Ravensword Shadowlands Android: Gameplay & objective Analysis

As the time ticks, games are rolled out and we scale through the piles of genres to get our preferences. Actually, what have long been forgotten in the mobile gaming world are sword games. Although not quite "forgotten" because they often come in handy -mostly as strategy games- it still lacks the feel, to know what it is like, behind the sword; hacking and slashing your way through your enemies. TPS is arguably the best form of gaming as the view only, redefines your perspective and considering how widely accepted and the reception the trend of the moment (PUBG) got, I (personally) would say much of its success is owed to its third person shooter view.

All Images and Video are from my mobile

How about you dish the gun and replace it with a sword?

Amazing would be an understatement. Ravensword is a mobile game that was released by Crescent Moons on March 21, 2013. It is a fully offline game that was even well received by critics. It has a size of 538 mb (All apk, no obb) so it would undoubtedly take longer to install. You get to play as a comrade who somewhat survives an onslaught by a beast, a battle which killed his fellows. As he searches for answers to his existence, it beams a light on his noble bloodline and the fact that that beast still lives. Only by the ravensword can it be brought down.

The game starts on a tense note. A great battle for a city with only four knights left standing. You as a knight fight along comrades on a desperate attempt to salvage what is left of the chaos and ruins. To compound the problem, they are obviously outnumbered with another beast to worry of. This stage employs the use of slow motion to make it more tense. The sounds of their swords falling to the ground is all that could be heard as archers drive arrows right through their hearts. The cloud suddenly goes dark and the ancestral buildings collapses and all what they united for gone. All dead save one, you..

The character wakes up in a building, apparently, on a bed. You are now made to customize your character as you deem fit. The hair, the beard, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, jaw, face are all customizable. However, as you go further into the game, all those details become irrelevant as you are equipped with an helmet as quick as you progress into the game. What should have rather been customizable should have been the physique - height, weight- and the motion which would prove far more relevant.

Still oblivious of his surroundings but aware of the presence of a young lady with him in the room, he throws the anticipated question, *"who are you?" *. She gently tells him that she is the spymaster for a guild - which apparently he is in now - and speaks of her duty which is getting information from the citizens of aven. She is Layna. Not satisfied he asks Layna to tell him more about the guild and she tells him that the guild's sole obligation is protecting the kingdom and how the war at heronmar - the great battle - reduced their once formidable fortress from a hundred men to two (Layna and Pedris) and now you, making three. "Who is Pedris?" again he asks. Pedris is the guild master who is eager to have a little chat with me.

As much as you enjoyed this conversation, it is not as interesting as portrayed. Most conversations lack the "killer" feeling as you don't get to hear their voices, only written texts and in as much as you get to pop questions and make statements, decisions are not to be made as there are no other options for you as in telltale games. However in certain scenarios, characters' voices are heard and mouths synchronized with the words After the whole chat, and your satisfaction with the answers, the "bye" option is at the far left to initiate its end.

You make your way through the building to find Pedris looking for you. He is happy to see you alive but your curiosity wouldn't leave much time for much jolly union. The question "what happened at heronmar?" pops up for you to click and he tells you some dark magic which wiped up everyone and reminds you of luck as you survived, He cautions on the need to be on the look out for whatever wiped an entire army and a village. After the chat, Pedris gives you 250 gold coins and you are allowed to explore the game.


A major flaw of this game, and my major dislike lies in its map. In open world games like the GTA series, Batman Dark Knight rises etcetera, you are given a direction to wherever your mission is but in this game, you are left all alone to wander off searching for the spot and in the end, you would have wasted more time searching for the location than on the mission itself. Although I find this a turn off because I'm bad at it, some - like a friend whom I sent it to and completed the whole game in 5 days while I was on a back and forth mission search loop - may find it interesting. The map is not really large though so it reduces your search scope.
Much of this game's success is attributed to the gameplay. The orderliness in the small world. Different tasks, different houses, different purposes, monsters to deal with, dragon to ride on, Goblins to kill, enemies to slash and Allies to fight with.

For gamers who have played Aralon forge and flame (it's counterpart) earth and legend, Their similarities would undoubtedly be noticed. Earth and legend is only less than 100 mb while this is sparingly large but they still share almost the same graphics and texture. Although the lightning is quite better with Ravensword and the environment better, the textures lack depth and quality and walls with bricks looked like images mapped to a surface, same as floors and clothes. The hair and beards lacks the realism, more like a vector.

You have a wide range of preferences in the settings where you can set your preferred view distance, camera sensitivity, controls among others. Unfortunately, your characters face can not be viewed no matter how you pan the camera, it will always adjust back to the back of your character unlike some other games where you can pan around the whole body while in motion. As I said earlier about the less need to customize your character's face, this further proves my notion. The aforementioned view distance no matter how set does not have any significant effect to the camera as I have observed. Maybe just my phone, I don't know. All in all, it's flaws doesn't overweigh its thrilling gameplay.

Until next time
Happy Gaming