Sword King is almost everything that's wrong with mobile gaming.
It's insultingly basic.
It's completely lacking in any need for gaming skill.
It's pay-to-win.
It's a totally vapid experience devoid of all meaning.
TapTo play, you tap the screen anywhere, which "attacks" an enemy you never see. This diminishes your energy levels but gives you coins to spend on upgrading your sword at the Blacksmith.
The higher the level of your sword, the likelier is it to break in the upgrade process. If it breaks, you need to buy a new sword and start all over again, making for an exercise in frustration and name-calling.
Use up all your energy and you can't attack until the following day, unless you want to buy a rejuvenating potion, of course.
The supposed compulsion of "clickers" is that there's an excitement to see what the next upgrade you'll get will be. In the case of Sword King, it's another crap looking sword to fight further invisible enemies with, this time for slightly more gold.
TaptaptaptaptapFor a game with flat and dull visuals straight out of 2007, it takes a crushingly long time to fire up, and even has load times between the action screen and the upgrade screen.
The soundtrack is non-existent, and effects are limited to menu clicks and the sound of a sword swooshing harmlessly through the air.
There are leaderboards here detailing who has the most powerful sword, but I'm not sure how much appeal there is in wanting to climb to the top of a list of people who have a borderline gambling problem.
And that's it.
No. Really. That's it.
As PG's resident "free to play is awesome" chap, I've played some bollocks in my time, but Sword King is on a whole new level. The designer doesn't understand the core appeal of this most simple of genres, and subsequently the game is mind-rotting drivel.
The only reason this isn't getting an even lower score is because the game isn't broken and playing it didn't cause a clutter of spiders to pour out of my phone's Lightning connector.
Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.