REVIEW: Swordbreaker: The Game on Xbox One

Review by Jon Donnis
I was sent a copy of Swordbreaker The Game on Xbox One for review by Sometimes You.

As a kid did you ever play one of those "choose your own adventure books", also known as a Gamebook.
Basically it was a physical book, but you didn't read it in a linear way, there were no chapters as such, you would read a passage, and then make a choice, and depending on the choice you would then go to a completely different page of the book. You literally were creating your own adventure. Well Swordbreaker: The Game is basically that but on a Xbox.

You play as the hero who starts the game inside an abandoned castle, and your ultimate aim is to find the hidden treasure, but of course you have obstacles along the way and each screen you come to is another choice, make the wrong choice and you may lose one of your three lives, lose all lives and that's it, you have to start all over again. You may choose to help a Librarian or push over a bookcase, you might choose to help alien, or kill them, every choice matters.

This is more of an "interactive fiction book" than it is a game as such, and the ultimate aim of the game is to witness all of the endings, all of the deaths and all of the different screens that feature really great artwork.

The Good
The artwork is fantastic, which for what is interactive fiction this truly is the most important thing.

The Bad
Unless you have an incredible memory, to get through to one of the various endings you might find yourself getting so far and then making the same mistake and forcing you to replay the whole thing again, however if you have a pen and piece of paper it is easy enough to keep track.

Summary
Not since the 1980's as a child have I "played" a Gamebook, these really were a big thing back in the day, as we didn't have Smartphones, and computers back then were pretty poor, so you got your entertainment in other ways, Gamebooks were one of those ways, so to have one on a Xbox is definitely an interesting concept, as it allows glorious artwork to go along with a storyline.

If you are a fan of the old style Gamebooks (choose your own adventure) then give this a go, it is fun, plenty of gamerpoints to get which come along as you play through too.

7/10

Review by Jon Donnis