Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board (Xbox Series X)
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles provided an unusually thorough adaptation of the action anime into video game form, the close commitment to the story and art style leading to a good deal of well-animated action and character models that looked exactly like the source material just moved into 3D. While that provided a loving and accurate action game, it seems it was realized all those resources didn’t have to be used only on one game, and so, another Demon Slayer game was put into production. Rather surprisingly though, the game that would use all those assets would be a virtual board game, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board looking to provide a Mario Party inspired experience but with the characters and locations from its manga and anime.
It may at first seem like an odd fit, the series known for its bloody battles, brutal backstories, and sometimes dour outcomes to combat, but it is a series with more lighthearted and comedic moments on top of likeable characters you may wish to see in more peaceful scenarios. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board actually tries to balance the less serious play with the demon slaying action of the show and comic though, the board game focused on becoming the best demon slayer in your group of players which will involve some violent encounters with the monstrous demons.
In a round of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board, you and up to three other players controlled either by the game or fellow players will compete to earn the most Rank Points. Rolling dice to travel the game boards, the easiest way to earn them is reaching specified spaces that appear somewhat randomly, the player needing to reach it first to claim the points. However, the board will change depending on if it is night or day. During the day, the Rank Points for reaching the Destination Space offers its points freely before shifting things to night time, where the board undergoes changes to make it more dangerous. A demon character will appear, and while reaching their space will still provide Rank Points, it also usually triggers a combat minigame everyone participates in, providing Rank Points to each player according to how well they performed. Night is also riskier in general, with demon spaces where everyone briefly fights a lesser demon for a few points or the terrifying Greater Demon Attack Space which can take away huge amounts of Rank Points from multiple players, not necessarily even harming the one who landed on the space. This space is certainly one you would really only want to land on in a desperate situation due to its random mayhem, but considering rounds can end with possibly more than one player somewhere between 100 and 200 Rank Points, it feels like an effective complication to counteract point generosity rather than a full upending of how the game is going.
In fact, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board feels like it takes the Mario Party formula and wants to give you a good deal more control over your fate than those more random casual board games. The six boards on offer are all fairly condensed both in how many spaces it takes to cross them and what they represent. Oftentimes, a board covers more than one arc from Demon Slayer, like the shifting mansion and spider forest being combined, although there are some like the Swordsmith Village that simply spread out one setting. Most every one of these boards will have some special way to traverse it, such as the Mugen Train being used to travel to different stations instead of having to rely wholly on die rolls with there even being a special item specific to that board to summon it no matter where you might be. Many branching paths also allow boards to give you more room to alter your course and better pick which kind of space you land on.
Blue spaces provide some Slayer Coins, red spaces take them away, but since these coins aren’t used for buying Rank Points, instead they go towards the often abundant item shops. You are able to carry up to four items and can often earn them from special spaces or more common situations like landing on the green Kakushi spaces, and these can really help you put your fate in your own hands. Items that let you pick your next die roll, add a set amount to it, roll an extra die, swap places with another player of your choice, or force everyone to come to your position all place a great deal of strategic tools in your hands, especially since coins are provided quite often and almost solely used for item shops or board gimmicks. Similarly, you can gain an ally by landing on the right spaces, these characters adding a small amount to every roll or letting you gain access to their Slayer Dice. Slayer Dice have unique outcomes compared to the usual 1 to 6 die, such as having higher numbers or rolls that might just give you an influx of Slayer Coins instead of moving you, and while they can only be used occasionally, they are another part of your toolbox for trying to cover ground quickly or intelligently in the race to get Rank Points before the other players. There are extra spaces that do provide Rank Points in small amounts like Training Spaces, and depending on the board, certain spaces will be designated to be under the watch of a character who may help you in some small way.
During the day, when a turn wraps up, players will be made to play a minigame to earn some Slayer Coins, there being a small but decent range of minigames on offer. Since night turns don’t culminate in a minigame these won’t grow too repetitive, but like many things in this game, they do hinge their theming pretty strongly on the source material. As mentioned earlier, the game will call what could have been called an item space the Kakushi space instead to make it more appropriate to Demon Slayer, but it still makes sense what the purpose is, and that holds true to the minigames as well. You don’t need to know why Inosuke is banging his sword with a rock to understand the minigame’s point is to do it as many times as possible without getting caught. Some like a drawing minigame where you want to trace the image as closely as possible barely involve Demon Slayer theming at all, and others are just little action games like a snowball fight or a Chanbara sword fight. Some clever use of the theming can be found, like one where you run through the Tsuzumi Mansion and its flipping walls so you have to keep in mind you’re not dodging what’s in front of you but what might be on the walls or ceilings when things turn. Minigames are always competitive but sometimes it will involve working with another player, and besides some oddities like the rhythm minigame not having any sound feedback for when you hit the notes, it feels like a good set of diverse and approachable minigames make up this game’s offerings with them even playable separate from the board game mode so you can chase achievements or tackle them in a row in a contest of doing the best purely at these small amusements.
