Spellspire Review – Wizardly Education

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Fun With English?

Nowadays with easy access to downloadable games, a large amount of game developers have tried to incorporate learning into their video games. 10tons wanted to bring this peculiar market to the Nintendo Switch with its latest port, Spellspire. How enjoyable is this educative video game on the Switch?

The entire premise of Spellspire is that there are floors on a tower, 100 of them to be exact, with increasing difficulty. You are a wizard that can cast spells, but to do so you must spell out words with the letters provided on screen. This is the only gameplay mechanic in the entire game, and it is clear that the entire game revolves around this.

Upgrade and Move On

At the end of each level you earn coins, which can be used in order to upgrade your damage or health. It is very simplistic, yet I had fun having the power to decide when I wanted to update each of my stats. The game does not give you much choice as far as not upgrading your items, as you will quickly reach a point where enemies will attack you too quickly for your damage output, even if you are an English master.

The game is also not sensible at all with how it deals with health; way too often you will lose not because you’re bad, but because the enemy you are facing is too strong — meaning it is time to gather more coins and upgrade again.

The game’s constant loop of upgrading and repeating slowly took away any sense of pride I had in my English skills, because as previously mentioned you will often lose not due to your skill, but because of the game’s necessity of making you upgrade your items. This repetitive formula makes the game get old quite fast and I found myself quickly asking just why this game was even brought to the platform. I understand having this game on a computer’s keyboard or a smartphone, but having it on the Switch doesn’t make much sense to me.

Not only is the touch screen on a smartphone more responsive, but a PC’s keyboard is also more responsive than using the joycon as an input method. This all ads up to create the feeling that this title was simply ported for the sake of possibly acquiring more customers, which is definitely a first for me with 10tons.

System reviewed on: Nintendo Switch.

Disclaimer: A review code for Spellspire was provided by 10tons for this Spellspire review.