Final Sword’s gameplay is suspiciously familiar and copied music got it pulled from Nintendo’s eShop, but its shoddy physics are brand-new, and hilarious.
Final Sword sounds like just about the most unoriginal name you could come up with for a video game. So it’s not really so surprising that it only takes a few seconds for the game’s Nintendo Switch version’s preview video to reveal that Final Sword looks to be cribbing very heavily from a handful of other, more famous games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=defmDj00yQ8
There’s plenty of Dark Souls in the main character’s animation, and a boss fight with a dragon shows the creature posing just like its counterparts in Skyrim as it breathes a blast of fire. Several Japanese gamers have noted similarities to Monster Hunter as well. But perhaps the game Final Sword is most blatantly, oh, let’s call it “taking inspiration” from for the look of its menus and outdoor environments, is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Heck, even the game’s covers look incredibly alike (that’s Final Sword on the right below)…
…and one piece of Final Sword key art is almost exactly like an illustration of Zelda protagonist Link in his Twilight Princess form, just with the sword and shield swapped to the opposite hands.
But what’s really gotten Final Sword in trouble isn’t how much it looks like Zelda, but how it sounds like the beloved Nintendo franchise. Not long after its release earlier this month, players started noticing something very familiar about a certain piece of background music in Final Sword, which can be heard here.
That video might have you feeling nostalgic for The Legend of Zelda: Ocharina of Time. Or A Link to the Past. Maybe Majora’s Mask? The Wind Waker? Skyward Sword? Actually, how about any of the dozen Zelda games that have featured some version of the piece known as “Zelda’s Lullaby?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKLAUNc58iA
Once the similarity was discovered, Final Sword was pulled from the Nintendo eShop. HUP Games claims it purchased the piece from a third-party music provider without realizing how closely it resembled Zelda’s Lullaby, and is in the process of rectifying the situation so that it can begin selling Final Sword again. At this point, though, you might be asking why anyone should bother playing Final Sword when there doesn’t seem to be anything original or unique about it. That sort of thinking is selling the game short, though, because Final Sword offers a robust variety of tremendously innovative, and hilarious, gameplay bugs!
For example, in the above clip, Final Sword’s fantasy setting seems to include completely frictionless cobblestones, so a piece of moving walkway you’re standing on can slip completely out from under your feet and fly off into the distance, leaving you to plummet to your death. As a matter of fact, it’s so hard to gain any traction on these stones that even if you’re running as fast as you can, they’ll still leave you behind/to die.
The devious traps aren’t limited to the environment, either. Here we see the hero locked in combat with a hydra, who manages to add the player’s head to the three it already has by trapping the human’s cranium within its own body.
▼ After the glitch the physics engine won’t allow either the player or the hydra to damage each other, meaning they’re stuck like this for eternity (or until the player quits and loads a previous save).
Then there’s the Spider Queen, who despite having eight legs, two arms, and two horns with which it could attack doesn’t really seem all that interested in fighting.
▼ Is…is it doing aerobics?
Moving on to another mighty battle, this dire wolf runs backwards as far as it can before finally turning around, trotting off, and suddenly dying due to…boredom, we guess?
Actually, monsters nonchalantly deciding they’ve had enough and are just going to go somewhere else seems to be a bit of a running theme, like with this boss creature (which the game says is a manticore) abruptly and silently deciding it’s had enough.
And let’s not forget this troll, who seems to be either dancing or having a seizure.
Honestly, the toughest opponents seem to be Final Sword’s cute starter monsters, seen here mercilessly pummeling the hero.
But hey, if Final Sword is trying to duplicate Breath of the Wild’s success, what’s really important is the exploration part of the gameplay, right? This part looks kind of cool, where you’re making your way across a desert and come upon an oasis.
Oh wait, the oasis kills you, as does falling from a height of about 10 feet…or maybe more, since it’s not clear that the floor in the next clip is actually solid.
Really, falling seems to be the greatest threat you’ll face in Final Sword. Just how badly does gravity want to kill you in this game? Observe how this player falls into a pit, dies, and chooses to continue…
…only to be respawned already falling off the ledge and immediately die again!
Together, Final Sword’s limited concern for physics or mercy have made it an instant classic for Japan’s kusoge (“shitty game”) enthusiasts. For their sake, hopefully it returns to the Nintendo eShop soon, since in doing such a questionable job copying Zelda, Final Sword is providing laughs of a type Nintendo’s polished flagship never could.
Sources: Automaton via Hachima Kiko, Jin
Top image: YouTube/ HUP Games Inc.
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