Raid the Dungeon, Revive Monsters, Save the Girl
Some games have premises so compelling that they catch your attention immediately. Sword of the Necromancer is one of those games. In Grimorio of Games and JanduSoft’s stylish pixel art dungeon-crawler/action RPG/roguelike, players take on the role of Tama, a sword-wielding rogue who attacks the Necromancer’s dungeon with singleminded purpose. Her goal? To use the titular Sword of the Necromancer and gather enough power to resurrect Koko, the beloved priestess whom Tama failed to protect. Love, devotion, and failure: sounds like the ideal mix to get us immediately invested and willing to challenge the impossible. Hades pulled off something similar and we all know how well that worked out.
In Sword of the Necromancer, you will fight monsters and then use the power of the Sword to resurrect them as your allies. Plunge ever deeper into the dungeon, level up, gather an army, and unearth powerful relics to help you. A procedural generation weapon system will ensure that you’ll never dig up the same weapon twice. Each outcome will have different effects in the game’s fluid head-to-head battle system. Since it’s a roguelike, you will die. A lot. But death is not the end. You will lose all your weapons and monsters, but you’ll keep half your level, bringing you a little bit closer to your ultimate goal. And there’s even a local co-op function!
The deeper you get, the more of Tama’s memories will unfold before you, revealing the truth of how Koko died and why Tama willing to do anything in order to get her back. Who knows? By the end, you might be willing to challenge the Necromancer’s dungeon yourself if it means protecting that smile. The devs described the gameplay like this: “The aim was to create a fluid battle system, with head-to-head combat as its main focus, while leaning on monster summons for special actions and attacks. It all works together to create a harrowing battle experience.”
Sound fun? If so, you can try it out for yourself now with Sword of the Necromancer – Prologue, a free demo which will take you up to the first boss. Go on. Give it a shot. If you like it, well, the full release is only a month or so away.
Sword of the Necromancer will be released for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on December 2020. A later release will see it hit PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
What would you to do protect that smile? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.