Swordship is advertised as a “dodge-em-up” like shmup, but there’s a lot to dodge. This time, everything is directed at you, not the other way around.
Let’s stop with the usual puns jump in in it. Speaking of diving, it’s one of the tools at your disposal. The ship you are piloting is a sci-fi speedboat of sorts, capable of short dives and cargo container pickups. Like many of her shy cousins, Swordship is set up as her 2D lane runner. There is really only one wide lane where you can move smoothly left and right. It also gets the depth of the screen moving back and forth in the field. Combined with the short dive ability, you should be able to avoid any kind of discomfort.
One of the pet peeves of my game is that it’s thrown into the action with little to no explanation of the rules or goals. Swordships do quite a bit of work introducing danger, moving boats, and diving. What fell a little short was letting the player know what the desired containers looked like and how to actually collect and deliver them. In the short version, the container is a long box at the end of the yellow runway. Simply place your boat in the center of the yellow runway to intercept the container and it will be automatically collected. Next, you’ll need to move your boat over a small (Swordship-sized) oval and wait a few seconds for the container to drop. Hey Presto—you score some points!
Now that you know how to collect containers, you can choose how to use your newly found points. You can keep containers for yourself and add lives, or you can “donate” them to a “cause” to help everyone in society. Donating containers earns you points that can be used to upgrade your ship with additional/new features. Holding a container gives you an extra life. This is very important because the game is completely unforgiving when it comes to failure. If an enemy hits you or touches an enemy unit, you die instantly. No “three strikes”, no damage meter, no redo, no save points. There is absolutely no room for error. Death is instant. If you have extra lives in your pocket, you can pick them up from where you died, but if you don’t have any extra lives, you can start over from city 1, level 1 each time. This was disappointing, but I understand.
Quirks and annoyances aside, Swordship is visually appealing and plays very smoothly and intuitively. There aren’t many visual elements, but that’s not the point. Anything that shoots, explodes, burns, or otherwise tries to destroy you is the bad guy’s black, weapon trucks are bright red, and boats are a very noticeable yellow. As mentioned, the container runway is also bright yellow, so it’s easy to see where you need to be and where you shouldn’t be in case of red ones at any given time. The game does a good job of providing the player clues for all the dangers they face. If you get too close to a mine, a red circle indicates the explosion radius. It starts out pale red and becomes bright and opaque just before it explodes. The same goes for laser cannons. They send out a targeting beam that brightens just before launch. These clues are very useful to him for two reasons.
- Areas can be “unboated” at the right time.
- Enemies can be targeted against each other by exploiting their desire to shoot you. You’ll also get bonus points for defeating bad guys like this, so have fun.
As you’d expect from this type of game, you’ll spend a lot of time replaying levels while you get used to the flow of things and amass enough upgrades to allow you to survive a little longer. But don’t try to understand the patterns. The levels are random enough to keep you on your toes.
From the start, Swordship offers enough challenge to keep players engaged, and plenty of replay opportunities for those seeking the thrill of mastering shmups (or anti-shmups, in this case). increase.
