[Review] Sword of the Necromancer - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: Grimorio of Games
Categories: Roguelite, RPG
Release Date: 01.28.21

You would do anything to bring back a loved one, right? Risk life and limb for the Sword of the Necromancer, a blade capable of returning the dead back to the world of the living. But just the sword isn’t enough, you need to make it stronger.

You play as Tama, a chosen bodyguard to Koko. Two entirely different social standings and classes. While the game starts with you already knowing Koko has unfortunately passed, the further you get into Sword of the Necromancer, the more you learn of why they were together and how their relationship bloomed into what made Tama so desperate to bring Koko back.

Sword of the Necromancer is roguelite. Random dungeons, random drops, and random new weapons to find in chests. The one thing that stays consistent are the boss fights. You’ve seen and heard it before. Sword of the Necromancer does have stacking stats, but this time it works a little differently. With your inventory, you’ll hold the variety of weapons or accessories, these each have their own stat buffs or nerfs. As long as you hold these in your inventory, you’ll get those stats added, and with everything together, it can be to monstrous effect. One bow I had, shot a three way shot, and each arrow was a different element, which would destroy everything in it’s path. At any time when not in a dungeon run, you can upgrade these items to your liking if you have enough materials, which are found in the dungeons. This can become a bit grindy though. Considering games of this genre are generally hard, you’re probably going to want to grind.

Now for the game’s namesake, The Sword of the Necromancer. Your default weapon, always in the inventory. It has a second use however. Once you take out an enemy, if you have a free inventory space, you can revive the enemy to fight on your side. Mileage may vary depending on the enemy you’ve summoned, but these can be a great help when in need. They even level up! If you feel inclined, make a whole inventory of revived monsters and have them fight for you. Equipment be damned!

The spritework in Sword of the Necromancer is beautiful. It’s colorful and has this wonderfully soft look. Animation for everything is superb too, with one detail I love, being Tama’s hair moving and flowing in movement. You’re going to see a lot of recolors of enemies, mainly for elements, but the enemies all look fantastic, so I never minded. The previously mentioned bosses look great as well, with their massive sprites. If I had one issue, it’s that the flashback cutscene CGs seem a little compressed.

Audio is another high point. Cutscenes are fully voiced, voiced rather well at that. The music has a moody feel when just wandering, but the moment a monster comes by, it switches over to give the feeling that danger is afoot.

I’m a sucker for beautiful sprites, and maybe it’s just a bias, but it raised a game I enjoyed playing into one I wanted to keep playing just to look at it. It doesn’t help I was invested in Tama and Koko’s relationship. So many roguelikes and lites seem to have such bare stories, so getting an interesting one was a welcome change.