Spirited Away.
Last year, I reviewed Xuan Yuan Sword 7, a game that I was rather fond of. Its world, characters, and story were truly engaging and made me very excited to see where the future of this series would go. Little did I know that while Sword and Fairy is not connected to the Xuan Yuan Sword series via any connecting narrative or shared world, the title is produced by the same development house in Softstar, making the titles unique siblings of one another, each looking to reinvent themselves for new western audiences despite a nearly three-decade history in their home country.
While both titles do share in a few key areas of being steeped in Chinese mythology, the Sword and Fairy series is a tad more theatrical in its presentation, at least in its depiction of its monsters, deities, spirits, and demons. Both titles share in certain elements of political turmoil, but Sword and Fairy is more about the battles of heaven and hell than earthly nations looking for power. While the more personal story of a brother and sister in Xuan Yuan Sword 7 felt better written, it is largely in part due to the failed execution of Sword and Fairy: Together Forever’s English translation and subtitle presentation that results in offering the inferior story here, despite the concept being truly more fascinating.
Sword and Fairy: Together Forever is the 7th main entry in the series, a franchise that only saw its way to western shores with its 6th mainline title, available only on Steam. As the games are self-contained, there is no requirement to have played the previous adventures to grasp any part of what Together Forever has in store for you. However, seeing how far the series has grown even between entries is incredibly remarkable and while there were elements of Sword and Fairy 6 that were overly decent, it was by no means a technical powerhouse or infinitely as playable as what Softstar has done here with Together Forever, a title that ditches the turn-based battles in favor a slick real-time combat system and incredible production values.
This roughly 25-hour adventure has you taking on the roles of four individuals; Yue Qingshu, Xiu Wu, Bai Moqing, and Sang Yo. While Yue Qingshu and Xiu Wu are the central characters, Bai Moqing and Sang Yo have equally in-depth arcs that flesh out not just their characters, but their futures as well. You’ll start the game as Xiu Wu, a Diety General tasked with a mission to assassinate a Demoness by the name of Kuiyu. It is here carving his path through an army of Garuda forces that quickly ends with his defeat and banishment to the Earth Realm, a place where Deities have little history or allowance for even entering. It’s not long before Xiu Wu meets Yue Qingshu, the overall central protagonist, who is also a Mingshu Sect disciple that has the skill of wielding powerful spirits, including a shapeshifting bird that coincidentally acts as her fast travel mechanic. Eventually, the pair find themselves protecting a chosen child that is being hunted down by Xiu Wu’s original target in Kuiyu, and this sets in motion an adventure that will test their beliefs and values in ways they are not prepared for.
While the overall story, its world, and the lore that binds it all together is extremely well thought out and thorough, even if at times feels a bit overwritten, it’s the presentation that sadly falls flat, with a translation that confuses several tenses and use of phrases that wouldn’t have existed in that time period. There are countless lines of dialogue that feel incredibly odd coming out of the mouth of a deity or god-like being such as something like “By the way..” or how most characters reply with “good” when answering a yes or no question. While basic conversations have you pressing a button to progress through them, cutscenes don’t, and more often than not, they will pass to the next line without giving you ample time to even read them. This caused me to miss large chunks of the story, important names, places, and just exactly what was expected of me. I ended up taking screenshots of any conversation that was more than 4 lines, as well as diving into walkthroughs of the game’s original PC release to pause those videos to read dialogue that I had missed out on.
The story pushes the protagonists to question a lot of the beliefs that have been in their lives and taught by those before and all around them. It also does a wonderful job at building the relationships between certain characters in a believable way, thanks in part to some truly fantastic voice acting, even if I couldn’t understand it apart from reading the subtitles. The English translation can ruin some touching moments, but the meaning and tone behind those scenes more than make up for it, especially with how well the game’s visuals allow the characters to emote.
The story also takes the group to all corners of the land, both in the human realm and beyond. Each location is varied and more different than the last, and while you’ll revisit some locations rather often, you never feel like you’re being dragged there excessively. It also helps that loading between locations is lightning quick on the PS5 and the fast travel system is almost always accessible. While these areas have an open-world approach to their size, the game is very linear in nature and some locations are far tighter in scale than others, often filled with a variety of puzzles that are strangely one-and-done affairs with several mechanics only ever being used a single time.
Regardless of the story, or where it pushes the characters, it is those very characters that truly make this adventure one worth taking. While I adored the sibling relationship of Zhao and Xiang in Xuan Yuan Sword 7, the dynamic of the group here reaches a bit deeper in making me really fall for these characters. There are fun awkward bits between the pairings, and touching moments where truths are revealed to one another. I found myself really invested in their storylines, especially those that made them open up to one another. Even several supporting characters often felt satisfying to engage with because of how they tied themselves to the heroes and their journey. Granted, that list is small, and the environments are often set with NPC’s and quest givers simply standing around, but that sort of critique will have a varying degree of mileage from player to player.
While the game has several side quests, they often don’t reveal themselves to be anything more than fetch quests, which is unfortunate and makes them come across simply as filler. There is a card game to play as well called Journey Heaven - Earth, but I never found it to be really well throughout or remotely fun, which was the case with Xuan Yuan Sword 7’s own similar distraction. While you’ll encounter a few side activities in the form of trials and other combat-based affairs, they are too few and far between sadly although they at least served a bigger purpose than “I lost a thing” and “can you get it back.” which fuels well more than half of the side quests here. Still, the story does grant access to a wealth of different characters and factions that at least make the conversations surrounding those quests to be an enjoyable read, thankfully as most of them let me prompt through the conversations, allowing me to read them in full.