However, the boss minigames are a bit different than the ones played during the day, and with Rank Points on the line, it does feel like they could have been made more elaborate. Almost all the boss demon fights involve timed button presses or mashing in time with indicators that appear during the demon’s attacks, the task not necessarily the most difficult but also likely to divide players pretty soundly based purely on reaction times. Some boss demons can mix things up a bit, only attacking certain players for a bit or mixing up if everyone needs to act or just one player, but even with boards having two or more unique Greater Demons, you can sometimes end up repeating these minigames four or more times without that much variety to them in a single standard game of 10 rounds. It is nice other players can earn Rank Points even if they have poor luck at reaching spaces through these games, but they’re also not deep enough to be the best contest to repeat so often and with such stakes.
There are a range of options, such as whether a handful of Rank Points will be granted to players at the end of the round for specific unknown actions, how long a game should last, and perhaps most importantly the difficulty of the computer players, the Normal mode opponents being quite bad at Greater Demon fights when they usually can hold their own elsewhere and only make the occasional stupid flub on which route to take across the board. It will be a game more enjoyable with other players which online allows, and there are 14 recognizable faces from the series that cover pretty much every character you would want to play as but Nezuko, Tanjiro’s demon sister instead a helper who pops up to aid the last place player whenever it’s night time. There are a good deal of unlockables, most of them just elements for your player card that displays online, but stamps give you different ways to react to the ongoing match. English voice acting is present too, the exact genre of this anime adaptation perhaps still a bit of an odd choice conceptually but there was still a lot of care and attention to detail put into the experience, very impressive animations during Greater Demon minigames and the game boards even being populated by minor characters really making this a treat for fans of the series.
THE VERDICT: While mixing Mario Party with the Demon Slayer franchise feels like an odd coupling, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board manages to include some of the demon slaying action alongside its lighthearted party board game without it feeling discordant. The Rank Points and Slayer Coins are distributed well, players likely to accrue plenty of both but that allows for buying plenty of items to control your fate and fight against luck factors while randomness can shave away resources without it feeling like you’re doomed if you’re hit by something unexpected. The boards are creative and compact allowing for incredibly impactful turns, and the small set of minigames feels like they serve their purpose well. The Greater Demon fights feel like they should have been more complex or engaging for how common they’ll be, but overall, the board game play is very entertaining with a lovingly thorough Demon Slayer coating to please fans both in style and substance.
And so, I give Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board for Xbox Series X…
A GOOD rating. While a player unfamiliar with the franchise might not understand why one minigame involves feeding a girl plate upon plate of food or why a demon hitting drums causes a mansion to spin around, the theming isn’t necessary to get the gameplay applications of what’s going on. You’re competing to get the most points, spaces themed around characters provide easily figured out benefits, and you can usually understand the purpose of something pretty quickly since the gameplay elements are not complicated. The art style does have a strong appeal all its own and many characters have distinct looks or personalities so even if you know nothing about what a Hashira is you can still find a favorite, but of course, a Demon Slayer fan will instead find it impressive and exciting how thorough everything is. Minor characters, in-jokes, and little details can crop-up in small moments likely because the assets were already made for a different game, this party game able to be a feast for people who really do love the idea presented to them. The Mario Party inspiration definitely sounds odd on the surface and some elements come over rather flagrantly without much alteration, but then Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board also makes the demon hunts such an important part of the board flow while also having a very strong sense for laying out the spaces and giving you means to cover ground quickly. If so much of the outcome didn’t depend on repetitive Greater Demon fights this would be easy to recommend over most Mario Party titles for those who want a greater degree of control over the board game action. Items are so impactful and you have a good deal of influence over earning them, the play still not getting too complicated but the whims of fortune don’t feel crushing when you can so often tip things in your favor. With everyone having that option rather readily too, it doesn’t lead to players getting absurd advantages save, again, where the reliance on reaction tests so often leads to Rank Points going to the player with the fastest fingers in repeated boss games.
The board and item design in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board are superb and the resources important to victory are balanced surprisingly well, it just ends up a bit of a shame that minigames aren’t always constructed with as much thought and care. The franchise attached, while popular enough to produce the two highest grossing Japanese films of all time, might still put some players off since it is enjoyed much more with context, but it is certainly fun on its own merits, another example from the team at CyberConnect2 that an anime adaptation can be both entertaining and full of fan pleasing touches. Price seems to be the most common criticism levied against it, but such things fluctuate, this virtual board game feeling like it deserves to stand next to Mario Party if you’re considering picking one up.