Deepest Sword | a Review
originally published on 09/11/2022;
Hello everyone, I am the swordsman G.E.M.Simov, a guy with a sword, and I’ve come here to tell you about Deepest Sword.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Deepest Sword is a 2D sidescroller (I love saying sidescroller even if it is possible for you to go backwards) in which the Player (you) takes on the role of a knight (the Player Character) who needs to kill a dragon. At first, the knight’s sword is tiny and light, allowing the Player Character to move quite freely through the use of the A and D keys, whilst also rotating the sword with the Left and Right arrow keys.
Why rotate the sword? Because the PC can’t jump. Instead, the Player needs to use the sword as though it were a crowbar in reverse - the PC places the sword on a ledge and pushes the sword, rotating it in whichever direction the ledge is, until they find themselves on top of the ledge.
Initially, this only works for ledges that are 1 unit tall, but, well, the further into the game the Player goes, the longer the sword becomes. At the end of the game the sword is monstrously massive, so much so that one can get stuck with it - but then they can also do some fantastic things with it. It works quite like a Shepherd’s Leap, and the Player needs to learn how to handle the increased weight and wibbly wobbly of the bigger sword.
In addition to that, every time the Player reaches the end of the game, which is the cue for a sword elongation, the number of rooms that separate the tutorial room and the last room increases. The Player still needs to figure out how to go through this one room that was so easy to do with that sword that was as long as me, but now with the sword that’s two times longer than me it’s a bit harder, and also needs to figure out how to go through that new room. That’s kinda neat and works as a means of increasing the difficulty… Exponentially, because more mechanics get introduced, or, rather, they become truly impactful, unlike their previous iterations or values.
The game is mostly a platformer. In fact, one can’t really say mostly - it is exclusively a platformer that relies on the Player’s skill. It is so well done, however, that the game could be completed in 3 minutes (allegedly). I, myself, managed to barely beat it in under 3:30 minutes for the achievement, and that was responsible for half my playtime.
In any case, this game is just that - a high-skill ceiling platformer that takes a long time to beat because it takes a long time to learn, but in reality it takes tiny amounts of time, much like, if you have heard, ‘Getting Over It’. I’d like to point out that this title is a lot more charming and a lot better in regards to controls than the aforementioned game.
How is that? Well, for starters, the movement of the Player Character is bound to two things - the A and D keys and then the Arrow Keys which manage the sword. I must admit that it is quite difficult to explain how this whole thing works, due to the fact it is so based on feeling and muscle memory. It is, however, a good kind of hard, and in all my playtime, I’ve had no issues with it. I knew exactly what I had to do to get my desired time, it’s just that for quite a while the concept did not get to match up the execution…
Unlike this game’s gameplay. It’s monstrously simple, and very infuriating at times, but the combination of the manageability of it, the fact that it’s hard based off of skill, rather than brutal amounts of progress loss, and the appearance of it, as well as the concept of it - a knight needs a progressively longer sword to kill a dragon - meld into a wondrous experience that I remember quite fondly…
But games that are made with the goal of being hard are badly designed by default. 2/3
Presentation
The game is composed out of pixel-art. It features very few things to look at, other than the Smith, the Friend of the Knight, the Cat of the Knight, the Dragon and the Knight with their sword. The levels are extremely barebones in the way they look and there’s really nothing special about them. The only way I can talk about a certain level is by speaking of the color, so that ought to point out just how bland they were.
But did they need to have a distinct appearance? Well, it would’ve been nice, but it didn’t hurt the game all that much. In the case of Presenting information, the game does it quite well. The tutorial is a pair of images slapped on the walls of the starting area, one telling the Player how to walk, the other telling the Player how to wobble their sword (conveniently situated right above a spot that requires sword wobbling to get to, but still visible without getting to).
The appearance of the game - the visual aspect of it - is cute. One could describe the style as ‘chibi’. It’s endearing, in a sense, and I quite like it.
The music in the game is only decent, and the sound effects, what little there are, are also just okay. 2/3
Story
You are a Knight. Your cat was stolen by a hoarding Dragoness. You try to save your cat by killing the Dragoness, but your sword is too short to pierce her heart. She gives you a laugh and burns you with her fiery breath.
Then you go to the smith and ask for a longer sword, after which you try again. And again. And again. There’s a lot of trying, until finally your sword is long enough to pierce the Dragoness’ heart (disregard the fact that it is almost 3 times as long as you are tall) and save your cat.
The characters in this game are the Smith, who is very ordinary, the Friend, who is very lackluster and a bit boring, and the Dragoness, who looks and presents herself in a very interesting manner. Innuendo, if you will. But then the way she treats the Knight is somewhat friendly, even when they pop up with the Deepest Sword. A bit of a shame she got her heart pierced, but that’s what it is.
The story is simple. It’s barely there, but it is there. It’s not at all deep or spectacular, it’s just a bit of chewing material for you to enjoy. I enjoyed it, I found it amusing, and it was more than enough for a game of this magnitude, but I feel as though it’s still lacking… And I’m sad for the Dragon. 2/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Even though I said all those nice things about the game, even though I said I have fond memories of it, I’ll say NO, because the idea of making a game difficult - far too difficult - as a means of making something engaging seems to go against what the point of a game is.
Games are a means of providing amusement, of engaging in recreational activity, right? And when one seeks amusement, or the opportunity to engage in recreational activity, one does not desire to have their hands sweat, their heart beat, their teeth to grind against one another and a torrent of displeased words to come out of their mouths, do they?
