Slash Quest review - "Familiar yet totally different"

Ok, stop me if you’ve heard this one before: You wake up in the middle of nowhere. You don’t remember how you got there but what you know is that your princess, the one you swore to protect, has been kidnapped by the bad guys. Now, it’s your job to explore this new world, gain new skills, and slay monsters along the way. Add a triforce and you got yourself a high-grossing franchise.

I’m talking about The Legend of...my bad. Wrong franchise. I’m talking about Slash Quest, one of the new Apple Arcade games brought by Mother Gaia, Big Green Pillow, and NoodlecakeGames.

As you can probably tell, the main concept of the game is a bit familiar, but it’s different from what we’ve seen these days. In Slash Quest, you play as the sword. Yeah, you read that right. You play as the princess’ Magical sword, who got lost while some evil forces took the princess captive. Now it’s your job to save her, only that you can do it alone. Because you know, you have no limbs.

So, after a random course of events, you start your journey with the help of a shepherd, who you’ll later call Shep because it sounds cooler. He’s the embodiment of older characters like Link or Red: he doesn’t talk at all, and he’s just there for the ride.

The main focus of the game is the gameplay mechanics. Since you’re controlling a sword, you can’t just move in a straight line. Instead, you rotate Shep by slaying to the left or right, and then you move him forward to start walking. It’s kind of like using a joystick, but it’s a bit more complicated. You get the hang of it after a while, but it takes time to remember that you can’t just go sideways.

The controls are clumsy, but fun. And it does feel like the sword is controlling the human and not the other way around. You’ll interact with the whole world as a sword. You'll active switches, carry bombs, and talk to people as a sword. And Shep will be there too.

You can also grow larger. The more enemies you kill, the larger you’ll grow. You’ll need to use this to reach objects or enemies that are too far. I know there’s a joke here about how size does matter but I promised myself I’m better than that.

There are also other skills and charms that work as power-ups. You get special abilities that can help you or just make you look cool as you sway. Speaking of cool, there’s also all sorts of suits and attire you can buy in the shop. You don't need it for anything but it does give you extra swag points.

Slash Quest is kind of a short game. It only has 12 levels, but each level has a lot of room to cover. There’s a lot to explore, and secret areas with chests you need to find if you want to complete the game. There's also some type of boss room where you’ll be locked in there until you defeat every enemy that appears.

Fortunately, or sadly, depending on your point of view, all these levels are pretty straightforward. Even the puzzles are really easy, and it won’t take much effort to get it right.

It was to be expected since this game is mainly for children, but I’d still love to see a harder version available. Like a new game plus feature or something like that. Most secrets are pretty easy to spot and the only big challenge is to get enough gold coins to buy clothes or upgrade your skills.

Throughout your journey, you’ll also encounter other people that’ll join your party. There are all sorts of colorful characters, like a chef, a blacksmith, and a tasker. Most of them will help you by selling you stuff, but others will give you challenges and sidequests that you can do to earn more gold and to procrastinate for a little bit.

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Another thing that stands out in Slash Quest is the art style. Usually, when I start playing a game, a take a couple of screenshots of things that stand out for my review. With Slash Quest, I couldn't stop taking screenshots at first because every scene looked so dang good. The drawings look really cool, and the scenery is vibrant and detailed.

The music and overall aesthetics of the game blend perfectly with the gameplay and silly narrative. It’s like a TV show was turned into a videogame, but it’s actually good. Unlike those Nickelodeon games on Apple Arcade.

Overall, Slash Quest is a game for everyone. It’s an adventure game where the journey is way better than the destination. Despite being on the easy side, Slash Quest is worth trying out, if not for its difficulty, for its delightful characters and vibrant world.