When I first saw the trailer for Sclash, I was given a warning by one of my co-workers that this game was intended to be extremely difficult. The exact quote that my co-worker gave was from the store page stating “Sclash is a plug’n play 2D samurai fighting game full of tension where one hit is enough to kill.” While I often avoid games that cause a considerable amount of mental pain since I play video games to unwind, this statement didn’t deter me from requesting access to the game.

Something about Sclash seemed to lure me in with a sense that it would still be enjoyable. I’m not sure if it was the art style, the soundtrack, or the seemingly easy-to-learn controls that lured me in though. Either way, I dove right in and it was quite an interesting dive.

Sclash is a stylish hand-drawn fighting game by Bevel Bakery where you play as a young samurai who is sent off to war but quickly finds out that not everything is as clean-cut as he has been led to believe. Throughout the game, you will come across intense fights between waves of enemies or bosses who can take multiple hits. The only thing separating you from total defeat is a single slash of the enemy’s blade.

While that already seems tense enough, be aware that certain gods have been interfering with the mortal world and those who wield their power can break even the strongest parry. While this all sounds great on paper, there are some oddities that poke a few holes through the overarching concept of the game.

My problem with the story stems from the main character, Jinmu. It is stated in the opening level of the campaign that Jinmu is the strongest warrior in his clan and has only been bested by the leader of the clan. Right off the bat, this makes it seem like everyone in your clan seem like absolute weaklings if it only takes one shot to defeat Jinmu. This could be overlooked if the boss fights had only one hit point as well, but that is not the case. Each boss tends to have an increased amount of health than the previous one.

Considering that Jinmu has to slice through all of these bosses, (some enchanted and some not) it seems odd that Jinmu never picks up any additional hit points at some point along the way. At a certain point in the story, something happens to Jinmu that made me think that this was the moment that you would get some sort of new ability or an additional point of health. Instead, Sclash gives you a new move that was mostly useless to me.

Now I understand that the game’s marketing on the Steam page and in their release date trailer seems to heavily focus on the PvP combat, but that seems odd considering that the multiplayer is currently unavailable and there seems to only be local PvP. In fact, the Steam page of Sclash never once mentions the campaign, despite the fact that it is the core mode that is readily available for everyone to use.

I imagine that this game will have a ton of replayability once the Multiplayer is set up, but right now it seems to be a game that is good for about an hour or two. While I appreciate that they are currently selling the game at a discounted price until August 11th, the discounted price just doesn’t seem worth it. That is unless you want to sit and wait until the game has all of its bells and whistles.

Speaking of bells and whistles, this game surprisingly already has two DLCs. They are both sword skins, one being free and the other costing $1.99, but the fact that these are out before the multiplayer is kind of a weird choice. It certainly doesn’t send the right message to gamers who are sick and tired of games slapping them in the face with microtransactions.

Beyond this, however, there are plenty of cosmetic items that you can collect from the campaign and local PvP. While I haven’t been able to personally use any of them, they are interesting to look at and show how great the art is in this game.

While Sclash has a control scheme that is easy to learn, but difficult to master (when going against the AI), there were quite a few issues that I found with the controls. First, they were occasionally unresponsive. There would be multiple times when I would press the button to dodge or parry an attack but nothing would happen on the screen. This would lead to me losing at pivotal moments in fights against bosses and having to restart all over again.

Second, there is no way to edit the inputs. This means that you are stuck with the controls that the game gives you and limits how much accessibility the game allows to players. Hopefully, the developers can address these issues at the same time (or before) they release the multiplayer mode.

If you are interested in learning about other fighting games, consider checking out Samuel Moreno’s coverage of Geras in Mortal Kombat 1 right here. Do you plan on getting Sclash? If so, tell me what you thought about the game in the comments below.

A PC review copy of Sclash was provided by Just For Games for this review.

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Sclash

$9.99

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Interesting World
• Amazing Artwork

Cons

• Weird Controls
• No Multiplayer (yet)
• Some Bugs
• An Iffy Story