Severed | Switch | Review

---

Severed’s arrival on the Switch is a bit of a strange one. For starters, this being a game that requires a touch-screen to play means it’s one of the few titles in the Switch’s library that has to be played in handheld mode. It will display on a TV if you dock the console, but Sasha, that game’s one-armed heroine, remains completely immobile, no matter how much you manipulate the Joy-Cons.

---

by
Liam
Andrews

---

​@pass_controller

---

Developer: DrinkBox Studios
Publisher: DrinkBox Studios
Platforms: Switch, Wii U, 3DS, PS Vita, iOS
Players: 1

---

Secondly, despite originally launching a year ago on another handheld console, the PS Vita, Severed is a game that feels like it would be best enjoyed on a non-dedicated gaming device, like a tablet or, to a lesser extent, a smartphone; a device where everything can be controlled through a single screen with just one hand. Playing on the Switch is, at times, an awkward experience, as you must keep one hand on a Joy-Con for movement, while the other remains free to slash away at enemies, pull chains to open doors, smash pots and generally interact with the world.
 
Reducing one hand to leg duty does help you feel some immediate connection with Sasha and her missing appendage, but having to hold the Switch this way quickly gets tiresome due to the weight and length of it. In the end, despite its meaning we sacrificed a little bit of that connection to the protagonist and her search for her lost family, we settled on a regular grip of one hand on each side of the Switch for movement, and just cradled it in one hand when we needed to fight something.

As you might expect for a touch-based game, Severed’s controls are fairly intuitive; long strokes with a finger deal out greater damage, while shorter, quicker attacks do less hurt but help fill a meter in the top left of the screen that, once at maximum, allows you to relieve enemies of their own appendages upon reducing their health to zero.

Slicing off limbs isn’t just for sadistic kicks though, as collecting fallen body parts is key to levelling up Sasha’s abilities. With enough currency collected - be it arms, eyeballs, wings or jaw bones - you get to pick an upgrade from a simple skill tree. It may not be as dense or branching as other, more complicated RPGs out there, but the upgrades on offer in Severed’s skill tree are clear in what they do and what’s needed to unlock them, with everything feeling useful.

If you’re looking for something you can pick up and play on a commute to work or school, then Severed  feels perfectly suited for such a job.

Triumphing over the bosses that wait at the end of areas also grants new abilities, such as being able to temporarily blind enemies during a fight or snatch away their buffs like speed or attack boosts. All these extra powers are displayed on your character as living armour, which is a nice way of showing the progress you’ve made. Some of them grant special access to previously inaccessible areas, but having the willpower to go back and unlock them depends on how tolerant you are of the game’s walking animation, which sees you sort of ‘transported’ between a map’s segments that are linked together to create larger, sprawling areas. This can get slightly disorientating if you move too quickly, and using the mini map in the top right of the screen actually felt like an easier, and more efficient way to get around.

During the early stages of the game, you’ll only be tackling one or two monsters at a time, but things quickly escalate and it’s not long before you’re facing three, sometimes four at once. Taking on this many is surprisingly difficult, especially if they’re packing the aforementioned buffs, as even the weaker ones with familiar attack patterns become a real challenge when backed up by their mates. Identifying the most serious threats and taking them out first is key to your success, otherwise it’s easy to end up overwhelmed and frustrated as you frantically try to fend off a barrage of attacks.

An indicator on the bottom of the screen tells you when an enemy is going to attack via a yellow bar, which, once full, means there’s one incoming. Some monsters take time to build their attacks, and can be kept out of a fight altogether if you keep jabbing away to interrupt them, while others deliver ones that can’t be stopped and must instead be blocked.

Battles are triggered by walking into white flames that are dotted periodically throughout the game’s maps, mostly in the dungeon areas. Once activated, you’re locked in until you either emerge victorious or are defeated, in which case you just respawn at the last autosave (usually only a few moments before) with full health, meaning there’s no real punishment for failure other than delaying progress. Dungeons also feature some light puzzles, but they mostly feel like an obligatory inclusion (because dungeons) and all involve simple, familiar mechanics.
 
Still, if you’re looking for something you can pick up and play on a commute to work or school, then Severed’s simple gameplay, coupled with some light RPG elements and a relatively low-price, means the game feels perfectly suited for such a job. Just be sure to pick up a screen protector.
 
Pros

• Simple, yet rewarding skill tree
• Creepy characters
• Upgrades are displayed as wearable armour
• In-game achievement system

 
Cons

• Dodgy walking animation
• Puzzles aren’t that challenging
• Feels like it could be better enjoyed on other platforms

 
6/10