I used to consider myself a sword guy. Well, technically a key guy first because Keyblades were the first weapon to turn my pupils into hearts, but they’re functionally swords when not turning into alien blasters or something else nonsensical. I love the idea of a cut so sharp, so imbued with an expert’s years of training or a novice’s endless potential, that it slices the air. Hearing that slice is music to my ears. And despite it being used in countless stories, the sheathing of a blade, followed by the eerily clean dismemberment of an enemy, has yet to get old. The whole craft is a beautiful marriage of knowledge, speed, and finesse. I don’t think it’ll stun anyone to say swords are cool.  

But recently, I’ve been watching myself choose a different kind of weapon. The characters I play are trading the sword in for a hammer. This may not sound like a big deal to some, but I’ve been gobsmacked. 

It began with the demo of Mina the Hollower, the upcoming game from Shovel Knight devs Yacht Club Games. After an epic cutscene that explained Mina’s mission to rescue a cursed island, the ship she was arriving on immediately got pummeled by some unseen, multi-tentacled sea creature. Playing as Mina, I raced below deck and was quickly met with a chest of weapons. Instinct almost won as I nudged my thumbstick in the direction of a dagger, but then I heard my brain say something to the effect of “Is that a hammer? Wasn’t expecting a hammer. When’s the last time I picked up a hammer? Do I own a hammer? Yes. Yes? Yes. What’s the description say? Hm, that’s an interesting description. Hmmm, this is a demo. Why not try out the hammer?”

In terms of gameplay, I usually associate hammers with heaviness, usually translated by slowing a character down. When I reflect on the bigger weapons I often run into in certain games, big swings can mean big damage, but also bigger openings for an opportunistic enemy to take a chunk out of your health bar. And as someone who values mobility in his characters to accommodate my bad ambitious combat decisions, hammer and hammer-like weapons seemed to be a poor fit. The wind-ups alone can give me pause when deciding what tool should bear the responsibility of my life.

But Mina the Hollower didn’t follow this tradition. Choosing the hammer also gave Mina the ability to roll quickly while charging the hammer attack, adding movement to a thin slice of time that I’m used to slowing down in, if not stopping altogether. This caveat was enticing enough to make the unusual choice of ignoring the sharp object for a blunter one. And reader, that choice went horribly for a while. Left and right, up and down, I was taking damage like I was going for an achievement. Winged creatures mocked me as I swung and missed with my hefty weapon. The first boss battle of the demo’s two was a test of both patience and will. It was hard to watch. And I loved it.

When I made the ground shake, something took over me. It felt powerful. It felt visceral. And it still felt like finesse. Just with a different face. I realized how assumptive I’d been. The hammer wasn’t as fast as the dagger that I later tried out in a new save, but my relationship with timing was still fun. As I learned more about that relationship, as well as Mina and the vibrant world in crisis around her, the serotonin boost I started to get from consistently connecting hits was enough to make me crave more once I finished the demo. Shockingly, I liked the hammer!

Now, any good detective story or TV show featuring FBI agents will tell you that one instance of something could just be a coincidence. Maybe I was just a hammer guy while roleplaying a Hollower in a beautiful pixel world. The hammer needed to strike twice to establish a pattern, and that pattern started to emerge as I sank more time into Lost In Random: Eternal Die. 

You play as Queen Aleksandra, de-powered and trapped inside the Black Die she once trusted. She and her dice friend/projectile Fortune fight room after room of enemies in an effort to find and defeat Mare the Knight, the Black Die’s body who has subjected her to this rigged torment. Since checking out the demo earlier this year, I’d been looking forward to Thunderful Games’ roguelike that takes place in the same universe as the 2021 game Lost In Random. The self-described Tim Burton-esque aesthetic is gorgeous, the action and lethal dice throwing is snappy, and the voice acting performances are full of personality. The pacing of death versus progression feels mostly right, so I’m still gaining something from my less successful runs. I also love that the upgrade system is just a match-3 game done over time, requiring a level of planning I wasn’t expecting when it was initially introduced. 

Most relevantly, the demo only gave me access to the sword and its upgradable abilities. The full release has opened the floodgates to play with builds around a bow and arrow, a spear, and, wonderfully, a huge hammer. I liked the hammer from Mina The Hollower. I love the hammer in Eternal Die. Again, it lessened the number of attacks I could pull off in a few seconds, but it didn’t slow down the game. It manages to keep up the tempo while adding a loud splash of spectacle to each attack. While I wasn’t invincible by any means, I sure felt the part when I’d stun three enemies with one big swing, then finish the job with a lucky dice throw. Plus, the charged attack just looks and feels good, regardless of whether your chosen upgrades leave behind a line of protruding dark shards or a pool of poison. The pattern had officially started forming.

The largest gripe I’ve had with the hammer has to do with a more general complaint about a ground wave attack that some of the earlier bosses use. It takes up just enough area at a rate where dodging it feels more like luck than skill when you have a weapon that requires close proximity to a target. It’s a nitpick, but one that suffers extra attention due to how roguelikes like Eternal Die are constructed. The bosses are not one-time challenges. They’re routine progress checks, meaning I’ll see a particularly annoying attack enough times to think “Christ, this again.” But overall, it’s not nearly bad enough to ruin an overall good time. The game isn’t reinventing the wheel, or the hammer, but it’s done a great job of executing a familiar recipe while confidently adding its unique charm to the mix. 

I understand that on some level, this could speak more to each game’s approach to weapons rather than a sudden hankering for weapons that go “BAM!” rather than “SCHWING!” Every game starts with its unique team’s vision, and sometimes those visions create scenarios where something I usually don’t go for suddenly clicks. And that’s great! It’s impressive that combat in these games not only feels good but also offers enough variety that I want to see what picking up a non-favorite tool is like. Hell, it’s a testament to the progression of game design and human creativity generally that weapons seen over and over and over again can still feel different from title to title, studio to studio.

But also, maybe my tastes are changing. Maybe, I’ll spend more time choosing which weapon I carry along with me in future adventures. Maybe my assumptions about hammers have made me miss out on fun times in previous games where I didn’t even give them a second thought. Maybe I’m not just a sword guy, but a sword AND hammer guy. Maybe, just maybe, multiple things can be true at once. Who knows! Ultimately, time will tell, so long as I don’t smash the clock while learning how to swing correctly.