Saviors of Sapphire Wings / Stranger of Sword City Revisited Review – Two Great RPGs

Welcome back to Nintendo Link, where we have not one but two great RPGs to talk about with this newly released double pack from NIS America. My name’s Chelly, and this is my review of Saviors of Sapphire Wings / Stranger of Sword City Revisited.

Saviors of Sapphire Wings

Let’s start with Saviors of Sapphire Wings. This is the first time this title has been released in the West, and boy, what a first impression it has made. A narrative, dungeon-crawling RPG game, not too different from the likes of Operencia: The Stolen Sun and the Disgaea series.

Originally released in Japan in 2019 under the name Blue-Winged Chevalier for the Playstation Vita, this one tells the story of a world in ruin. You’re forced to play out a battle scenario that you cannot win – An epic battle between the Knights of the Round and the Overlord of Darkness, giving you a brief look into the turn-based combat and movement.

100 years later, one of the Knights of the Round is reborn, ready to defeat the Overlord of Darkness once and for all. That lucky Knight is you. Now it’s time to create your character. Saviors of Sapphire Wings features a very brief character creation, allowing you to edit the name, gender, appearance, Soul Shape, and Stat Points of your character. Changing the appearance of your character involves you choosing a preset image. A Soul Shape is basically defining what kind of playstyle you want. Choose between the Mediator Soul, Sage’s Soul, Champion Soul, Migmy’s Soul, Expert’s Soul, and finally, Fairy’s Soul. All of which have varying base stats.

Once your character is all set up, you’re ready to go.

The gameplay in Saviors of Sapphire Wings is nothing we’ve not seen before, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. When out in the world, you will be moving in squares in a first-person view – like any good old dungeon-crawler. You will have a small map on-screen to guide you, but it’s usually pretty easy to find your way around. Sadly, the world around you isn’t much to look at, and I found that the majority of areas I was in didn’t really have a lot of detail to them. They were just big empty areas that I didn’t necessarily want to explore.

One of the things I really liked when travelling around the world was the fact that if you have already visited an area prior, you can simply open the map and select where you want to go – you will then auto-run through the level until you get to that spot. It helps to speed up things, because you will need to do a lot of travelling back and forth.

When travelling around areas, there is a chance for random battles to occur (similar to that of Pokemon, but much less annoying). These battles provide extra chances at getting items and gaining EXP, but you do have the option of running away from them if you prefer. As you are maneuvering around, you will notice some markers that you can walk into to trigger certain events. For example, you will come across exclamation marks that will trigger a certain conversation between characters or a red triangle that triggers a boss battle or a battle of any kind. This helps to break the boredom when travelling between areas.

The turn-based combat isn’t too complicated to get to grips with either. You’re given basic options to select such as attacking, defending, using skills, spells, and items. Nothing you wouldn’t be used to if you’re familiar with RPGs. Each player will take turns choosing an action with the enemy responding after that.

Each enemy has attacks they are weak against and strong against, so you’re going to have to experiment with your party’s attacks to determine what’s the best approach. Speaking of enemies, there is a wide range of them to see and defeat here, of all shapes and sizes. From flying bug monsters to goblins, they will always keep you on your toes.

As I stated earlier, you will be doing a lot of back and forth, and this is due to numerous things. One of those is you will be traveling to and from villages and your ‘home’ to purchase items and select new quests, among other things. Another reason for this is because if you’re out in the field and some of your characters run out of health, an easy way to bring them back is to simply travel to a town. They will then be revived with no consequence.

One thing I noticed pretty quickly was that this game is very narrative-heavy, and that can sometimes be a little daunting when there isn’t a story to be interested in. I’m sad to say that I couldn’t find much entertainment in this one. The character interaction is great and funny, but when that overstays its welcome it can become annoying. The game features some choice dialogue options which was a nice surprise – allowing for a more personal feel. The way you interact with your party also helps to build a relationship with them.

When you gain access to your main base, you will uncover a lot of new elements of the game. These include managing what quests you have to complete, depositing any items into storage that you may not need, melting down equipment, and even cooking food for you and your party.

The one area that I thought was lacking slightly was the games progression system. There is no skill tree, which was disappointing. You seem to only gain more skills and abilities as you level up. You can equip your character and party with new weapons and armour as you gain it, all providing different stats, which is cool.

The best piece of advice I can give you is to save often. There is no autosave here, and that means if you die, you’re going straight back to where you last saved. This can lead to some annoying moments if you have forgotten to save like I did a few too many times…

One thing is for sure, Saviors of Sapphire Wings looks and feels great. The sprites used in the game are pleasant to look at. They include a lot of detail, and each character is distinguishable from the last, with a very anime feel to it. The level design is what lets it down, though, in my opinion. The music in the game is awesome and very fitting with what’s going on – and addictive. It can get a little repetitive during certain areas, but that’s expected. My favourite thing was listening to the rain during some areas, as I found it to be incredibly relaxing.

Stranger of Sword City Revisited

I’m not going to go into too much detail regarding this one, because this is pretty much a bonus buy. A 2-for-1, if you will. Stranger of Sword City was originally released in 2016, and even though it’s older than the other, it’s the better looking of the two.

Stranger of Sword City Revisited is extremely similar to that of Saviors of Sapphire Wings in many ways. It’s almost like playing the same game in a different area and with different characters. It’s easier for me to point out the differences.

This one features a lot more character sprite selection. However, you will notice some familiar faces here. It’s also fully voiced in Japanese, which added a little more depth to the story. Speaking of which, I was a lot more invested in this game’s story than that of Saviors of Sapphire Wings. I don’t know why, It just appealed to me more.

You will notice pretty early on that a lot of the same enemies that you encountered in Saviors of Sapphire Wings appear in this game that leads me to come to the same conclusion that I was playing the same game.

If you’re a fan of old-school dungeon-crawlers, you will absolutely love both of these titles. They essentially feel like games that are stuck in the ’90s, and that’s the point. They’re supposed to be nostalgic. It will have a certain allure to those that grew up with these kinds of games. Combined, there’s plenty of gameplay to keep you occupied for 100+ hours, and that’s great.

This was our review of Saviors of Sapphire Wings / Stranger of Sword City Revisited. Please don’t forget to like and subscribe if you liked what you have seen today. Tell us, what’s your favourite dungeon crawler in the comments below. I’m Chelly, and I’ll catch you next time on Nintendo Link.

Saviors of Sapphire Wings / Stranger of Sword City Revisited Review provided by Nintendo Link
Publisher: NIS America
Developer: Code Glue / Experience Inc
Release Date: March 16, 2021
Price: $49.99, £44.99, €49,99
Game Size: 3.1 GB