Stranger of Sword City

Prepare for massive amounts of grinding. It will be most of your gameplay experience. I completed all achievements and it took a few months to really find traction to complete this game. This is a dungeon crawler for players who really want a challenge, and I do mean a CHALLENGE. I voted thumbs down because this will not be for everyone. Pros: -Great artwork -Amazing Soundtrack -Classing dungeon crawling gameplay -A nostalgic front facing RPG battle system -In game guides give depth on how to play Cons: -Some sound and music effects won't turn off in settings depending on your sound drivers -Navigating magic menus are not obvious and you will missing using spells you already earned -Grind is all the game is, it has to be the thing you love or you won't enjoy this game -Loot drops are random quality, and the game may not respect your time and investment. -Level scaling is awkward, some enemies are overpowered for no real reason. -Difficulty settings are redundant. Easy mode only grants a couple useless perks.

I bought this game impulsively after seeing a video about it and liked it fairly well at first. The more I played it though, the more I came to dislike it. My main issue with the game is really just the lives/age/attribute rolling stuff for characters. Characters young enough to have spare lives feel weak, and losing a life feels like a waste worth reloading a save. On the other hand, playing with old characters you get higher stats but you run the risk of losing minutes or even hours of playtime whenever you die, which sucks. It's really too bad because there are parts of this game I do actually like.

Both times I played it separately(years apart) it randomly crashed and I lost a lot of progress. Im good, thanks

GG

Stranger of Sword City, developed by Experience Inc. and published by NIS America, Inc., is a dungeon-crawling RPG that makes no effort to soften its edges for a modern audience. It is rooted firmly in the traditions of classic first-person RPGs, drawing heavily from the Wizardry lineage, and it embraces that heritage with a level of commitment that can feel both admirable and daunting. From the moment it begins—with the protagonist suddenly transported from a plane crash into a mysterious fantasy realm—the game establishes itself as a journey defined less by cinematic storytelling and more by survival, adaptation, and slow, deliberate progress. The narrative framework is intriguing but intentionally restrained. Players find themselves in Escario, a world populated by others who have similarly been displaced from different realities. While there are factions, political tensions, and a central mystery surrounding powerful entities known as Lineages, the story rarely takes center stage. Instead, it acts as a backdrop to the player’s own experience, unfolding gradually through exploration and interaction rather than scripted sequences. This design choice reinforces the game’s focus o…

I really tried to enjoy this game but I finally gave up because it was just too frustrating. Your characters can randomly die at any time and the penalty for dying is pretty harsh and I just got sick and tired of constantly reloading saved games and making painstakingly slow progress.