Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP Review

It’s not a game. It’s a “psycho-social audiovisual experiment”. Yeah… anyways…

SUPERBROTHERS: SWORD & SWORCERY EP is a videogame developed and published by Superbrothers and Capybara Games for the iPhone and the iPad. The iPad version was played for the purpose of this review. It was directed by CRAIG D. ADAMS and JIM GUTHRIE.

You know a game is worth playing when it leaves reviewers so puzzled they have no other choice other to describe the game by using quotes from other people – the game’s creators included.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (S:S&S EP) is one of these games. It has whimsical pixelated graphics. It has some brilliant soundtrack by Jim Guthrie, which vindicates the “EP” from the game’s name. And the thin fabric uniting this artistic collaboration is a vague quest. It’s just like a videoclip, perhaps a poem. Probably both.

You play as The Scythian. This hints the game might take place somewhere near East/Central Asia. The Scythian has a sword and a shield and is looking for some holy triangles for unexplained motives. It is a quest for martyrdom and while we don’t know exactly the whys, we know that martyrdom is certainly desired. During this martyrdom quest, The Scythian will occasionally battle dark entities and wolves by timing offence and defense inputs or solve “puzzles” by tapping the screen until something happens. I use quotation marks because these are more like Doing Stuff Instead of Walking moments rather than actual puzzles. You know, like opening doors and pressing switches on FPSes.

In other words, we are dealing with the Zelda archetype here. S:S&S EP knows this of course. There is even a character called The Archetype who plays the role of the game creators and explains some of the few meanings the game has to offer.

This is why reviewers have so much trouble with S:S&S EP. Archetypes are exactly what are left after you’ve stripped a work of all its meanings. The little content that remained was written for Twitter. Everything in S: S&S EP was written to be quoted. They are fancy and dandy so you can tweet them and your friends will think you are also a whimsical and woeful individual. It comes with the territory, however, that these quotes are highly cryptic in order to mask themselves as profound.

So you see? It all hints to a higher meaning… and we all expect a higher meaning… – which isn’t there. Thus some people try to fill that void with their own interpretation and that’s how a highly quotable game can produce a web of reviews quoting one another.

Still, those are all false assumptions. The same ones people have when addressing an unfamiliar poem. They either think there is something wrong with S: S&S EP; or that the game is a code to be cracked; or that S:S&S EP means whatever they want it to mean. But Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is none of that. It’s just a little game trying to evoke some moods with their songs and artwork.

There are, however, two instances when the Nice Little Game shows us it could one day be a Game About Something.

Not that it ever is, mind you. S:S&S EP merely flirts with the idea. The first one happens inside a giant tree where a boor is dancing. You can engage him in battle if you like and, after beating him, as the boor is agonizing, you choose whether or not you will finish the job. The in-game consequence is the same whatever your choice: a key to an optional room. But afterwards, when you read what The Archetype had to say about the boor’s fate, you’ll find this (which I immediately broadcasted through Twitter, by the way):

The Grizzled Boor was included in S:S&S EP to allow participants to self-identify as compassionate, reasonable people.

Suddenly the consequence for killing the Grizzled Boor is much deeper. Sure, I could be feeling bad already for turning a creature that was just minding his own business into a puddle of meat and blood, but it’s one thing to feel something and quite another to become aware of that feeling as a mirror reflecting your actions is presented. It’s a moment of reflection not present in the majority of games, which, more often than not, transforms actions that might mark any sensible human, like killing other survivors in the world of Fallout 3 (Tranquility Lane quest, I’m talking to you!), into trivial routines. But then again, such games don’t feature characters or even believable living beings; they are populated by quest-givers, obstacles and goals instead.

The second one comes up near the end of the game, when The Archetype states that all that remains is for you to do is to forcefully drag The Scythian in concluding her quest.

Wait a second, I thought, what does he mean with “forcefully”? Does it mean that The Scythian doesn’t want to conclude her quest? Is there a disconnection between the gamer’s motivation (to advance in the game) and the protagonist’s motivation? That this point wasn’t actually elaborated at any point in the game is quite frustrating.

The game doesn’t really care about that, though. Music and pixels are its things and it is so confident of their hypnotic appeal and authenticity that S:S&S EP could very well be called Hipster Zelda. To experience S:S&S EP is to experience aesthetics built upon pastiche, references and ironies. The problem with the hipster culture is when that kind of aesthetic has exhausted itself. This isn’t the case here. S:S&S EP may not blow your mind and it certainly isn’t the greatness lauded on the net, but it’s still the most hypnotic and authentic experience you can find on the iPad. Just a nice little game. A good game.