While a bit of difficulty, a bit of challenge in a game is good - even required - far too much of it, and most of it all at once, is not a good idea. Simply put, games that are hard tend to be such because they do not provide enough information to the Player, so that the Player can glean sufficient understanding of the game in the appropriate amount of time, to then be able to engage with it as was intended.
Example 1 - Dark Souls. Why is Dark Souls hard? Because the Player does not know what kind of things the enemies do, how to deal with many problems that might appear and plague them, as well as how to proceed or where to go. What do those issues stem from? Lack of knowledge and understanding. How does one procure those in Dark Souls? By continuing to play, getting shafted and sensing the fun leaking out of you, until you (the Player, that is) finally understand the thing, come to know it, and overcome it, only for that to start going again.
There’s a reason fans of Dark Souls play those games many, many times, and there’s a reason Dark Souls is a game designed to be replayable - because the first playthrough is always the one that’s least fun. Of course, there are other things that make the game fun - exploration, discovery - but those rarely directly influence Gameplay, and in the case of Dark Souls a lot of exploration and discovery, especially in relation to the story of the game, happens after one has beaten it once or twice.
Because that’s when one can focus on these things. Prior to that, the struggle is far too great to allow for loss of focus. Take note of the word - struggle - that’s not the thing you want to be doing when you engage in activities meant to be recreational or amusing, is it?
Example 2 - Getting Over it. In this aforementioned pile of unkindness, the Player starts off knowing nothing. There is enough information to tell them that they control their character by moving the mouse around, and that’s it. Their second bit of intel comes from the name of the game - getting over it - and the first thing they discover in the game - a tree that needs to be gotten over, as one can not go through it. What, then, does the game depend on? The lack of understanding and the lack of knowledge the Player is thrust into it with, as well as a monstrously punishing approach to progression that has, as a goal, the INFURIATION of the Player, rather than their amusement, rather than making them feel calm, relaxed, chill… You know, the way one would like to feel when engaging in recreational activities.
So there’s no knowledge or understanding, coupled with horrendous punishment. This is owed up to a lack of control - because since the Player does not know enough about the things their Character can do, nor do they understand the things they can do, nor do they understand why it is that their character is moving in a certain manner rather than moving as they want their character to move - they literally have no control over their Character, which is not fun.
Is it fun when things happen to you and you can not do anything about them? Is it fun when you go to school, having written your homework, when you’re in class, being a model student, and then the majority of your classmates have not written their homework, nor are they being model students - they’re being loud and disruptive - and then the teacher decides to punish the class (you included, regardless of your good behavior) by presenting a surprise test? Does that feel good? Did YOU make that test happen, was it within your control to prevent that?
Well, you don’t know. Maybe if you had gone up to the teacher and asked kindly, or explained your reasoning in a good manner, you would have been spared. Maybe you had no control over it. But, well, you not knowing you had control over it and then you knowing you had no control over it is the exact same thing - it feels as if you have no control over it and, even if you did have control over it, you can’t exert your control over it due to your lack of understanding that you have control over it.
So the game that does not tell you enough and purposefully punishes you harshly for failing, without first teaching you, takes control away from you. And when one has no control over things, one feels anxiety or fear. Those are not things you’d like to feel when playing a game, engaging in recreational activities or seeking amusement, right?
Example 3 - Deepest Sword, the game we’re talking about. So, we get told what we can do, right? Perfect, wonderful. When we make use of the sword’s rotation to get on top of the first ledge that we get on top of, we gain understanding and knowledge of what we can do. We know everything there is to know about the game at that moment, because there really isn’t much to know.
Then, the sword grows longer. Suddenly, the knowledge you’ve had disappears. You need to learn, but this time it’s not as easy, due to the fact that there’s more than just a ledge to deal with. Then, the Player figures out how to deal with this level and goes and does the thing… The sword grows longer. Now, all the knowledge had by the Player disappears ONCE MORE, and this time the challenge before you is even greater, because it’s not just that room you figured out how to deal with, there’s 2 rooms.
The game takes away control from you, and it takes away your knowledge. You think you know what’s what, and, suddenly, you don’t know what’s what. You don’t even know what this sword does, you don’t even know why you’re going backwards so quickly or why you’re going forwards so slowly and so on and so forth. The way to solve it? Trial and Error, but, fortunately, unlike in the previous 2 examples, this game features no punishment. You can try to get through and fail, but that means you just need to try again. You don’t have to do everything from the start whilst someone condescendingly talks at you. You don’t have to risk losing a large amount of the resources you’ve accumulated prior to your failure.
Even so, even if it is done as gingerly and gently as possible, it still isn’t nice. Murder - the killing of a person (without their consent?) - is wrong. It doesn’t matter if the murder was instantaneous and the victim did not feel a thing - it is still murder, and it isn’t a good thing.
So I can’t say that a bad thing was good. 0/1
Conclusion
6/10. Deepest Sword is a quaint little game about a knight whose sword gets longer and he tries to kill a dragon. It’s relatively short, though it can take up a bit of your time. Still, it is worth every penny, because it is free. If you like challenging games that do not like spitting salt in your eyes, try it. It’s almost amusing.
I tuck it under my belt, another muddied up and frankly a little rough achievement that I display. Am I proud I’ve got it there? I don’t really know.