Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- Sweep the Board is a party game much like Mario Party. Instead of collecting stars as your favorite Mario character, you are hunting demons as your favorite Demon Slayer from the anime series. Sweep the Board differentiates itself from the genre staple and succeeds in some ways but falters in others. Infusing the world of Demon Slayer does give the game some charm—It can stand out, but that may not be enough to carry it forward.
Across the Board
There are two primary game modes in Sweep the Board. One is the board game adventure, which is the main mode you will play. It’s also called Sweep the Board, and it lets up to four players compete. The game has five boards and 12 characters to choose from. Each board is a location from a different arc and has unique mechanics that help it stand out. Every character is voiced in both Japanese and English, so you can hear your favorites as well. When you pick a board and characters, the gameplay is your standard party board game fare: roll a die, move along, land on a special space, and then play a minigame.
What sets Sweep the Board apart is it has an interesting addition to the standard board gameplay. To win, you need to have the most rank points, and you can get these a couple of ways. The primary way to get them is to be the first to reach the destination the game asks you to. When the destination is reached, the game will go from day to night, and then the prime objective will also change. When it becomes night, you no longer play minigames when a turn is over. You instead hunt demons, and when you land on a demon space, you enter a demon battle minigame.
The game will stay at night until you beat the greater demon. To do that, you must again reach the destination you asked for and initiate a battle. You spin a wheel and see if you land on the demon. If the battle starts then you enter a prolonged battle minigame, if not then the destination moves and you continue until you can battle the great demon. If you succeed at the great demon battle, then it becomes day again, and the cycle starts over.
Now I actually like this system I think it changes the gameplay enough and adds an extra layer to it. My only problem is that based on roll and board placement, you can have a game where you go from day to night and then just not start the great demon battle. In one game, a handful of turns went by without a single demon hunt after it became night. That meant no minigames, so it was just waiting as characters moved along the board, hoping something might happen. Sometimes the other extreme would happen, and it would hit night, and then immediately demon hunt.
During one turn, it sometimes went from day to night and back to day. It would hit day, and I would get up to get water and bam, suddenly, it was night again. Of the two, I prefer the chaotic day-night switches, but it seems too easy to get either extreme. I will also say I did end up having the more chaotic turns happen than the slow ones. It does end up hurting the experience because each board has something night-specific you don’t get to see. One example is whoever is last when night hits gets help from Nezuko in the form of extra dice and items. It sounds nice, but you can get her and never actually get to use her because a turn gets chaotic. Again, it can be fun when it gets hectic, but it’d be nice to have some turns that don’t feel all over the place.
Slaying and Playing
Sweep the Board wouldn’t be anything without the other staple of the genre, the minigames. The minigames are a core part of the Sweep the Board mode and the other game mode, which is just playing the minigames on their own or in a rush. Minigames are the real make or break for these types of games. Any problems with boards or systems can be overlooked if the minigames are fun, but great boards can also get ruined by bad minigames. The ones here, though, are a weird mixed bag. As mentioned earlier, the boards have a day and night system, which changes the game around. During the day, you get pretty standard minigames that you’d expect in the genre. Those minigames are nothing to come back to; none of them stand out and feel like a waste of time. I did not come back to any of the day ones, and that is a real shame because you can find yourself spending a good amount of turns stuck like that.
The other minigames you encounter are all about demon battles. These are much more interesting than the day games and can be pretty fun. They can be played with either traditional controls or motion. All the demon battles have the same gameplay: you either press a button or flick the analog stick at the right time, or you swing the joy-con instead. I would recommend using the motion controls as they work pretty well and are pretty fun. What saves these minigames is the motion controls. It feels like you are working together to fight a demon, and you have to think. The inputs won’t always be the same, so you have to pay attention. I used the standard controls a few times, and it wasn’t bad, but it didn’t feel as engaging. The use of motion controls elevates these minigames, and they end up saving them all as a whole. Now, the downside of this is all the demon minigames are the same, so after a game or two, you have seen it all. Overall, there isn’t much variety or many at all, and even if the demon ones are fun, there isn’t enough variety here.
Putting Away the Board
There isn’t much left to Sweep the Board outside of some customization the game gives you. Each character has at least a second outfit, and there is also a player card you can completely customize. You get customizable items in two ways: one is just playing the game and meeting certain requirements. The other way, which is how you get most of them, is through an in-game shop. In the shop, you can buy raffle pulls or spend more to buy a specific item. After playing a couple of games, I had so much in-game currency that I had no problem just buying random pulls to get what I wanted. There isn’t a lot to it, and I wish it had more items, but it’s a cute bonus. This is mainly here so you can differentiate yourself when you play online. Sadly, I can’t describe the online experience because I could not get into a single game.
Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- Sweep the Board is a fine enough game. There is nothing particularly special here, yet also nothing too bad. It sets itself apart enough to stand out a little but not enough to pick over other staples in the genre. The boards and fully voiced cast will be nice for any fan of the series, however the randomness of the day-night system may negatively affect your game. Not to mention, half the minigames are pretty lackluster, and the other half is fun but lacks variety, which does not help. Sweep the Board is not bad, and I would even recommend playing it once if you have a group of friends who enjoy Demon Slayer. Outside of one playthrough, though, I do find it hard to recommend this over other contemporaries in the genre, even if it has its moments.
Disclaimer: SEGA provided a copy of Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- Sweep the Board to Final Weapon for review purposes.
