The Swords Of Ditto
Developer: Onebitbeyond
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release date: 4/24/2018
Platform: PC, PS4
I haven’t really been playing anything lately, my day job has me spending the week in Jacksonville and when I’m at home I really don’t have the energy for anything. So when Scott messaged me saying he needed a review I opened Steam in a panic, looked at the new releases and decided to play Tetris 99 instead. As you can tell from the title this review isn’t about Tetris 99 because what is there to say about Tetris? Statistically you’ve all played Tetris in one form or another because it is literally the best selling game of all time according to Wikipedia. So after rage quitting Tetris 99 because I’m so bad at it, I decided to go back to Steam and play The Swords of Ditto.
The game starts with the protagonist waking up on the beach and being told they need to find a sword so you’re basically playing the beginning of Link’s Awakening but backwards. After getting the sword you’re told to confront the game’s main villain and after climbing her tower she kills you. 100 years later the game proper starts. The Swords of Ditto is called that because it is a rogue lite and the Sword of Ditto is more a title for whoever is caring the sword at the time. When you die 100 years pass and a new person takes up the mantle as “The Sword of Ditto” hence swords being plural in the name.
Swords of Ditto is a top down action RPG in the style of the old Legend of Zelda games. You play as some nameless goober chosen one set out on a quest to free the land of Ditto from the evil Mormo. Along the way you collect toys and stickers. Toys are alt weapons that can be bought in the toy shop or found in toy dungeons and stickers are used for buffs. You kill monsters to gain levels, explore the land for dungeons and eventually confront Mormo. The only requirement to being able to fight Mormo is you need to reach a certain level, other then that you don’t need to do anything. You can explore Ditto to find toy dungeons and acquire legendary toys. The legendary toys are used to gain access to dungeons that house Mormo’s anchors and destroying those will help you in your final confrontation.
Because the game is a roguelite death is inevitable. You can find and activate the shrine of the Goddess Serendipity where you can buy an extra life but that can only help so much. During a play through you also have the chance to find badges and when you die you can choose your character based on the badges you’ve collected. Each character starts with a specific toy and badge and a set of resistances. Badges can gain gain experience and level up which increases the resistance percent. If you’ve activated Serendipity’s shine you can trade fragments to carry over items to your next play through.
The game auto-saves, but it turns out that if you die it doesn’t save until after you start your new character. If you happen to die and the game closes for whatever reason you get another chance. I believe the term is save scumming but at the same time I worked to long to get where I was to die and start over!
So in conclusion, if you have $20 and a Nintendo Switch buy a year online pass and download Tetris 99 because The Swords of Ditto isn’t on Switch as of this writing. If you have $20 and a PC or PS4, which has Swords of Ditto available, I’d still give it a pass unless you REALLY need to play a Zelda game. The cartoonish art style can’t save this game from being a standard action rpg with a small map. Maybe the game opens up more the longer you play but I just didn’t feel invested enough to stick with it. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go look for a copy of Tetris on the original Gameboy to practice.
The Swords Of Ditto
The game auto-saves, but it turns out that if you die it doesn't save until after you start your new character. If you happen to die and the game closes for whatever reason you get another chance. I believe the term is save scumming but at the same time I worked to long to get where I was to die and start over!
