Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- Sweep the Board! Review (Switch)

There is no shortage of party games available on Switch – the console was practically made with the genre in mind. Standing out from the crowd requires some careful balancing of the rules or implementing some gimmick to make your game feel unique. Or, in the case of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board, you can let your licensed anime property do the work for you.

Plenty of effort went into making Demon Slayer – Sweep the Board feel like it belongs in the world of the anime. The 12 playable characters include the three main ones as well as the nine Hashira who represent the best of the best among the Demon Slayer Corps. They each have little interactions with each other that make them feel true to the anime version of the character – Inosuke has a rivalry with Tanjiro, for example.

The five boards themselves are all inspired by specific arcs in the anime as well, each with a different layout and a different fast-travel mechanic. Visually, the boards all feel unique so there is a lot here to love if you’re a fan of the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba anime.

However, if you push past the anime surface with Sweep the Board, the game starts to feel a bit like many of the other party games for the Switch. The board layout and progression mechanics feel very Dokapon Kingdom while the minigames are going to be rightly compared to Mario Party. However, while Dokapon Kingdom goes all in on establishing chaotic gameplay where every turn feels unpredictable, and Mario Party offers polished, well-balanced minigames, Demon Slayer – Sweep the Board does neither.

Getting around the game board feels like a tedious affair most of the time. Because the game is designed around a semi-cooperative narrative, it leaves out any way to sabotage your fellow players. The only real way to interact with them is to try to reach the destination squares before they do, which isn’t nearly as satisfying as casting spells or laying traps for them. Each turn feels predictable, which sucks a lot of the fun out of the party game format.

Similarly, the minigames aren’t really that engaging. You play one after each turn and there is a wide enough variety that we didn’t find them overly repetitive. However, none of them were really that fun – they were a chore that had to be endured rather than a part of the game that we celebrated. The best ones, like the fireworks display, peak at mildly amusing while some of the other ones, like the jump rope simulator, feel frustrating due to awkward controls.

There is a bright spot in all this mediocrity and that is the Greater Demon Battles that crop up periodically throughout a game. Reaching the initial destination during the daytime summons a Greater Demon square that, when reached, has a chance to initiate one of these simple but fun battles. Each one is taken from an arc from the anime, all the way through the Swordsmith Village Arc that made up season three of the show. Using either motion controls or simple flicks of the joystick, you simulate swinging your sword to take down these epic foes.

The Greater Demon battles aren’t difficult. We didn’t fail one during our entire time playing Demon Slayer – Sweep the Board and we’re not entirely sure if it is possible to do so. The main competitive aspect here is that you earn Medals for timing your attacks more precisely or being faster than them. It is easily the most fun and unique part of the game – it is just a shame it happens so irregularly.

There are three game modes in Sweep the Board. Single-player, in which you play against three AI-controlled characters, is the most painless but the least fun because what good is a party by yourself? You can play against friends or strangers online provided you have a Switch Online membership, which was fun but came with a host of connection issues with other players. These connection problems were so frequent that, in five attempts, we never managed to finish a full online game. Someone either dropped out or the game paused on a random screen for several minutes before we gave up and just restarted.

The best experience is local multiplayer mode, but even that can feel sluggish. There is a frustratingly long pause between when you roll your dice to determine how far you’re moving and when your character actually starts to move along the board. It starts as barely noticeable but after waiting for a second or two four times a turn for nine turns you will be begging for a way to speed things along.

If you’re a fan of the anime, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board can be a fun experience. The graphics do a reasonable job of recreating the anime’s art style and the recreation of the climactic battles from each arc is well worth experiencing once or twice. However, when you strip away the anime dressing, Demon Slayer – Sweep the Board is a mediocre and occasionally frustrating party game that doesn’t get the fundamentals of the genre right. Without the Demon Slayer characters carrying it, this would have been one of the most forgettable party games on the platform. Not necessarily bad, just underwhelming in nearly every way.