[Review] Spellspire – Nintendo Switch

Developer: 10Tons
Publisher: 10Tons
Category: Puzzle, Role Playing, Education
Release Date: 11.09.17

Spellspire brings whole new meaning to the phrase “Knowledge is power”, because in this game, it’s essentially your only form of attack. There’s 100 levels in the Spellspire, the titular in-game tower where everything will take place, and you must reach the top.

Each level begins with your mage auto-walking towards the right of the screen. Enemies will be spawned placed out in front of you, and you will have a pile of ten letter-tiles randomized on the screen. Each time you successfully spell a word, an attack will be sent out at the closest enemy in front of you, and the strength of the attack is determined by the length of the word you’ve spelled.

Once you’re close enough to an enemy, a red-filled circle will appear on the screen and instantly start depleting. This represents how often your enemies attack and if you can take them down before the circle is empty, they won’t attack at all.

The one gripe about Spellspire is obviously the fact that the gameplay itself can begin to fill quite repetitive. Start a level, spell some words, go to the next level, rinse and repeat 100 times. However, its the inclusion of an RPG-type element that saves the gameplay from feeling too stale.

Along your journey, you earn coins which can be spent on any number of items including mage staffs which deal elemental damage, robes which can boost your health and give you protection from elements, and hats which will give you stat boosts such as three-letter words dealing double damage. Most of these weapons are unlocked by reaching a certain level of the tower, while other’s require you to obtain a certain number of stars, which those are earned by replaying levels that you’ve already beaten.

Finally, there’s items you can pick up along the way as well. Potions for healing yourself, and little dictionary’s. These are the greatest asset for if you feel trapped and helpless. Using the dictionary will automatically find the longest word possible with your available tiles, sending out the maximum attack possible, so it’s definitely worth holding on to until you find yourself in an endless cycle of getting killed.

While it might not be the most action-packed game, Spellspire is a fun and interesting play. The blend of vocabulary-puzzle and RPG-elements definitely make this a game worth checking out. It’s more of a simple game, but it has potential to sink it’s hooks into you as well. It’s worth noting too, that this game can be played docked on the TV, handheld, or in tabletop mode, but the best way to play this game will be handheld and making use of the touchscreen. Being able to tap out the words you want to spell instead of moving a cursor around with the joysticks will speed things up immensely.