Sometimes, one look at a game is all you need. It was certainly enough for me. Once my brother saw it – it was enough for him as well. Sword of Convallaria really has the heart and soul of Final Fantasy Tactics! Music is composed by the same guy too. While we were suckers for the comparison and nostalgia, make no mistake SoC is excellent in it’s own right.

Sword of Convallaria in a Nutshell

It’s hard to describe this game easily since it has TWO major whole “games” in one. The gacha and the roguelike (more on this later). I’ll try my best.

Ultimately, it’s a TRPG very reminiscent of Final Fantasty Tactics with a lot of team customization options and content types. While the production quality is top tier, the gameplay itself is nothing to scoff at. It’s pretty legit! There are many ways to enjoy the game so I’m sure you’ll find something that suits you.

Deep character customization

The systems upon systems to customize your characters and teams are here. No self respecting FFT lover wouldn’t spend hours in their own minds thinking about “this setup” and “that setup”. The main points here are:

• There’s a wide roster of characters! That’s a start. Interestingly, lower rarity units are actually great. Many of them can be built as niche powerhouses.
• Each unit has a unique TRAIT all their own, which evolves as they power up.
• Each unit has a unique SKILL TREE. It’s simple but no two characters are alike.
• 3 Equipment slots, with each piece a UNIQUE SKILL (either passive or active).

There are also some challenging content types that really reward you for designing and fielding unique team compositions to beat them specifically.

A Gacha AND a Roguelike?

“What’s better than one campaign? TWO”

Weirdly enough, there’s two major game modes stapled into one here. A fully fledged “roguelike” mode, with a whole campaign (Spiral of Destinies), and the Gacha. Both modes share the Tactical RPG gameplay and basic characters systems at its core.

Spiral of Destinies: The roguelike mode is pretty interesting, and can give you hours of FREE enjoyment. You can choose to bring in characters from the Gacha half of the game (completely optional and unnecessary). The gameplay loop her is basically a “guild management sim” in between missions.

Gacha Mode: To anyone that’s played a gacha, you’ll know the drill by now. Farm resources by day or by week, improve your roster, pull on waifus… If you haven’t played a Gacha yet, good for you. While I’d usually advise keeping it that way, Sword of Convallaria is an exception. Just please have a handle on your wallet, haha.

Cross Platform – Steam and Mobile!

While bad for our sanity and productivity – you gotta admit being able to play both on PC and Phone is an option many would love to have. I initially didn’t care for it, but eventually warmed up (IE abusing) SoC on mobile as well, haha.

Summary, Outro, Related Links

With its beautiful pixel art, amazing portraits, and great gameplay Sword of Convallaria certainly does stand on the shoulders of giants (namely FFT), but stands out all in its own right. It’s definitely worth checking out for any fan of the Genre!

See our Sword of Convallaria Review / Let’s Play / First Impressions video.