Glittering Sword tells the story of a nameless hero whose girlfriend was kidnapped by a Hitler look-a-like. In order to complete your quest, you’re given the Glittering Sword which will allow you to cut through enemies on your way to saving your beloved. You’ll have to survive level after level by avoiding the treacherous traps and killing the variety of enemies that roam the land. Our little hero can defend himself using his trusty sword and a magic blue ball (which is completely useless). Players can also dash out of harm’s way with a roll move.

Our little hero does also have a health bar, but oddly enough, when he gets hit once, it’s instant death. While it can be understandable when getting hit by a trap made of spikes, but when enemies hit you, dying on a single hit it’s a questionable design. If practically everything you touch kills you, having a health bar is pretty useless. You can upgrade your armor by finding and unlocking chests throughout your adventure, but they don’t weigh too much in your quest.

As you progress through the game, levels will become progressively harder and require a bit of trial and error before succeeding. For example, early levels have you picking up one or many purple crystals which opens a same-coloured door allowing you to progress whereas in some later levels, you’ll need to hit levels to open up the path but open them in the wrong order and you’re doomed.

There are not many issues with his game. It’s pretty simplistic (maybe too much?) and repetitive. The presence of the health bar is pretty obsolete and will lead players to a false sense of security early on. For whatever reason, against bosses, I’d lose health, but dogs and bats would one hit me. As mentioned, the protagonist can dash to avoid traps, but you have to wait for the meter to be filled and it’s not always fully responsive which can cause unfair deaths. Some tricker puzzles will require dying in order to restart the level because you’ll be stuck.

Glittering Sword features a top-down view and is designed with an 8-bit pixelated design. Levels are colorful to make sure that no two levels are alike; even if sometimes the nuances are barely noticeable. And because of the top-down view, some obstacles or traps are difficult to discern from the background. Audio-wise, the score is an annoying loop of what sounds like something they tried to give a medieval flair to it.

Glittering Sword is a fun, interesting little puzzler light on combat. It’s not gonna reinvent the wheel, but it’s the perfect indie title to play as a cooldown from bigger games. It gets a bit repetitive, despite the level design/difficulty increasing as you progress through. Bosses battles are neat, but nothing really special. It’s a fun little indie game to kill some time, but don’t an overwhelming challenge.

Overall
  • 50%
    CX Score - 50%
50%

Summary

Pros

  • Easy to pick up and play
  • Fun boss battles

Cons

  • Gets repetitive fast
  • Easy to lose track of traps in the background
  • Having to die on purpose to get out of certain circumstances

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