Wandering Sword Reviews

the story is a melting pot of classic wuxia stories. i wish there was an option to increase font size, its very hard to play through on a handheld pc.

Wandering Sword is probably one of my favorite games ever. It's a labor of love, the kind of game that invites you to ditch the real world and throw yourself into a different one. It makes you want to dive deeper into martial arts stories, everything from Hong Kong action flicks to fan-translated webnovels to 300+ year-old classics. The story's well-told and pretty well paced, except for how the player is invited to hare off into oodles of side content, some of which is story relevant. It's a lot of fun to see these very classic martial arts stories play out with all their tragedies and failures only for the main character to fix the ending with a dose of FIST. Assuming you've been paying attention, these scenarios also have a bunch of ways they can play out, including the traditional tragic ways. One thing I'd like to praise is the NG+ system. Most anything you do in a playthrough contributes points to an ever-growing pool you can use for your next playthrough. If you play on the harder difficulties, that includes getting one utterly cracked skillset from one of the utterly cracked bosses you fought along the way. The only thing that could make Wandering Sword better is more Wandering Sword, which is why it's such a delight that the devs release new content every six months or so. Cannot recommend enough to RPG fans and wuxia fans.

Cheap but full of content. Big plus most side character have own story and actually interacting with main quest instead of a token after completed their quest line.

Gotta appreciate the amount of effort the devs put into this game. The decisions I make in game, affects how the NPCs talk to me. I think this makes the game much more immersive, it gives a lot of life to the game and it shows how you affect the history. Also, the gameplay is very fun, it is simple but there are tactics and strategies available for you to overcome challenges. Also, what I liked a lot is how the game will sometimes throw powerful opponents for you (but winning os optional) and if you do win you get some cool rewards?? This is the best! I usually grind a lot in RPGs and it can get too easy for me, but with this game, its different. I don't feel bored at all Btw, I'm 70~ hours in the game and there's still a lot of content left. I can't even guess how much playtime there's left for me with the amount of content there is. I can tell how much love was put into this game. It truly deserves recognition. 11/10!! For more games like this please!!

This game is fantastic. A solid wuxia storyline with a decent to good translation, albeit with a somewhat static main character who I REALLY wish would get a bit more development before you hit Echoes of Ash and Dust. An OST so good I have been listening to the various battle themes on repeat for the last few days because my hyperfixating brain rejects all other music. Fun characters, although some characters, like Kong Liang, Huo Changqing, Chen Lenxi and the Duan siblings could REALLY use more screen time/story relevance/fleshing out, a decently fun battle system with flashy skills and fun synergies, though I wish skill sound effects had more oomph to them and Hidden Weapons REALLY need a buff, a pretty vast world full of areas you explore thoroughly... And Mount Thunder, which I only found out existed on my third playthrough, and overall, the game's vibes are immaculate and replayability is vast. I do, however, have a few wishes. -A Northern Regions expansion. Right now, it's one village and the Obligatory Tall Mountain for a Final Duel, which is a shame. Give my my Northern Sea Ice Palace or whatever, make the North a more relevant place! Or at least let us, I dunno, work with [REDACTED FOR SPOILER REASONS] to rebuild his father's sect... That could be a cool way to add a new branching path for various endings, even. -More clarity on cutoff points. I should not need a guide to find a hidden objective inside a hidden objective inside a hidden objective inside a hidden objective inside a hidden objective just to guarantee I get the good ending. If you want to hide it, at least drop more than a single vague hint so I don't need to go through five minor panic attacks trying to not get a disappointing ending scene. Southern Chronicles, Echoes of Ash and Dust, the Eastern Sea DLC and the Heroes' Adventure collab's second part can feel a bit TOO conveluted at times, though maybe the lack of clarity is just an indication the hampster wheel keeping my brain powered is of sub-par quality. -More Frosty Condor. Yes, I am biased. -A bigger prescence for the Jade Dragon you must overcome to surpass Ash and Dust. He is far too badass to have so little actual screen time. Give me my big intimidating yet complex and well-designed villain in the largest portion possible, please. -Why does Qingxiao become alliance leader in the Ash and Dust Wudang Sect Leader path? Let my boy Yuwen Yi get an option to take on that role mid-story if you choose to become the sect leader! It'd feel like a more logical story flow IMO, but maybe that's just me. -More lategame fist, polearm and saber users. Sorry, I like using characters with an actual story prescence, and when my boy Yan Weihuan and best girl Frosty Condor leave the party in the endgame, who am I going to make my designated mob puncher? Same with Di Zui and the Duan siblings leaving down the line, or Xian'er leaving during the final quest. There's so many sword users already, and hidden weapons aren't good so I don't care much, but saber, polearm and fist could use some more characters. And no, Weiyue doesn't count, she's a fan user and if you use anything other than the Qingyun moves on her you are doing it wrong. This issue would be easily solved by giving Kong Liang, Chen Lenxi and Wei Huo more plot relevance if you recruit them though, which they kind of need anyway. -More music. The music in this game is amazing, which makes me sad that the OST is not twice as big as it is. There are plenty of fights that could use unique boss themes, or dungeons which would do well with a unique dungeon theme. Heck, make unique background OST for the battle against Tianlong gang or something, anything will do, just F E E D M Y H U N G E R P L E A S E So yeah, all in all, 11/10, gifted the game to all of my friends who showed even a speck of interest, but it COULD be a 24/10, thus breaking all the limits of the "out of 10" rating system by being truly Unrivalled within its (admittedly ultraniche) genre. I, for one, am addicted, and have sacrificed my sleep schedule to this game with no sense of regret. 100% reccomend.

