The Swindle Reviews
Despite its flaws and steep challenge, The Swindle on the Wii U eShop taught me how to become a greedy, stealthy crook — and I loved every minute of it.
'The Swindle' can be very satisfying, if you don't mind its cruel difficulty and regularly mystifying level design. It is not a AAA stealth game with all of its fancy checkpoints and low difficulty levels and no death penalty. It's not that those things are bad necessarily, it's just that roguelikes are intended to be a very different experience, one in which success is distant, pain is frequent, and every reward is a joyous occasion.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with The Swindle. While the random levels were a point of frustration, and the occasional frame rate drops maddening, the gameplay is solid and provides players with an interesting challenge in a wonderful setting. If you can get past its brutal challenge, you'll find a rewarding experience, even if it can be an exhausting one.
In the end The Swindle is an ambitious game that unfortunately just falls in at average
In the end, The Swindle is one of the most rewarding and unique rogue-likes that I've ever played.
The Swindle is an enjoyable enough game which I would probably rate higher on other platforms, but the additional shortcomings with the Switch version in handheld mode make it a little more difficult for me to recommend. If the technical issues aren’t deal breakers for you, and if you’re looking for something you can play in short bursts and which will let you progress quickly, this is a fine enough choice. If you can play it on another platform, I’d suggest going that route instead.
A Sonic-the-Hedgehog-esque money-as-health system would be my proposed solution, where every hit results in some dropped wonga as you limp back to the escape vessel, but until then, for all The Swindle’s good attributes, it manages to suck the fun out of its own good ideas so thoroughly in its early-game that many players won’t have the desire to soldier on.