Home > E3 2017: Circle of Saviors Inspirations and Gameplay Explained
Circle of Saviors, a sword game built with VR, was shown off at E3 2017. The game was not the bes… wait, yes it was! The game was one of the best things I got to try out and may have just been the Best of E3 2017 in my opinion.
Circle of Saviors takes the players through different roles depending on what they pick. You have the option to play as the sword fighter or as the person with the bow. Obviously, the sword fighter is the best choice of the two.
The demo I got to play lasted roughly 5 minutes for each role. I tried out the sword fighting first as that is the selling point of the game. It was very fluid and the controls were simple. I was briefed very little prior to diving right in, but had no problems picking the game up.
You started out with just a few enemies coming at you that are quickly dispatched with a few swings of the swords; however, it quickly picks up steam and you can become surrounded if you are not careful or just forget to look behind you, like I did several times.
There are birds that come at you, which the second player can dispatch with a bow or more specifically, a crossbow. I got to try out this role once we were defeated by the boss while I was the sword fighter. The controls for the crossbow are a little more complex, but still very simple.
It was just 2 buttons that you pressed, one for shooting and one for zooming. You must carry this device that was much heavier than the sword fighting gear. The bow was easy to aim. You just pointed it in the direction of the object you wanted to attack and pulled the trigger.
Just like before, the enemies you were supposed to dispatch started off slow and quickly sped up. I was often overwhelmed by the amount of birds attacking at a time, but could eventually take them all out. We got to the boss only to be defeated shortly after.
My co-op partner and I were unable to defeat the boss both tries. This just talks about our skill levels more so than the games difficulty, which was excellent. The game was neither too hard or too easy. Fivefor did disclose some information to us about the games inspirations.
In the demo, there was grass on the ground. This was not always the case. It used to be a boring plain ground that was ugly according to Fivefor; however, they were playing the Legend of Zelda recently and loved the environments. Fivefor told me they were inspired by it and that they might be able to use something similar.
They thought it would work well for their game, so they implemented grass in the environment of Circle of Saviors. Breath of the Wild inspired this action. They also told me about a feature they thought about including but decided against, which was the ability to cut the grass.
This would have been cool, but did not really fit into the flow of the game – at least not in the E3 2017 demo that I played. This was the first showing of the game stateside and, at least in my opinion, can say that the game blew me away and I would recommend the tech and game to everyone I know.
Circle of Saviors may just be most fun I have ever had with a VR game. The controls worked well and the graphics were fluid. You did not have any complex or frustrating controls or visuals to deal with like some VR games. It just worked and worked well. Fivefor may just have a hit on their hands when they bring it stateside.
About the Author:
Austin Dickson
Austin Dickson is the owner and founder of Link's Hideaway. He enjoys writing when he is not actively developing software or operating his e-commerce business. Austin has knowledge of most things Zelda, but is always open to learning more!
