Saviors of Sapphire Wings / Stranger of Sword City Revisited

Genre: Compilation / First-Person Dungeon Crawler

Players: 1

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Review:

Saviors of Sapphire Wings / Stranger of Sword City Revisited, released in 2021 on PC and Nintendo Switch, is a Compilation of the two titular games, both First-Person Dungeon Crawlers. Saviors of Sapphire Wings was previously only available in its Japanese releases starting on PC in 2010 and over the next two years being ported to Xbox 360 and PlayStation Portable. In Japan, the game went by the name Entaku no Seito, which I understand translates to Students of the Round Table. Stranger of Sword City, on the other hand, did see a US release – on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation Vita and PC in 2016, with an updated version of the game bearing the addition of “Revisited” in the title getting released on PlayStation Vita in 2017.

Here is what I thought of the games in this Compilation:

Game	Genre	# of Players	Grade	tl;dr
Saviors of Sapphire Wings	First-Person Dungeon Crawler	1	D+	This is just about as basic and bland as Dungeon Crawlers get. There’s no nuance or depth to the gameplay save for an ambush mechanic and relationship system that don’t help the bland minute-to-minute gameplay. What’s more, the story is generic Medieval fantasy trash made worse by an absurdly bad localization. However, this game is made sub-par due to molasses-slow progression, combat that feels detached from its characters, and laughably bad pop-in that makes it so you can’t see more than a few spaces ahead of you. While this is a functional Dungeon Crawler, it isn’t a good one.
Stranger of Sword City Revisited	First-Person Dungeon Crawler	1	C-	Stranger of Sword City reuses character designs and game mechanics from Sapphire Wings, but builds on them with a more detailed hand-painted art style, better music, an interesting story about a plane crash survivor finding themselves in a Medieval fantasy land, and more nuanced game mechanics such as a system where players must wait while KOed party members recover from their wounds. While these are welcome additions, Stranger is terrible about explaining them, and also about providing basic information to the player such as letting you compare equipment in shops. However, what really holds it back is its absurdly high difficulty paired with frustratingly slow progression. This Dungeon Crawler has a lot of ideas with promise, but the game is overall just too poorly executed to be an enjoyable entry in the genre.

Suffice it to say, I was extremely disappointed in this pair of Dungeon Crawlers. Saviors of Sapphire Wings is clunky, bland, and boring, and Stranger of Sword City Revisited has some really great ideas that don’t work well due to poor execution. While I am always delighted to get my hands on a potentially great First-Person Dungeon Crawler (the Etrian Odyssey series on the Nintendo DS and 3DS is still my high standard, though Moero Crystal H ended up being better than it had any right to be despite its shameless extreme objectification), I am likewise stunned when I see entries in the genre this bad being celebrated elsewhere. Have people who enjoyed these games even played the Etrian Odyssey games? But I digress…

When it comes to the question of value, I suppose I have to admit that at $50, this game is theoretically an excellent deal since the Xbox One version of Stranger of Sword City still sells for over $40 and Saviors of Sapphire Wings has never been released stateside before. However, we’re still talking about a decade-old game and a half-decade old game. As far as I’m concerned, $50 for two old games that weren’t good even when they were released is a terrible deal, and the fact that one of the included games is priced even worse elsewhere does not change that.

Oh, and I suppose I should also mention the complete lack of touchscreen features on the Nintendo Switch version of the game, despite that Stranger of Sword City even has what looks like on-screen buttons.

I still think it’s kinda’ sad that the best First-Person Dungeon Crawler on the Nintendo Switch remains the one with gratuitous boobies, but unfortunately neither Saviors of Sapphire Wings nor Stranger of Sword City Revisited comes anywhere close to the deep and rewarding gameplay seen in some of the better games in the genre, and combining them into one Compilation doesn’t change that fact. Even though I applaud NIS America for localizing a US release of a game that’s been Japan-only for over a decade here and throwing it in with another game as well, I still cannot recommend this Compilation. Get the boobie game instead (or, if you want something less ridiculous, Operencia: The Stolen Sun also has its charms).

tl;dr – Saviors of Sapphire Wings / Stranger of Sword City Revisited is a Compilation of the two titular First-Person Dungeon Crawlers. Unfortunately, Sapphire Wings is hopelessly bland, Stranger of Sword City Revisited suffers from an overly-high difficulty and poorly-presented information, and both games have issues with painfully-slow progression. I do not recommend this bundle.

Grade: C-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2021 Game Awards:

Winner:

Most Overrated (80) – The recipients of this award go to games that Metacritic rated highly, a rating I strongly disagree with. This year’s winner is a Compilation of two First-Person Dungeon Crawlers that are not only horribly uninspired, but absolutely dreadful to play. Saviors of Sapphire Wings is as generic, basic, and boring of an entry in the genre as you could expect to find, and Stranger of Sword City Revisited is absurdly difficult to the point of just not being fun. Both games have molasses-slow progression, and while I would very much like to play a truly great First-Person Dungeon Crawler on Nintendo Switch, it is astonishing to me that anyone thought that the games in this package fit that description.

Runner-Up: Most Disappointing

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