Revisiting as a stranger for the final time. Stranger of Sword City: Revisited.

Looking back on my experience with the developer (aptly named) Experience Inc, I thought for a while that my time with them began with Death Mark. I was wrong. Upon further thought, I had a brief encounter with them when I tried, and almost immediately put down, Stranger of Sword City on the PlayStation Vita. While the premise was interesting, it didn’t pull any punches from the moment it began. I was put off by the combination of a high barrier of entry and a lack of clarity. It’s funny how time works because some years later, here I am writing a glowing review for Stranger of Sword City: Revisited. This updated version features new classes, new dungeons, and new story beats. It also retained all of its intense difficulty that had me shouting all sorts of profanities. Despite that, I clocked almost 50 hours into it. And when it was time to finish, I found myself wanting more.

Stranger of Sword City begins with bang. You play as a nameless character that is on a flight from Narita to Alaska. The plane gets sucked into a portal. Awakening from the disaster as the only survivor, you’re greeted by an old man in a decrepit dungeon. You follow him, but soon learn his intentions aren’t great. Luckily, a girl named Riu saves the day. She explains that she, like you and a bunch of others, got sucked into this fantastical world of swords and sorcery called Escario. Their base is in Sword City where she leads a group of appropriately named Strangers with one goal: return home. It’s a lot to take in, and of course there’s more to the story. You’re more than just the average Stranger. The story is interesting, as we’ve come to expect from anything that Experience Inc. develops. There are twists and turns. There are factions representing light and darkness. There is intrigue and mystery. There are shady dealings going on behind the scenes. And, of course, much more. It’s a step above your average dungeon crawler story. While your team is made up of characters you create or provided stocks, the NPCs do more than enough to fill in the gaps.

But, the real draw for games like these is forming a party, exploring dungeons filled with monsters and treasure, and slowly becoming a solid team of adventurers capable of taking down anything. That’s the case here. You and a party of five Strangers will head into dungeons to fulfill certain quests to keep the story moving forward. Creating a balanced party is crucial in Stranger of Sword City. There are a variety of classes, races, and stats to think about. In fact, I would recommend to anyone thinking about playing this to do research ahead of time. That’s something I did NOT do until this recent playthrough.

You pick your character’s race, age, class, and a trait. Traits offer boons such as seeing enemy HP, noticing secrets in dungeons, and more. There are points to roll which get distributed to stats. Fans of Dungeons and Dragons will feel right at home as they build their party. And, they’ll also notice that characters have hearts by their name. These are Life Points. Once a character is out of Life Points, they’re gone forever. More on that in a minute. The best part about making your team comes with the variety of classes. I won’t go into each class or the functionality of Cross Classing, but I will reiterate: do your research. This is what I FINALLY did, and not only did I have a much smoother time, but I ultimately had a blast watching my team of Strangers grow.

So, you’ve got your team. Now what? Remember, this game’s blueprint is of an old school dungeon crawler so you’ll have very little money to buy new equipment at first. Luckily, your first quest is on the lighter side. It will take you through the ins and outs of dungeon trekking. Dungeons are littered with the following: treasures, traps, hidden passages, and monsters. I’ll cover monsters when I get into combat. As you move along a dungeon you’ll come across Hiding Spots. Here, you can lie in wait for enemies and get rewarded with specific types of equipment. Fans of Demon Gaze will pick up on this immediately. I would use this often in the first dungeons. Eventually, regular encounters will reward you with good equipment. Still, it’s a nice feature that allows you to seek out the types of weapons/armor you want.

It’s inevitable that you’ll encounter an enemy or two (hundred) as you wander the labyrinths. Naturally, this takes us to the combat. The bottom line is that if you’ve played a dungeon crawler before, then you know what to expect: input commands and watch the drama unfold. But, there’s more to it than that beyond the surface. A lot more. Stranger of Sword City is a difficult game. You might think you’ve found the perfect combination of Strangers, but it’s very easy for things to go sideways. Not only do enemies hit hard, some monsters have a twisted RNG that has a chance to automatically kill your characters. The MC can’t die, but that party of Strangers you built from the ground up? Think twice about reviving them mid-combat/dungeon because once those hearts are gone, the Stranger is gone. This enemy advantage applies more towards Lineage Enemies and story bosses. Lineage Enemies drop Blood Crystals. These can be used to learn skills called Divinities that are crucial to use as often as you can. They cost Motivation, which is restored by landing hits. One really neat feature is counterattacking. By defending, there’s a chance your character will retaliate and knock the enemy unconscious for one turn.

Seeing your party get wrecked is a major demotivator. Even if enemies lacked this ability, it always feels like the team is at a disadvantage. Reviving characters costs a lot of money. Restoring their hearts costs a lot of money. Alternatively, you can let them rest free of charge in Sword City. The downside is that it will take a few in game hours for them to get back. The only way to prevent this possible OHKO is a level 26 Cleric ability. Characters have conservative level growth, so getting to this point takes a long time. And yet despite all of this uphill battling, the gameplay loop is addictive as all get-out. It’s also rewarding. Seeing your party overcome challenge after challenge is slow and steady. But it does happen. At some point, my team of front line fighters were dealing hit after hit after hit while my three members in the rear provided magical support and destruction.

That’s a lot to take in. Even as your party finds its groove, Stranger of Sword City requires you to be on your best game 99% of the time. So, let’s talk about something that doesn’t cause as much stress: the presentation. The fully voiced Japanese voice acting is accompanied by a killer soundtrack. There aren’t many songs, but they range from soothing to intense. Each one is an earworm. And then, we have the graphics. This game screams Experience Inc. The monsters are designed beautifully. There’s a constant sense of eeriness. Special graphic stills capture key events magnificently. I never grew tired of revisiting the same dungeons. All of that back-and-forth frustration was ameliorated by looking at pretty graphics.

Finishing the game once took me 40 hours. However, once those credits finished rolling and some new scenes started to play, it was clear that the adventure was not over. So, I continued to play. And play. And play. Building my team. Exploring brand new dungeons. Fighting new enemies and bosses. There is A LOT packed into this game; all of which is addictive and hard to put down. No matter how many times I had to reload my save, cursing my luck, I always went back for more. When I finished seeing all of the endings and going through most of the challenges, I had a play time of 55 hours. That’s 15 hours of post-game content – something I rarely touch in games these days – and I still wanted more. But, all good things and all that. I recommend this game to patient gamers that enjoy dungeon crawling and fine-tuning their battle parties. The payoff is worth it.

Overall, 8.5/10: Stranger of Sword City: Revisited is the definitive version of an intense and unapologetic dungeon crawler. Despite it’s new features, it provides a challenge only for the most dedicated.