Sword and Fairy Inn 2 from eastasiasoft and Softstar Entertainment is a chill game that will have you managing an establishment where heroes and former foes come together. Learn more in our Sword and Fairy Inn 2 review!
Sword and Fairy Inn 2 from eastasiasoft and Softstar Entertainment is a chill game that will have you managing an establishment where heroes and former foes come together. This is a spin-off from the Sword and Fairy series, a franchise I got a chance to check out thanks to Sword and Fairy: Together Forever on PlayStation 5. It takes the Sword and Fairy universe and it applies a colorful Chibi art style.
Your task will be to assign roles to the different characters that you’ll meet and recruit as you get to know them a bit better by improving your relationship with them. This is a lighthearted experience that will have you managing the day-to-day of the titular inn in a game that mixes a life sim with some lite RPG elements for a fun gameplay loop. There will be plenty of clients for you to take care of as they walk through the doors of your fine establishment.
In this spin-off from the long-running Sword and Fairy series – a series that which got its start way back in 1995 as The Legend of Sword and Fairy and is aiming to hit its 30th anniversary in just a few years – you’ll get to see many characters from the franchise. As you work on serving your guests some delicious dishes such as Fried Rice, Spring Rolls, Lily Root Soup, or Tea Olive Wine, you’ll meet characters such as Zhao Ling’er, disciple of the Lingyue Palace master of Shuiyue Palace and descendant of Nuwa, Li Xiaoyao, son of the South Bandit, Li Sansi, Xiaoman, a descendant of Nuwa raised by Lady Hai Tang, the head of Witch Moon, Lin Yueru, eldest daughter of the Master of Linjiapu, and more.
The game can be played either by using the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con or by using the console’s touchscreen when playing in Portable or Tabletop Mode or if you’re using a Nintendo Switch Lite console to play. Since you’re running an inn, you’ll have to select the menu for the day while keeping in mind the dishes that potential clients have listed as their favorites. Assign the staff that will be working for the day, and check what assignments they can take on. To be able to open for business, you need to assign at least one staff member as a chef and one staff member as a clerk.
You’ll be able to switch between the waiting area and the table area, and the working zone by using the L and R buttons. In the waiting area, you can select a customer and greet it. You need to pay attention to each customer’s mood so that you can know how they’re currently feeling so that you can focus on those that urgently require your attention. After selecting a customer in the waiting area, you can greet them by pressing the A button so that the customer can move to an open table. If you press the X button, then the customer will be dismissed.
One of the mini-games you can take on is a clerk battle, in which you’ll have to send dishes to the corresponding tables. Orders are sent from left to right. The dishes to be delivered are presented on the left side of the screen, and the number indicates its intended destination. Another one is the culinary battle. During this one, the menu for each round must be completed before the timer runs out. The materials needed for each round will be displayed at the center of the screen. You’ll have to press the B, A, Y, and X buttons as needed by the arrows to set the menu for the round. A charge gauge will increase by making the right dishes, and you can then use a full charge to boost attack and defend against incoming attacks.
Once you start to play, you’ll quickly realize that you’re considerably understaffed and that your inn is currently not equipped to deal with the high demand and the many, many customers that will visit. You start with only three characters to staff the different positions at the inn, a couple of tables where you can sit customers, a good enough hygiene level, and nothing more. This is why you’ll have to balance things out by using your hard-earned coins to improve the inn and hire more staff members.
At the end of the business day, you’ll be able to review the restaurant income, the room income (you are running an inn, after all!), the employee wages paid, and if there were any customer tips. Once all of this is considered, you’ll be presented with your total profit for the day, as well as an overall grade. You can also review how many servings were sold for each of the requested dishes and how many different customers you had.
As you progress further into this new adventure, you’ll be able to obtain new recipes, as well as new resources for them. Take, for example, the first recipe you’ll receive: the yummy Syruped Lotus Root! After obtaining some honey and lotus root, you’ll be able to add this delicious dessert to your menu. Do remember that the number of servings you can prepare will depend on how many ingredients you have available, which is why you should also spend some of your money when visiting merchants!
What can you get in town when checking out the merchants’ wares? You could get some timber and stone, which are used for creating tools or upgrading the inn, lotus root – which comes from the underground stem of the lotus, giving it its slightly sweet and crunchy taste – to use in the delicious Syruped Lotus Root, or you could decide to add some sweet mushrooms to your stock in case you end up with a new recipe that requires them. And don’t forget to get some sticky rice for making some glutinous snacks!
You could also get new tables for the inn or add some seeds so that you can plant them at your small farm. Speaking of which, at the farm, you’ll be able to plant the seeds that you purchase by using the available plots. You’ll also have access to a pen so that you can care for other types of… resources. You can also make the most of the calming pond on the farm if you feel like adding some extra variety to your menu.
You should also consider reviewing the different activities available for you to complete under the Quest menu. Completing quests will allow you to claim rewards that can then be used to upgrade your inn, improve your characters, or use for cooking dishes. These quests include having the inn’s daily visiting customer count reach 10, leveling up the inn to level 2, having the inn’s profit reach 1,000 coins, collecting tips from customers 20 times, having each of the different character types staying at the inn multiple times or having them order dishes multiple times.
Improving the stats of your staff members will also be important, so you might want to spend some money and energy on, for example, having them train to improve their strength or decide that it would be best for them to work on boosting their speed. You could also have someone train in the kitchen to improve their cooking skills so that they’re faster and better at making specific dishes, which will certainly help you please your potential customers. Fulfilling the requirements for leveling up the inn will allow you to boost its hygiene cap, room quantity, table assignment, clerk assignment, chef assignment, and more so that you can better cater to your customers.
Sword and Fairy Inn 2 is a chill game that will have you managing an establishment where heroes and former foes come together. It’s a spin-off from the long-running Sword and Fairy series, giving us a chibified experience in which you’ll work on creating delicious dishes for your customers, adding new ingredients to your stock and new recipes to your repertoire, tending to guests in their rooms, all while also taking on some mini-game challenges here and there. The game features voice acting in Chinese with English subtitles, so unless you know Chinese, there’s going to be a lot of reading in your future! Sword and Fairy Inn 2 is out today on Nintendo Switch with a $19.99 asking price.
Disclaimer
This Sword and Fairy Inn 2 review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by eastasiasoft.
