Sword of the Necromancer Review (PC)

A weird sorcerer is trying to fling fireballs at me, a slime is moving around lobbing green go towards my allies, and I can’t decide which one to deal with first. I drop my bat ally, hoping that it will keep at last one of them busy, and then contemplate using a knight I have stashed for emergencies. As I evaluate my ideas the character I control continues slashing with his own sword and dashing around to avoid attacks. The fight is not hopeless but my allies are almost certainly toasted and I don’t know how easy it will be to replace them.

Sword of the Necromancer is an action rogue-lite created by Grimorio of Games and published by JanduSoft. I played the game via Steam but it is also available on the Nintendo Switch and all available versions of the Xbox line from Microsoft and the PlayStation from Sony.

The main character of the story is an adventurer named Tama, who has a past as a thief. She also has a bond with a royal priestess called Koko. She dies and the main character needs to use the titular sword and its death-defying power to make things right. There’s quite a bit of narrative in the game, focused on the interactions between the two, but the dialogue is a little limited and the two characters never become very interesting during the short story cutscenes.

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The game does manage to create a link between the necromancy required by the plot and the main mechanic that separates the title from its peers. Tama can resurrect any of the foes that she takes out. Once they are brought back to life they exist in an inventory slot and can be used to attack other enemies. An array of weapons and magical artifacts serves the same purpose. A dash is mainly used to make sure that the main character does not take any hits.

All the dungeons are procedurally generated, filled with enemies and leading to a more powerful end-level boss. The monsters Tama meets are relatively easy to kill, especially for the first few encounters, which makes it test the resurrection system and its limits. The main character has four slots to work with when in combat, one of them always occupied by the sword with the necromancy power. This means that he can take three monsters with him, activating them at the best moment to distract or kill other enemies.

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Monsters can even become more capable as they gain experience, making them even more useful. But they also die relatively quickly if the player does not back them up or when they face one of the end-level bosses (who almost universally have cool designs).

But the biggest problem is that the four action slots are too limited. The sword uses one, a bow or another longer reach weapon is almost a necessity. There are also powerful other items that can be obtained and upgraded. This means that it’s almost always at most one monster that can be used in battle. I tried to use just the sword and only rely on monsters for the other three slots. This makes the game more varied and exciting but also seems to lead to quicker deaths.

Sword of the Necromancer is a very retro-looking game, clearly designed to appeal to those nostalgic for titles launches around twenty years ago. The main character and her enemies have clear visual identities and are kind of cute. But there’s little in the way of beauty or charm for the world and moving across the dungeons means seeing the same layouts again and again. The story cutscenes are also limited and the fonts used for the dialogue are somehow out of place. The game does have a soundtrack that fits both the concept and the mechanics.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion