This installment of Gut Check is going to be fairly short because the game we’re talking about is fairly slight.  Despite its initial release on iOS devices back in 2014, Goblin Sword, like many games, has found a new home on the Nintendo Switch.  Aside from having one of the more generic titles for a game ever, it’s just an uninspired albeit competent experience.

You play as this blue haired knight who has to go through these small slices of levels, obliterating all the enemies you can and finding as many collectibles as you can.  A simple enough pitch that never seems to get shaken up in any meaningful way aside from the occasional boss fight.

There isn’t much to say about the moment to moment gameplay, because it’s all just average and serviceable.  None of it is particularly challenging or difficult, usually feeling more tedious than anything.  You jump, slash, and mush your face into every wall you can in hopes of finding a secret chest or something.

The only interesting part about Goblin Sword is how the swords themselves work.  Through either buying them with the in-game currency, or finding them in secret chests, the swords all have 3 stats indicating power, speed, and range, along with a magic spell.  Spells can be anything from fireballs, to floating murder orbs, to just screen clearing nonsense.  These are all activated through finding magic orbs in levels that allow you to cast these spells when you attack.  You can use the spells 3 or 4 times before you need to find another magic orb in a jar or after a vanquished enemy drops them.

But that’s basically the most exciting or interesting part of Goblin Sword.  Everything else is steeped in repetitious tedium that eventually will drive you to stop playing entirely.  Even the “secrets” in the levels are copy-pasted, requiring you to find 3 blue gems, and two treasure chests.  Chests can hide either money, swords, or useless souvenirs that go on display in your house, a place you have literally no reason to visit.

The only other thing worth mentioning is the in-game shop you can visit to spend your hard earned money.  You can either buy new swords with better stats, trinkets that give you an extra effect like more health or magic drops, or armor, which as far as I can tell have no actual protecting qualities, they’re purely cosmetic.  What sucks is the fact that you’re never told what the magic spell is imbued on a sword, leaving you in a position where your sword does great work as a sword, but has a lame and useless spell attached to it.

All things considered though, Goblin Sword isn’t a bad game, it’s just not that interesting or worth your time.  It’s completely average in every way which is fine because the price of entry is low, sitting at 5 bucks.  If you really have 5 dollars burning a hole in your pocket, and you’re looking for a generic platforming video game that isn’t going to challenge you that much, you could do worse than Goblin Sword.