While Sword and Fairy: Together Forever is often action-packed, there are moments where the story can see you engaged in cutscenes for well over an hour, making the pacing of the game to slam to a halt, whereas later on, the action will keep up for quite some time. I never found myself bored regardless of whether it was watching a wealth of cutscenes back to back or engaged in action, but for those expecting more action than conversation, you may want to sit this one out.
In addition to a wonderful story filled with memorable characters, the combat is leagues more enjoyable than what Sword and Fairy 6 offered prior. Similar to what Xuan Yuan Sword 7 did to make their combat systems more lively and action-packed, the same has been done here with Together Forever. While there are moments where characters will leave your group for a time or those that you are locked into playing as for the moment, you can often swap to any of the four characters in and out of combat rather effortlessly. While Xiu Wu and Yue Qingshu are your basic sword types, each with a variety of powerful skills, Bai Moqing and Sang Yo are your distanced fighters, offering their services in the way of magic spells and a crossbow, respectively.
Combat is all in real-time, weaving in and out numerous combat skills, basic attacks, and combo’s that increase as you progress throughout the game. I don’t know if anything is tied to exact level progression as there is zero fanfare in regards to leveling up as it happens without any presentation and feels like something that simply happens in the background, as is knowing what chapter you are in as there are zero chapter breaks. Each character has 8 combat slots that will fill up as you earn more skills, and in the case of Yue Qingshu, she will earn those as she makes contracts with spirits, small chibi-like creatures that can be fed to increase their power and offer a wide range of passive perks like increasing your item drop rate or your experience earnings after a battle.
Each skill of your party is fantastical in its presentation, from a blur of elemental swords raining down from above to the barrage of chaotic fire from Bai Moqing’s fingertips, this game offers a gorgeous combat experience that is heightened by how quick it is to pull off these attacks and the kinetic energy to its encounters. Bosses largely come in the form of Vicious Beasts, which are tied into the game’s narrative. These are monstrous foes that are violent in nature and can make for some challenging encounters, not to mention being jaw-droppingly stunning in their presentation and design.
To elevate combat, you’ll also be able to pull off jump attacks, dashes, as well as a ton of different healing items to keep you in the fight. Since Yue Qingshu is almost always in the party, except for moments where you’ll simply be controlling Sang Yo or Bai Moqing, you’ll also have a few healing skills to pull off as well. While you can spend some earned currency towards purchasing additional supplies just in case, you’ll likely want to put those funds towards purchasing new gear or modding out existing items, or crafting new weapons. The crafting system, which allows you to upgrade a weapon with three different stat buffs, is handled through an NPC and is as simple as simply having the materials to kit out a new addition to your arsenal.
Characters have a wide assortment of gear that they can equip. While you can get gear as part of rewards for certain quests, you’ll often buy new threads whenever you reach a new town as previous areas will have a static assortment that never changes, which is the same deal as their crafting station. Despite the various ways to earn gear, I never felt I was swimming in it as there were just enough options that you’ll always be finding something new every few hours. That said, apart from a moment in the game as well as some launch DLC, your character’s look doesn’t change apart from costume pieces for you and your weapons. However, despite how great some of those costumes look, they do not appear in cutscenes, which is a huge disappointment.
As shown in these screenshots, and the trailer below, Sword and Fairy: Together Forever is simply gorgeous. Developed with Unreal Engine 4, this team has seriously got a handle on the tech side of things as honestly, I never experienced a single moment of stuttering or a single crash. Load times are practically instant and lighting, shadows, and effects are all top-notch. Both the character models and environments are fantastic, and each new location the game presented to me kept increasing in detail and size, especially the huge and sprawling Heaven Demon Palace, which is one of the best-looking environments I have ever seen.
While there are small instances of some pop-in, it’s incredibly minor and considering the amount of on-screen detail and objects, I am surprised there isn’t more of it, given this being an issue with a lot of Unreal Engine games of late. If I had to list an additional gripe, apart from a photo mode you cannot for some reason use in combat, it would be the lifeless way characters stand around during conversations that are not scripted as they will stand there talking and not even looking at one another. It’s likely a result of AI pathing and not understanding where the main character is, but it’s noticeable, such is the teleporting they often do as they often won’t follow you up certain paths that require jumping or climbing to reach. Again, small gripes, but I figured I would point it out nonetheless.
Sword and Fairy: Together Forever is a wonderful adventure through a series that has been reinvented to appeal to a much wider and ever-changing audience. Its real-time combat sores, its story, and its characters are wonderfully memorable, but it is the presentation in making those things so appealing that simply falls flat. The translation and language structure here is some of the worst I’ve ever seen in years and the fact that the dialogue moves along faster than you can sometimes read does a huge disservice to what the game otherwise does so well. I loved the journey these characters went on, the battles they fought, the struggles they overcame, and the touching conclusion that wraps up everything in such a beautiful and memorable finale.
Developer - Softstar. Publisher - EastAsiaSoft. Released - August 4th, 2022. Available On - PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC. Rated - (T) Blood, Violence. Platform Reviewed - PlayStation 5. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.