Swipe & Slash Review
Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.1
App Reviewed on: iPad 2
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With the preponderance of clones of popular games like Threes! out there, when a developer sends an email touting their product as having gameplay elements not only inspired by Threes!, but of also having been given the blessing of Sirvo honcho Asher Vollmer, it’s bound to raise at least a few eyebrows. However the red flags and suspiciously narrowed side-eyes were actually not warranted in this case. Swipe & Slash actually does something pretty cool!
The actual dungeon aspect is more a visual conceit than anything else, but it gives players a more compelling reason to keep sliding tiles than just trying to reach the biggest numbers possible. In fact, such strategies are quite counterproductive in Swipe & Slash, as tiles have to be tapped and expended to remove them from the board and add them to a queue of actions during each fight.
Players have a set number of actions before each battle happens. Each slide of the tiles counts as an action, as does tapping a tile to queue it. So each action needs to be quickly evaluated against the damage and health of the monster in question. Got enough damage to kill it in one hit? Or perhaps it only deals a paltry amount itself? Then it’s probably okay to spend all your actions just mashing tiles together in anticipation of the harder fights to come. Equipment in the store enhances damage, healing rate, and gold value, and is randomly reshuffled every run.
Regardless, Swipe & Slash is definitely worth a look for puzzle and pixel fans alike.