I don't know if diminishing returns (each episode got less reviews than the previous one) ultimately pushed this to be the last [b]Swords & Bones[/b], but in-game, nothing says the curse that allows for a demonic invasion every 500 years is going to be vanquished once and for all, even though the very last screen is a thanks for completing the saga. While of no bearing on the gameplay, it's at least nice that, besides the big bad, the bosses are mutated and misguided people, have a defeat animation with them returning to human form, and show up afterwards.
The mouse-man Basil (heh) is very similar to the rogue of the third game, including an evasive dash, but with an attack reach comparable to the mage of the fourth—best of both worlds.
A notable difference from previous games is how progression is gated by the acquisition of specific upgrades from the shop: in other [b]S&B[/b] games you could pass all stages normally and needed upgrades to reach the trophies in some of them, but here it's not possible. For example, the second section starts with a stage where you can go on only if you have bought the mouse transformation. Triggered by a piece of cheese in some stages, it mixes up the gameplay, controlling a tiny character and evading lots of traps.
Another important difference is that the four special attacks, which are arrows here, have all the same price, to subtly point out that not only they can all be useful (whereas in older episodes you at best bought the first and fourth, ignoring the other two), they are even necessary at some points to trigger mechanisms. It's a cool detail but sadly underdeveloped, as the spots where specific arrows are needed are few and far between (you have to freeze a lever exactly once). You also need to select the correct arrow before entering a stage from the map, while a selection on the fly would have been welcome.
This is certainly the most difficult of the series: enemies here aren't staggered at all if hit, not even the ones shooting projectiles. Very precise timing for striking and evading is needed, but sometimes it feels unfair, like you can do little but tank some damage to go on. At least the money drops from enemies are quite generous, so it doesn't take long to fully upgrade.
Any residual hope that the series would end with more developed boss fights is dashed quickly: the first four are made even easier by the lightning arrow, while the final one doesn't even move, merely teleports to a few fixed places. So I'm not even mad about the final reward being a couple of even lamer drawings (they had Oscar Celestini drawing illustrations for many of their games—why never in [b]S&B[/b] besides banners?), as I ultimately enjoyed the 3 hours spent here.
The big issue of [b]Swords & Bones[/b] as a whole is that, after the mediocre beginnings, the series didn't change much from the second game onwards; this final episode does several laudable attempts but doesn't attempt to really innovate outside of that box, leaving a lot of unused potential. Maybe one day SEEP will feel confident enough to try a single, bigger game rather than three every year.
