The Swords of Ditto: Mormo’s Curse was an unexpected excursion on The ‘Bib. Since I was already playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate on the Nintendo Switch (a console I nearly never use or, even, think about), I decided to scoop up some smaller indie titles I think might be interesting to talk about. On first inspection, The Swords of Ditto felt like an old-school dungeon-crawler with alright visuals that would offer an unassuming but fun time, akin to how I felt playing Nobody Saves the World. Couple in the fact that it offers local coop, and I was pretty well sold on making the three dollar purchase that I did.
Straightaway, I was brought in by the bright colorful world and the clean, polished art and animation. It doesn’t offer a lot of new things as far as settings or environments are concerned, and it can all largely feel like a backdrop to the combat that becomes lost or forgotten, it is well made. It may not feel distinct or realized, but it feels of a high quality and like it is ready to charm you beyond its shortcomings.
The graphics and the general game-play will call to mind fans of The Legend of Zelda, offering a smooth, easy-to-play and easy-to-understand isometric action-adventure videogame. The controls are simple enough that it feels like you can pick up your controller and immediately have a know-how about what you’re doing and how everything works. You have a roll, a standard attack, and you have an assortment of Special moves and abilities you can choose from. For example, I became very fond of the Yo-Yo weapon, which offers a whip-like attack that can pack a wallop under the right circumstances.
The soundtrack is thematic and adequate, even if they aren’t necessarily what I would call distinct. I believe that is a reoccurring sentiment I have about The Swords of Ditto. Whether it is the soundtrack, or the game play or art style, all of it feels hand-me-down from other, more original videogames, but is also doesn’t do a disservice to the recipes it is borrowing from. In the case of the soundtrack, I thought of The Legend of Zelda and of Dark Cloud (which, to be fair, when I think of Dark Cloud, I, too, think of The Legend of Zelda).
Something that you might be interested to know about is that it isn’t just an action-adventure videogame, this is a roguelike. You read that right – The Swords of Ditto is a roguelike, which means, if you die, you start over. It is a polarizing concept that I have actually fallen in love with over the years. In fact, the reason I bought The Swords of Ditto in the first place was because I was already playing the new Ninja Turtles, a Hades style roguelike in its own right. I loved Dead Cells. I enjoyed Hades, Inscyption, Curse of the Dead Gods, Dandy Ace, and so many others in the genre. I am a big fan. I am not a big fan of The Swords of Ditto as a roguelike, however.
Playing The Swords of Ditto is fairly straightforward. You explore the world, discover dungeons, solve simple puzzles, complete simple quests, and level up until you are ready to face the main antagonist. To elaborate, as prefaced, the world itself doesn’t have the widest range of locations to choose from, and is pretty basic. Everything about The Swords of Ditto is basic, really. The dungeons have simple puzzles that won’t have you scratching your head very often. The enemies are easy to combat and are unsophisticated – even the main baddie isn’t anything to write home about.
When you level up to the required level, a countdown clock initiates and you have a window to get all of your affairs in order, fill your inventory with cheeseburgers and milk (essentially, health potions), and grind as much as you can before the time runs out. After that, you must enter the final dungeon where you will fight the final boss. If you lose, you restart. There are some ways you can help yourself. If you talk to this whale, they will let you buy an Extra Life, but you can only bring one extra life with you to the final dungeon. When you die, it resets the world, and you must now reach a new required level before you can challenge the boss again (you keep your level from the previous playthrough, however).
In truth, I don’t believe that The Swords of Ditto was ever going to be a great videogame in its current form. It isn’t, and that’s okay! It wears its influences on its sleeve and its world design, story, characters, and game play all use basic ingredients. All of it is, for the most part, commendable and well done. It feels like a perfectly enjoyable indie videogame. I bought it for cheap and it has everything it takes to make me satisfied with my purchase (and I am still satisfied with my purchase, mind you). However, it is the roguelike element that really works against this videogame.
The characters are one-dimensional and uninteresting across the board, with humor that never resonates with me and a story that houses no interesting nuances beyond the caveats in its game play. Again though, I am not mad about those things being absent as they were never really expected.
I spent about nine hours playing The Swords of Ditto: Mormo’s Curse and I defeated the final boss in a single run. Here’s essential what happened – I played for six hours, completed nearly the entire map and had an enjoyable time with it. It isn’t hard hitting stuff, but the charm and light heartedness went a long way with keeping me engaged. Then, I went to fight the last boss and died. Okay. So, I went through another cycle, this one took about three hours to do. I explored some dungeons and filled in any of the blanks I had thought I’d missed. One roguelike component this has – the map remains similar to how it was, but is randomly-generated, and so you will find some significant differences. By then, I was starting to feel a waning interest start to form – a small videogame starting to overstay its welcome. This time though, I was prepared and I defeated the final boss, no problem.
Even after I defeated the final boss, I knew I was likely in for a second run. I was ready for it and I was willing to approach it with an open mind. And, yes, you must go through the cycle again. In fact, you must defeat her six times.
I immediately felt the wind leave my sails the very moment I read that information.
Nope. Nope!
Not happening, guys!
Absolutely not.
I really wanted to like The Swords of Ditto: Mormo’s Curse and offer you guys a recommendation, but it’s simple, modestly interesting dungeon-crawling and combat aren’t sufficient to what it asks of you. I was feeling the slog by the end of a single run, I can’t imagine how I’d be filling after completing six rounds. Although this request isn’t uncommon for roguelikes (I have to beat TMNT: Splintered Fate eight times and I am having a lot of fun with it), most runs are short (25-40 minutes) and are propped up by high-intensity and breakneck combat, and they will pull you in similar to an arcade game (one more run! Okay, … one more run! Just one more run!). This feels like I played a decent action-adventure videogame and then, was told to you it again, and again, and again, … and I can’t bring myself to do that.
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