Sword and Fairy 7

main game was a bit short for $30, but i got it on sale so i don't care as much. it's a really nice game, the story is great and i even cried at one point. i'm going to buy the dlc eventually to finish getting the achievements from that, but there's nothing really challenging about the main game. all the achievements were very straightforward. only problem is that it lags, a lot. i know it's not just my computer because other games with higher quality were not as laggy as this one. but if you just played gujian 3 or if you're just looking for a story-based game with nice views and good combat then go for it! update: just got 100% completion, DLC was a fun platformer version of the main game. also short, but it's very cheap so i would say it is worth it. overall, i think the storytelling is what brings this game above the rest. the writing really can't be beat!

Overall I enjoyed this title, though there were some aspects I didn't like or felt didn't land as well as it should. This is an action RPG based heavily on Chinese mythology, heavily involving Taoist beliefs as well. The setting is quite interesting and there's a good amount of worldbuilding explained through quests, cutscenes, and the in-game lore library. It's part of a series but most of the other games in it aren't available in English, but it was able to be played and understood without knowing the previous titles. One very big point about this game is that the gameplay to cutscene ratio is VERY bad. There are a LOT of cutscenes, early and late, so a good portion of the game is running between cutscene triggers for upwards of a few hours with little gameplay between. The gameplay that is there is pretty good, each character feels different, exploration is decent, with a good variety in zones, and a nice variety of foes to fight. Boss fights are mostly good, though humanoid bosses tend to be very mobile, either jump around a lot of teleport. This can be very frustrating when playing as Qingshu or Xiu Wu, who are both primarily sword users with limited elemental or light based skills respectively. Bosses get tough! I personally found Moqing the most fun, and I usually don't enjoy mage types in action RPG's. Graphically this was the most beautiful game I've ever played. I'm very impressed with the cloth physics, it's incredibly well done and looks very realistic. Especially Moqing's outfit which has a lot of light flowey style clothing, and Yo's cape. It ran really well, I only had a few stutters in 26 hours of play, and it ran at a respectable 80-130 FPS at maxed out settings on my 7800X3D/7900GRE based Linux system. It's very atypical compared to the normally seen poor optimization and performance many other Unreal 5 titles see. Sound and music are excellent, as is the voice work. There are no English voice actors, everything is in Chinese, and even the weakest performance (Moqing) was still good. The two most in the spotlight as main characters (Qingshu and Xui Wu) are VERY good. That said the English translation was tough to follow at times and there were minor spelling and grammar issues. Not enough to be a problem but it's there to those super sensitive to translations. Finally, there are some weak points. Platforming is flat out terrible, though at least only one major area required difficult platforming. There are a lot of puzzles in some dungeons and areas, and those puzzles are not explained that well so there's a lot of trial and error just trying to figure out WHAT to do yet alone execute it. Finally there are some stealth segments and these are really terrible. One in particular has a checkpoint at a spot that gets you immediately detected late game. I also disliked the forced romance between the two pairs of main characters, it got very frustrated to be in a key part of the story, of what should be pressing time sensitive events, and get stuck in a 20 minute mess of romance subplot. While his story is good, and he was mostly a good combatant, I disliked Sang Yo as a character. I didn't completely dread his events, but they usually ended up going into some topics I really did not want to watch. Overall, if you can tolerate a 60/65% cutscene time, and like solid action RPG combat, you may like this title. Especially if you can get it on sale (such as the $12US it was during the 2025 Summer sale).

The combat system isn't anything to write home about, but it does the job and is never annoying. There is a LOT of cutscenes - something I'm normally allergic against - but the game has actually managed to keep my attention so far as at times, the writing is even brilliant. Why can't western studios reach this level of writing anymore?

if you looking for fluid combat gameplay that feel nice this isn't it

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