System: Nintendo Switch
Available: Switch eShop
Price: AUD $9.99 / USD $7.99
Zerodiv’s reputation to recreate awesome old school games on the Nintendo Switch is pretty much set in stone now (Ed: take that HAMSTER!). Their meticulous conversions of Psikyo’s games on the Nintendo Switch console are second to none. With a plethora of shoot’em ups under their belt, their latest Psikyo conversion is another shmup, but this time, it doesn’t involve space ships or souped up choppers – this one is refreshingly different!
Think Forgotten Worlds (to an extent) with a fantasy setting a melee and spell casting gameplay mechanic and you’d be pretty much on the money with Sol Divide – Sword of Darkness. Oh yeah, the standard graphics are also a departure with the use of CGI pre-rendered models turned into sprites and backgrounds – which actually look pretty good on the Switch.
The ever important gameplay will always be a deciding factor when playing these kind of games. Sol Divide plays like a regular horizontal scrolling shmup where you fly around the screen and using your attack button to fire and another for melee attacks. Combos are done by repeatedly hitting the melee attack button and a direction, whereas pressing both attack buttons casts a spell. Speaking of spells, there are eight of them you can learn in your quest – fire, freeze, thunder, meteor, slow, wind and fire body. There is also an extra character-exclusive spell making for a total of eleven distinct ways to unleash hell. Spells will cost mana to cast, however they can be refilled by way of melee attacks or pickups from fallen foes. Spells can quickly be cycled and selected by using the ‘L’ and ‘R’ shoulder buttons, making it a greater experience than the arcade game single button cycling.
As per the other Zerodiv Psikyo conversions, Sol Divide offers plenty of customisation such as filters and mucking around with the arcade-like DIP switches to personalise the gaming experience, like making it easy as pie or hard as hell with infinite continues!
So is Sol Divide – Sword of Darkness a worthwhile addition to your digital Switch games library? If you like horizontal-scrolling shoot’em ups with fighting and some light-on RPG elements thrown in the mix, then there is enough unique features in this game to warrant its place in your games library. Sword and vengeance starts now!
Disclaimer: Sol Divide – Sword of Darkness was kindly provided by Zerodiv for this review.
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