Without having done some research on the Internet, I would surely not have known, having taken the Playstation 4 version, that Sword and Fairy: Together Forever is a game from a well-known and listed license in the West. The studio and the publisher have, in recent years, localized a lot of games from the license, especially on PC / Steam where many opuses are available.
For connoisseurs of the license, you should know that this new opus (tagged with the number 7) is not directly related to the previous games of the license. If you are new to this universe, you will have the advantage of not feeling lost. If you are fond of Chinese mythology, you will be very happy to know that the title draws a lot of its lore from it. Regarding the story itself and without going into too much detail so as not to despoil gratuitously, the various heroes that you will embody find themselves embroiled in a great war between people and divinity. It's up to you, as the chosen one, to do what is necessary, so that the world does not descend into chaos.
At the beginning of the story, you will embody the character of Xiu Wu with whom you will learn the different game mechanics, in particular that of the fights where you can oscillate between basic / heavy attack and skills / spells with cooldowns. The fights are of dynamic types and you will have to use the resources at your disposal to manage to extricate yourself from the opposing clutches. The fights are not necessarily difficult, but if you are not really careful the life points can quickly drop to zero.
Where the game starts to get really interesting and make sense is especially when we meet the first playable companions of our team. It is possible, whether outside or during a fight, to change position with the latter (character switch) allowing you to perform different combos as well as being able to use skills/spells when those of the previous character are no longer available. You should know that the skills that are at the heart of the gameplay still have a fairly long reload time.
The other side of the coin on the other hand concerning the game and especially at the beginning of the latter is that it takes quite a long time to set up. During the first hours, the game oscillates between a few quest phases but above all includes a huge dialogue and cutscene pad. Looking at some opinions on the franchise, this is a point appreciated and known to players but, for some, it can be prohibitive and non-immersive. For information, it takes a good 3 hours of play for the title not to be composed of a major part of story-telling.
On the other hand, one of the big strengths of the game remains the number of secondary quests that it is possible to carry out in the different cities / regions of the game. As soon as you arrive in these, you will be able to chain the secondary quests to recover elements of crafts or even equipment. On the plus side, the quest objectives are well marked on the map, so you don't have to waste time looking for the specific type of monster for your quest. Be careful though, the majority of quests like any RPG are of the Fedex type (go kill X monsters, give an object to an NPC, ...).
Thanks to your progress in the story, the quests and the outright eradication of monsters, you will be able to tackle the improvement of your various characters, whether in terms of creating equipment or usable objects. You will also have the opportunity to train your various spirits unlocked throughout the story by feeding them which will allow you to acquire many advantages, especially during exploration. There is also an internal card game in the form of a mini-game where the goal will be to play with the different weaknesses of the elements between them to inflict damage on the opponent (we can quickly summarize the latter in a form of the battle game with additional mechanics).
In addition to the fact that the story is quite engaging and immersive, it should be noted that the studio has made a huge effort on the graphic part of the title by rendering a completely finished and very well finished product. Even if we can sometimes note some inconveniences during the animations in combat, the exploration part is a real marvel on the graphic level where all the elements are really executed faithfully. The visual effects are rendered very well on screen even on a PS4. I suspect that on the Playstation 5 or on the PC, the rendering must be even more stunning (according to some opinions on the PC version this is indeed the case).
The soundtrack is also very pleasant to listen to, you will find there for the most part a western soundtrack to which different shades linked to the oriental songs of yesteryear mingle. It reinforces this feeling of immersion and living history that the studio wanted to give to its title. Thanks to this music, we find ourselves quite quickly traveling through the history of the title.
In short, the visual and sound rendering is really magnificent and, by what it offers, we can hope that the license will become better known in our countries.
Moreover, not knowing the license at all, I discovered a universe that I did not know and which I really liked. I was able to discover many points on Chinese mythology and take an interest in many parts of it thanks to various research carried out afterwards.
Be careful though, this new opus is the only one with real-time battles, previous versions were only turn-based. And, as I said before, you will surely also have to hang on to the beginning of the title to get through the big story-telling section which is not too much of a habit in our regions! Finally, the language can be a significant obstacle because the game is only available in English for everything related to game elements and subtitles. The voices are only in Chinese.
If these last elements do not displease you that much, the game is really worth it. It is available on PS4 and PS5 for €39,99.
