Sword King Review

Sword King is a game that made me gradually dislike myself the more I played it. Not because it’s a bad game (although, it is pretty bad) but because it made me realize how weak I can be.

There’s hardly a game to Sword King, really. Consisting of one screen that depicts a sword, stamina bar, and money counter, all you do is tap. Tap as much or as little as you want. Each time you tap, you defeat a monster. You never see that monster, other than through a piece of text telling you what it was and how much money you earned by killing it. You just have to assume it was there. Each time you tap, you kill something and your money total goes up.

Once you reach 500, you can then jump to the Blacksmith screen and upgrade your sword. The sword changes in appearance and each monster you kill earns you more money. After a time, upgrading carries with it a certain level of risk. You can destroy your beloved sword by trying to upgrade it again. So the key here is to have multiple swords available, all at roughly the same level so you never miss out on too much money.

That’s as far as Sword King’s strategy goes. Other than that, it’s incredibly shallow. It’s also keen for your money as you can use in-app purchases to buy coins and stamina potions - although why you’d do that, I really don’t know. Coins are quickly earned in-game anyhow and stamina potions are given to you each day for free.

The problem is that Sword King is insipid. You know it’s utterly pointless and far too shallow to spend any time playing, yet a tiny part of me was keen to get to that level 10 sword upgrade that seemed out of my reach. Which is how I ended up quietly hating my shallow self, just for five minutes.

Don’t bother with Sword King. There’s really no point to it. Maybe with a lot of changes, it could be something, but as it stands, no. Just no.