playing this year, the vast majority of gameplay twists only show up for the last 30-45 minutes. The final (only) boss alone is packed with ideas that break from the rest of the game, for example. I’m fine with a slow build up, but having so many fun mechanics only show up at the very end makes me wish there was more of that throughout the bulk of the game.
The Verdict: Sword of the Sea is a very simple game. Steer yourself around the terrain, light up some lamps to reveal something, perform a dramatic stab to open the next area, and repeat. It can be completed in an evening if you’d like, although finding everything it has to offer will take a bit longer.
It likely won’t end up near the top of my game of the year list, but I still had a lot of fun with this game. If a laid back, bite-sized, visual-and-vibes soaked gaming experience sounds fun to you, Sword of the Sea is worth a look.
How to Play: PlayStation 5*, PC
*console played on for this review
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