Review: Covenant of Solitude (Nintendo Switch)

Covenant of Solitude is a JRPG developed by Magitec and published by KEMCO that was originally released in 2013 as a mobile game. I never played the game before, so this was a new experience for me, and I was eager to test out the game’s unique monster mechanics.

You play as Fort, a young man from the village of Listy. Monsters are feared by everyone, though there are some people, known as genies, who can summon these monsters and command them. Fort is a genie, and he does his best to hide this secret. However, when war and ruin arrive, and genies are a target to be used or be killed, Fort has no choice but to use his power and work alongside monsters to not only survive, but help save the world.

The beginning is heavy with dialogue and backstory with two brief practice battles in between. It took about fifty minutes to get through it all before I could start playing. I think that’s too long for an intro, especially since I didn’t care for the writing or Fort’s personality.

First, Fort’s character was unlikeable. He’s a bit of a wimp and whiny. In addition, the overall dialogue didn’t do it for me. It didn’t flow well or read authentically. Some of the banter between characters fell flat, and I found myself skipping through the text just to get through it. I had to choose carefully when to pay attention because Covenant of Solitude doesn’t have a quest list on the pause screen. There are no map markers or reminders of what to do or where to go next. Once a character tells you to go to a certain place, that’s it. You better remember what they said or else you’ll wander. Luckily, the map isn’t too big so the next area was simple enough to find.

Enemy encounters are frequent in dungeons and on the map, so leveling up your party is simple. I only had one game over, though that’s not to say the battles are simple. Overall, the enemies versus my party were pretty balanced. No one was ever too overpowered, leaving room for strategy in battle or using the auto battle function when I did feel the need to grind just a little bit.

But who’s your party in Covenant of Solitude? That’s up to you. Since Fort can summon and command monsters, the player gets to choose between four types of monsters: dragons, fairies, vampires, or beasts. Each type has its own specialties. For example, the beast has increased attack and speed stats. Then you assign them each a job: fighter, healer, wizard, or thief. The fighter is a strong attacker while the thief uses quick movement. I could have made my beast either/or if I wanted to utilize its specialties, so I made my beast a thief. I also had a dragon fighter and a vampire wizard.

I enjoyed using this mechanic to create my party to mix and match stats. The game allows for multiple parties. It’s encouraged to create many monsters so you can change out your party members depending on the area and enemies you’re facing. However, the monsters not in your party don’t increase in level. This makes sense, but when my party was level thirty-eight, I created a healer to see what that’d be like and they were level one. Unless I backtracked to an earlier part of the game and grinded a lot, it wasn’t worth it to me.

This brings up some great replayability for Covenant of Solitude, although the story will always be the same and, being an RPG, its gameplay is linear. I’m not into the story or the characters, so I’m not sure I would want to go through all of this again to test out other skills and stats.

The monster mechanic is super cool, and I like creating and customizing my party as such, but…I enjoy RPGs so much for the comradery of the party, and the monsters don’t talk. There’s no banter, conversation, or character development of the monsters or the party as a whole. That was a bummer for me. I wanted to feel a connection to the characters, but the only one with personality was Fort and I didn’t care for him.

Covenant of Solitude has fun battle mechanics, though it’s nothing groundbreaking aside from creating the party members. Each battle is turn-based, where you can use basic melee attacks, magic, items, defend, or run away. As mentioned before, the auto battle was handy for grinding. The characters will always default to their basic melee attack in an auto battle, though. They don’t think to use magic or items, but it worked regardless.

Speaking of items, I wish these were more balanced. The only way to fully heal was to either sleep at an inn or use the healing spot right before a boss battle. The game is generous with HP healing items, but the MP healing items were a rare find. The “heal MP slightly” item was available at the shop in various towns, but that only healed thirty MP. My magic user had 200+ MP and her stronger attacks used at least twenty MP. So, you can imagine how much I’d go through in one dungeon. Leveling up didn’t help, either. It only fully healed their HP, not their MP, and it didn’t get rid of status conditions.

Overall, Covenant of Solitude is a decent RPG. The battles are the heart of it, and they were great. Between my party, the enemies, and bosses, it wasn’t too easy or too difficult. I was able to make progress without getting frustrated. However, I wish the item pool were more balanced, the writing were better, and the characters had more of a say. Still, if you’re a fan of RPGs, this game is worth a go, especially if you’re more interested in the battling.