Cheque please!
Previously released on PC in 2022, Sword and Fairy Inn 2 has made its way to the Nintendo Switch. While the Sword and Fairy series has had limited exposure in the West, bringing characters from that series and mixing it up with a restaurant sim isn’t actually a bad idea. Given the cute nature of its visuals and concept, I fully expected to find a charming little adventure within its Inn, but ended up wishing I had booked elsewhere instead.
Sword and Fairy Inn 2’s mobile DNA is everywhere here, and it's inescapable. It’s a shame that its design and layout wasn’t formatted to better utilize a controller, or even at all. Choosing options and simply attempting to get through each shift never amounts to anything even remotely functional and you will constantly press the wrong button or wonder how to access even the most basic things.
Sword and Fairy Inn 2 features several characters from the series, with a few that open this particular Inn. You’ll have various conversations, meet a few rivals, and hire additional staff to help out, but anything even coming close to being entertaining for its narrative is just not here. While the overall presence of its characters is rather charming, with cute chibi versions of its cast, a great deal of its dialogue and character moments are pretty throwaway and feel all too generic.
As you progress, you’ll be treated to new events and moments that further the story and character relationships. Additional scenes can be unlocked as you entertain certain guests as well as taking certain pairs of characters on dates. I would also unlock special scenes that showed relationships advancing, but I could never figure out what actually caused these moments to occur.
The core component of Sword and Fairy Inn 2 is the Inn and taking care of its clientele. As you level up your Inn, you’ll be able to seat more guests and start to see the complexity that this title can offer. However, getting to that is a pretty tedious affair that is a mix of hiring staff and filling positions and then having the game automate the dining portion of the experience. While I would occasionally be given control, the game would largely attempt to play on its own. And without a setting to remove the automated feature, I never felt like I was actually playing much of anything.
As tables are free, you’ll send guests to them who are waiting on a bench at the entrance. If they are there long enough, they will leave, providing no real consequences. If you choose guests who have been waiting less time than others, they will get frustrated, indicated by emotional icons above them. Characters will slowly walk to the table, eat or drink their order, possibly leave a tip, and then leave. You’ll repeat this process until the timer ends, regardless of some customers barely reaching the table at all. What I enjoyed about Dave the Diver was that the shift would end once the final customer ate. No one was left out.
Before each shift, you’ll load your menu, ensuring you have the proper ingredients to be able to make those meals. The game doesn’t really explain how you are supposed to sustain your pantry and I was left to my own devices to figure it out. Initially, you have two options, a farm that is pretty slow to earn what you’ll need and is upgradeable, as well as a small town where you can use your earnings to replenish your stocks. Some items can be purchased with coin, whereas others require you to trade particular items straight across for others.
After coming off of Dave the Diver, as mentioned, I was a bit let down by how you get these ingredients as it simply feels like another menu as opposed to anything gameplay related. Given the series is built around combat, I would have preferred small little zones where I could track down items and take place in even the most basic combat. However, Sword and Fairy Inn 2 just isn’t that game. Eventually, you gain access to other towns to purchase ingredients; however, it really just plays out in the same way and merely adds another skin to a system you’ll revisit far too often.
Each of the cast that joins the Inn has certain traits that are better than others. You’ll want to take advantage of these benefits as they will help you out in the end. New positions within the Inn will open up as you progress, and while you’ll have access to them to increase the speed of certain actions, the gameplay nonetheless still remains unchanged and mostly automated. Despite anything you do that feels even remotely new ends up bringing the game back to the same few minutes of gameplay over and over again.
As you tend to your clients and run the Inn, you’ll have milestones to hit. Some are gaining access to new towns, but most of these objectives are things you’ll hit with little to no issue. In fact, I think tracking down most of the ingredients is really the only wall you’ll hit from time to time. Sword and Fairy Inn 2 could have felt relaxing and something that is meant to be a chill grind, but its controls and setup simply fail to provide the means to have it feel like a chill and relaxed time.
The first few hours of Sword and Fairy Inn 2 can feel like you are stuck in a tutorial that never ends. Once you add about two or three more tables, then it starts to feel like there is a game here. While nothing really changes about the core loop, it feels like you have real growth within the Inn, and these upgrades also allow you to earn more money and serve more clients.
As mentioned, this game does not feel designed around a controller whatsoever. The Inn itself is a series of different menus that each need to be swapped to via the shoulder buttons. It’s a shame since most of this could have been designed around two menus at most, with the settings and features being a menu of its own and running the Inn and choosing the doors to exit to the town as one instead of two. With those two being largely the same menu, it’s difficult to tell what menu you are in at any given time.
From trying to pick options to even attempting to back out of a menu, you’ll often wonder why it's not working only to discover you are in the wrong menu. Hell, there are leftover assets from the Mobile version that wants you to touch the screen, a feature that isn’t present here, despite the Switch screen having the technology to make that work.
Sword and Fairy Inn 2 shows its whole hand within the first few hours and never really feels like the gameplay shifts enough to warrant your time. It’s great to see your Inn grow and give in to the hustle and bustle, but the journey there is just downright boring. With so many games that scratch the itch of running a restaurant, inn, or cafe, you simply have far better and more capable options, including the fantastic Dave the Diver which is releasing on the Switch later this year, just wait for that instead.
Developer - SOFTSTAR. Publisher - SOFTSTAR. Released - July 27th, 2023. Available On - Nintendo Switch, PC. (Other Platforms 2024) Rated - (E 10+) - Alcohol Reference, Comic Mischief, Mild Language, Violent References. Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch. Review Access - A review code was provided by the PR/publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.