Tokyo Game Show 2023

Hands-on with the Demon Slayer Mario Party Clone

It's almost surprising how few Demon Slayer video games exist. There is the canceled mobile game Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba—The Hinokami Chronicles from 2021. Now Sega is adding one more to the library of Demon Slayer games with Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Sweep the Board. While it has gameplay elements similar to Nintendo's popular Mario Party series, Sweep the Board offers a new format variant. The Tokyo Game Show 2023 demo allowed players to experience a short bit of the game.

A unique gameboard is presented to the players in the Sweep the Board demo. Rather than focus on one specific area within the anime series, the board features three small subsections. These subsections are the Demon Slayer Corps exam site, Asakusa, and the Northwestern town where the Bog Demon was stealing beautiful young women. This gives the board a colorful backdrop while condensing multiple locations into a unique play space.

Dotting the board are squares that should be familiar to Mario Party players. The squares are mostly blue or red, some green, and the rare special square. The blue and red give players coins (blue) or take some away (red), with the green and special squares giving players different abilities. This is a familiar format, but as they say, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.”

In Sweep the Board, the color of the square you land on does not determine if you're playing a single, 2v2, 1v3, or 4-player game. For example, in the first round, I played three players who landed on blue squares while the last landed on a special. In the second round, two players landed on red, one on blue, and the last on a special. Yet, each mini-game was a four-player game. From what I could tell, there are only four-player mini-games. That's not to say there aren't team or 1v3 mini-games, but I possibly didn't see the full range of mini-games within the game in the limited demo play time.

Yet, the mini-games I had the chance to play were fun. The first is a three-card Monte-type game where you guess the travel box the character Nezuko Kamado is in. While simple at first, the difficulty ramps up between the three chances you can guess. It starts with three boxes and ends with five in the last round of guessing. On top of this, in the last round, a Kasugai Crow will fly across the screen, causing anyone not paying attention to lose concentration for a split second and miss where Nezuko went.

The second mini-game involved the players lighting fireworks with the ninja mice from the Entertainment District Arc. It's a fun little game, but the mice will throw in a bomb or two to slow your progress down. It's not difficult in the least, making a nice little game to enter a zen-like state. Finally, the last mini-game I tried was a cooperative game where the players worked together to defeat the Hand Demon from the Demon Slayer Corps exam. It's a nice little quick-time-event and button-mashing game that is simple but difficult if you're not paying attention. It's a small sampling, but it makes me curious about what other mini-games will be in Sweep the Board.

The selectable characters are a bit limited, but they are the characters you'd want to play as. Choices include Tanjiro Kamado, Zenitsu Agatsuma, Inosuke Hashiribi, and a selection of the Hashira. While it is unfortunate Nezuko isn't a playable character, it is understandable as she was featured in at least one of the mini-games. On top of this, some of the other minor and key characters appear on the board throughout the game, making it fun to spot the characters.

Is Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Sweep the Board a clone of Mario Party? Yes. But Sweep the Board's unique features distinguish it enough from its progenitor to make it a distinct game. Plus, there are no mini-games where you must place the analog stick in your palm and circle away. This makes Sweep the Board a new take on an old format and a game to look forward to.