The only game that allows you to beat up toddlers and old people and take their stuff while being hailed by everyone as a righteous hero.

Wandering Sword is really fun! It's like a Wuxia themed Octopath Traveller, a pixel art JRPG. The writing is great, it throws you right in to a troubled world full of different martial arts sects with complex goals and motivations, and it gives you a really interesting array of party members. Not every defeat is a game over and the game throws you against a variety of opponents, some weak and some overwhelmingly strong. It really gives a sense of being a rookie martial artist finding your place in the world. Sometimes you'll get some strong companions you can rely on and other times you need to rely on your own character's strength. Some of the characters will even go out of their way to scam you and sometimes you just get your butt kicked. The devs put a lot of effort into the world-building and the game world feels really rich and alive. There are a ton of character building options but it feels like it's paced appropriately to let you experiment and have fun. My only complaint so far is that the UI controls feel really janky and unintuitive with a controller. Some of the button prompts are also wrong. I think it's probably better with keyboard and mouse. All in all a fun game if you like JRPGs and enjoy the Chinese martial arts theme!

The game is good quality and with how few Wuxia/Xianxia games are fully translated into English- this is one of the better options. [b] I'd rate the game a 5.5/10 [/b] My love for Wuxia is what makes this game so enjoyable for me. If I didn't enjoy the Wuxia/Xianxia genres so much then this game wouldn't be able to hold a candle to other pixel RPGs. The game's audio is really poor quality. The sound effects and music remain the same for the entire game. Combat skills and sound effects all sound like hitting a block in minecraft. Cutscenes are visually decent but sound cheap and use identical sound effects in each C.S. Music for battles/travel repeat on a 30 second loop for 60hrs of gameplay. The games not worth playing with audio on- its a better experience if you find your own soundtrack to play in the background. The main character Yuwen Yi is basically a carbon copy of any MC from a childrens tv show starring a hero. He's flat, naive, and boring. No good qualities. In any half decent Wuxia story, he would die first in all of them. As the player you can't fix him or alter his choices to make him a better character. He's always going to be a childrens hero- so the story is pretty linear. Choices are only meant to cut off certain quests and stories. (e.g if you don't do Quest A, you can't do Quest X-Z and therefore are cutoff from 30% of the potential story endings.) It never changes anything except the final few seconds of the game. Your choices just shorten or extend the linear path of the story. There are some decent characters who are interesting side stories so thank god for that. If it's on sale, I'd recommend trying it if the above critiques don't bother you too much.

I rarely review games, and we are talking about games as good ff7-10, hell divers, fallouts, jackbox games, octopath, unicorn overlord, counter strike, and a whole slew of other games that are clearly 10s. I just feel like my little opinion doesn't really matter when it comes to gaming. But with this game I am going to make an exception. If you like kung fu panda/shaw brothers kung fu movies, then this is the game for you. If you like octopath traveler, this is the game for you. If you enjoy ff games and tactics, like crafting/stardew valley type games, you devour/read wuxia/cultivation novellas/novels then this is the game for you. The story is a chef kiss and the side quests are robust and fleshed out. The twists and turns i have witness and decisions matter on some of these quests. This scratches every itch i can imagine so far and I am so glad i found this in the steam summer sale. The 2d hd is extremely well done. The music is phenomenal. Story is compelling and sucks you in. Side qeusts are meaningful and have impacts. Not saying there is no drawbacks, i am literately struggling to say the names of the characters and pronounce the cities. Some of the English translations can seem out of place/google translated but you still are able to follow along as long as your analytical skills are higher then a 5 year old. The interface menu is clunky but mouse/touch screen on pc/rog ally nerfs those issues. If you do not watch it, you can out level an area pretty quickly. The crafting system is robust but learning how to do it can be overwhelming. The gift/spar system is a love hate thing with me because i love it when i find a person with something i want but hate it that i have to mug them in the spar to get it. Do not pass up on this game its well worth it.

This game is probably one of the deepest, coolest RPGs I've ever played in decades. Plot is cool, characters are cool, side quests are almost all of them bangers, translation has zero big issues... and I would have missed it all if I had just thought it was half-baked Chinese slop. No, this game is far, far better than many renowned franchises, and it even offers quite a lot of replayability. You literally can't experience all of the game's content in just one run (in fact, you need three, if I remember it correctly). Please, do yourself a favour and try the game. EDIT 1: 70 hours in and I feel like there's still another solid 10-20 hours left in this run. Remind me again why we pay 60€ or more for "AAA games" when this one is the best thing since bread loaves for less than half their price?