Sword of the Sea is a Tubular Experience

Back when Journey came out, I didn't play it. It took me until I got it on PS+ that I was able to sit down and experience it for the first time. It's not an experience you can repeat and the art direction was one of the best parts of it. Then Abzu came out from a different team with the same Art Director and happened to be a game that was not at all for me. I hate ocean games, thalassophobia does that to you, and Abzu is entirely underwater.

But somehow, somehow I managed to sit down, focus on having my feet flat on the floor of my room, and played it. It was mystical, beautiful, and absolutely terrifying. But I played it and beat it.

Last week, the newest game from Giant Squid came out and I just had to play it, I knew it wasn't underwater so I wouldn't have a problem and I knew it would be just as beautiful and mystical. I grabbed it and played it in just a couple days, I would have finished it in one if I didn't have plans that day. It was an experience that everyone should have and you might wonder, could it possibly beat or exceed the likes of Journey and Abzu? To put it in one word: Fuck yes. Oh wait that's two words, well, just read more below to find out what I think in many many more words.

The Premise

Sword of the Sea sees you take the role of a "knight/warrior" that has awoken to a desolate landscape. You have a sword that acts as a hoverboard and you are tasked with surfing/skating around to restore the world and make it lush and filled with wildlife again. That wildlife happens to be fish. You're also tasked with doing all the cool tricks on your sword that you can, like a true knight/warrior.

The Good

The best games communicate things to the player without directly calling it out. Whether that be story or subtle gameplay queues, what matters is that they communicate it silently. Abzu, the first game from Giant Squid, did this fucking wonderfully allowing you to understand what you need to do and where you need to go without directly telling you. It was all simplistic and done silently without making it confusing. Meanwhile, in the present, Sword of the Sea turns that experience up to 11 where it gives you some basics, like teaching you your different abilities, but it lets you fuck around to find some other things out. For instance, it never told me I could grind down some things, but when I came across a big skeleton I was able to grind down it's spine. It didn't have to tell me that, it let me experiment and figure that out. The game is similar in how it'll subtly tell you where some squares are that have currency attached to them by having some fish painted near them, pointing in the direction you need to go to get to it. The game is filled with these solutions to not having any voicework and that creates such a mystical and unique experience that I found myself enjoying every minute of the short experience, far more than I expected.

The art style, meanwhile, is what is being praised so highly since it is the same art director as journey and my word is that incredibly obvious. The world feels like a mix between Journey and Abzu depending on where you are in it and if you've unlocked the water in that area and it's this really interesting mix of art and provides tremendous atmosphere that I've only really felt in this way from the games from this Art Director. I mean, having fish and sea creatures swimming around the air after you unlock the water in an area is such an interesting experience to be surfing around on your sword and then all of a sudden to be surrounded by fish or dolphins or sharks or orcas or sting rays or whales or sea turtles or other multitude of sea life, many many that you can ride as they swim along their predetermined path. A short compilation of some screenshots I took of the ones you can ride is below. It's just such a beautiful experience and if you're at all artistic you owe it to yourself to experience it yourself, nothing I can say should make you second guess that.

One thing that is very consistent about Giant Squid games is that they have very minimal stories. Here is similar. It essentially tells the tale of how your character is the literal Sword of the Sea and how you are meant to restore this planet which has been overtaken by some force that has made its landscape very desolate. You learn of the cause of that and more about the reason your character exists throughout the story but it's mostly told through little pedestals of poem-ish lines and some murals that are beautiful and are purposefully reminiscent of ancient art. But the minimal story fits here. It's basic, but that's kinda the point. Not all stories have to be complex, sometimes you just need to tell a story of restoration. It's a beautiful little tale.

And of course the gameplay is fantastic, surfing/skating around the world feels smooth and crisp. You're able to do tricks and you learn different abilities throughout the game that expand on what you can do while riding around. You'll come across halfpipes that allow you to have some fun and even time trials where you're just trying to get the highest score you can with all the tricks you can muster, obviously through increasing your multiplier and landing the tricks. It's wonderful and fills me with nostalgia for Tony Hawk games from my childhood. If you're looking for that itch with even crisper gameplay and fantastic art and an actual story and variety of locations to go through, this game is 100% for you.

The Bad

I think the only issue I have is not really influential to the game at large and more that the game is just so damn good that I want more of it. Sure there are some things that I'd tweak like how fast you can move on your sword or the camera angle, or how quick the controls are to respond, but these things aren't important really, they're nitpicks that are barely worth mentioning. The real problem is that I NEED more of this experience. I want to be able to skate around on my sword like I'm back to being a kid and teenager playing the Tony Hawk games and doing tricks and fucking around. It's such a fantastic experience that not having more of it is disappointing despite still being a game that feels like a very complete experience that never drags. Yes, you get New Game+ at the end and that's very beneficial for replay value allowing you to mainly go for the high score, but it's still just not as good as the first time you're playing and exploring and learning. I want more on the first playthrough, not having to replay to get more gameplay.

The Ending - Detailed

**Start Spoilers**

After becoming friends with the other knight rider person, they get eaten by the fire stone serpent just before you both get to the giant pillar you've been awakening over the game. You then have to make your way through lava trying not to catch on fire. Unfortunately you fail and sink into the lava only to have an awakening moment and zoom out of it racing up to the top of the pillar, which ends up looking very similar to a satellite at the end.

With the moon above you, you rescue your friend from the serpent by firing water blobs at it and racing away from it in a cloud half pipe. Then you and your friend chase after it in a giant water tunnel and fire at it with the same water blobs. Eventually you take it down, pierce it's "heart" and boom. Dead stone fire serpent and the world has been freed from the jaws of desolate landscape.

You and your friend are falling and falling holding the blade. Until you let go and end up doing what you were always meant to do, become a water blob, shoot up into the sky, and explode into rain clouds causing it to rain for the first time in, one can only assume, a long time.

**End Spoilers**

The Ending - Reaction

The ending was honestly perfect. It had a perfect swell of emotion, gameplay, and action. It helped your character realize their true purpose, it allows for a lot of skating/surfing around. It was fantastic and I couldn't have hoped for a more interesting, varied, and intriguing ending.

The Conclusion

Sword of the Sea is special. It is an experience like no other. It makes you have fun, makes you enjoy the surfing around while still allowing continued unlocking of different abilities that are interesting (even though I didn't unlock all of them). It makes you want to keep playing because it's so damn fun and it provides you such an interesting world to explore.

Do yourself a favor and grab Sword of the Sea. You should play it. Everyone should play it. It's beautiful and I just....I can't get over how much I enjoyed it. It might be 3 hours, which is short for a 30 dollar game, but it's still such an amazing experience and does provide replay value with scoring your runs on New Game+. Even if you have to wait for a sale, because 30 bucks is a lot to ask for a 3 hour game, this should be an immediate "Add to Cart" for everyone.

Meow,

Cat