Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

I am, unfortunately, unable to properly communicate the worth of this game to you. Basically, it's perfect. If you trust me, don't even read the rest of this. Just buy it. And live it.

That sounds corny as crap and I really shouldn't be writing more than those five sentences, but hopefully my inadequacy points even stronger to the brilliance of this game.

Naturally, however, beneath everything beautiful, there is something sinister. (Okay, maybe that's a little overdramatic and pessimistic.) But Sword & Sworcery EP is not a game, exactly: It's amazingly fun, it's exciting, it's interactive, it's full of very apparent inspiration from The Legend of Zelda. But it functions more as a narrative than anything else. A magical, unspeakable narrative. And so the tragedy I'm alluding to here is marketing. iPhone is one of the worst imaginable platforms for well-crafted, artistic, sensitively-paced adventures. Which makes this game a very risky choice for Capybara Games to publish. It brings me deep sadness to know that most iPhone users will have neither the interest nor the patience to enjoy what I would consider to be the best game to ever grace the App Store (subjective, I know).

But I won't taint the experience by covering details about the quest or the characters or the spectacles. Just know that everything about Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is about as good as it gets. The enchanting neo-retro visuals. The charming self-aware dialogue. The haunting electronic beats. If there is anything that will convince Roger Ebert that video games can be art, it's this.