If there was a genre that was all the rage in the old arcade days, it was the beat’em ups, people would spend hours playing those types of games, and nowadays it’s good to see that the genre still hasn’t died yet. Now the genre is, at least in my opinion, intertwined with the hack’n’slash genre. In any case, we have in our Nintendo Switch, Croixleur: Sigma, a game that can be really entertaining to play. Croixleur: Sigma’s story is centred on Lucrezia Visconti and her rivalry with fellow Magical Knight academy student, Francesca Storaro, as they both venture through a mysterious tower as part of their final assignment to become fully pledged Magical Knights.
I enjoyed the story since it was ‘short but sweet’ so to say, and I personally liked that while you play with Lucrezia at first you unlock the other three characters’ stories. You can play with each character to get their story as a whole. I also like playing them because each character is so different in their play styles and with the weapons they can use, it didn’t feel like I was just playing the same character over and over but with a different skin. Also since once you start each character’s individual story you can’t stop until that story is done. However, they are short so there’s no problem with that. As such, when you defeat enemies you can pick up gold pieces, these have two purposes; one is that they count as experience points so when you level up, you regain health, but gold also serves as currency to purchase several accessories, which give a more personalized look to your characters. Some of these accessories provide boosts like more damage or increased mana regen so it’s a good thing to have.
As to be expected, the combat is fast-paced. You can do normal melee attacks after pressing the A button several times, and you can end your combo with that weapon’s special skill done in a combination of ZL and the button the weapon is assigned to. One thing the small tutorial doesn’t mention is that when you have a weapon equipped, you can take 4 different weapons with you once unlocked, and you use that weapon’s skill you automatically start using that weapon. The basic combo is the same but depending on the weapon it can deal more or less damage, it’s a good way to change weapons on the fly among the ones equipped. Also, the game fails to mention that once you have all 4 weapons pressing X will do each weapon’s special skill, each press will do a different one so you can use for normal melees then four special skills to do pretty cool combos.
Bottom Line, Croixleur: Sigma is a fun game, the story mode is a tad bit short but at least each character is fun to try. There are tons of unlockables so for those who love to 100% everything; they have their work cut out for them. This is a game that fans of the genre should not miss.
A Review Code was provided for this review.