Wandering
Sword

Wandering Sword (2023) is a combat-focused role-play game where you traverse ancient China with a band of swordsmen to master the highest forms of martial arts. You explore the countryside, towns and cities to bond with townspeople and recruit warriors to help you in tactical battles. It stands out not only for the hundreds of different martial arts forms, weapons and magical skills but also for the option to switch between turn-based and real-time combat.

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You play Yuwen Yi, a merchant hired to protect a traveller crossing the desert. Along the way, you're caught in a brutal fight between two warring factions and are flung into a grand adventure. To play your part you must master ancient martial arts to defend the people and restore peace. As you travel through deserts, jungles, cities and snowy mountains, you can choose to recruit many of the world's inhabitants to your team for battle. Not only bolstering your party but affecting the branching story of the game.

Combat is grid-based, with each member of your team able to perform different actions within a specific range. You can upgrade your weapons and abilities to deal more damage against different types of foes, and there are over 100 martial arts forms to master. You can choose whether fights progress in real-time, with multiple attacks occurring simultaneously, or a turn-based system where action waits for your next move. This enables you to experiment with the surprisingly nuanced combat systems to evolve strategies and techniques that help you in your quest to become the chosen hero of the land.

The result is a unique game that combines classic role-playing elements with an expansive mythological story and world and surprisingly deep combat, weapon, and skill systems that create a novel and involving game where tactics and ambition are greatly rewarded.

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Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Wandering Sword 13 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 7 months ago.