Unlike other party games, Sweep the board does not introduce any story scenario and allows the player to jump straight into the game.
At its core this is a 4 player party game. The player selects their playable character. The roaster at its current state(a year later in Sept 2025) has 14 Playable characters, this includes the iconic trio, the nine Hashira and the two survivors from the exam selection.
Similar to the first Mario party on switch (not jumboree or Superstars), the selection of the hero matters as each slayer comes with their own unique Slayer Dice alongside the default one.
Once the heroes are selected a map/board is required. The game includes a total of 6 maps from which some were addded as free DLC so let the software update when purchasing the game. Once again each map has its unique gimmicks which will be triggering during play, for example you can
board in the Munghen Train, train with the Yoruichi model in Swordssmith village etc. Lastly, the selection of how many total rounds you ll play is required which will determined
how long the game will last, 60+ mins
At the start of the game, the players will roll a dice which will determined their order of play, Highest to lowest. Each player the gets a turn, they roll the dice and they move towards a specified path based on the number they rolled. When comming across a split path, the player can decide
which path their hero should follow. Similarly, if a player comes across an item or a space of interaction(Eg Store, trainning, fast travel) the player can decide what to do. The players goal, is to reach a spot which will be chosen at the start of the game and change each time a player reached it.
Reaching the goal will reward the player with Slayer Rank Points which is the equivalant of a Gold star in Mario. The player with the highest rank will win the game. When you move on the board, an indicator (top left) will always appear showing how close you re to the goal, or which path is shorter.
Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba Sweep the Board adds it's own spin to the genre by introducing the day and night cycle. During the day, the game proceeds as your average party game, each player gets a turn, they move on the board and then proceed to play a minigame based on the space they landed. Some Minigames
are in the form of 2vs2, free for all or 1 vs 3. The minigames always include a tutorial at first until everyone readys up. Once the minigame is concluded points will be rewarded to the winners(first gets the most, 2nd 3rd 4th) and then the game starts all over again. Once the player gets to the goal, the nightfall rises.
During night, the crow leaves and demon spaces appear. The goal now is to reach these spaces and get the demon. When the player reaches the spot, a wheel will appear with some images on it. Some re the smell of a demon, some are low level demons and the other one is the main threat. If the wheel stops on the smell or the lower level demon
the player will receive points Slayer points for both cases, and a small minigame for the lower demon which will grant even more points. If the wheel stopped on the main demon, then all the players team up, the player who found it gets bonus points, but based on the performance againts the demon everyone gets SP. During nighttime, there are no
minigames happenning at the end of each round and Nezuko will also come to help the player in the 4th place. She will roll a dice to help move faster and will also give the player small bonuses here and there.
MINIGAMES
As mentioned, at the end of each round during day time, the players participate in minigames. Theres a total of 35 minigames(10 of which were added after the release) which is significally less than party games. For reference, the first Mario party in 1998 or the recent Smurfs Village party(2024) both had atleast 50 minigames. Given the popularity
of the IP and the importance of Minigames in a party game, Sweep the board really dissappoint in this department. The minigames are very straightforward, usually they require the pressing of buttons or precision moving. The goal will always be known and points will be rewarded based on performance. During boss encounters, the game usually requires perfect timing
in order to get the most points. Demon battles are quite cinematic and the players will have to perform a directional order, or perfect time a hit.
Usually the game can be played with Motion controls or with the controls. For example, during demon fights or other directional minigames, the player can choose to hold the joycon vertically and perform swings based on the given command or they can choose to hold the
joycon like a controller(or use a controller) and tilt the moving stick based on the given command. Both work similarly.
Personally i find my self mixed with the game. On the one hand, its original concept works very well. This day and night cycle is enough to differentiate this party game from any other. Additionally the return of Slayer dice is something i personally enjoyed and im glad to see it return here. They added a limitation to this by allowing you to only use the slayer dice once every three turns which
is quite smart. The uniqueness of the boards is also commendable as they keep it real with the series. From teleporting inside the drummansion to using the rooftops of the Entertainment district during night. Last but not least, the game can always make twists since everyplayer can gain SP from defeating a demon which means they can always try to outperform the others even if they never reached
the point first. And ofcourse, Nezuko being a support was a smart way to use a main character who cannot step in the light.
On the other hand, a party game with only 35 minigames is bound to be extremely repeatitive. Theres a small pool of games to pull from and you ll most likely play the same games within a 20 round games. Let me give you a real example, me and my friends had multiple game nights with the original Mario Party Switch, and there are still minigames we havent discovered, yes we play some games we played before
but new ones are still "out there". We played this game twice(15 and 10 rounds), and we almost played all the games with many dublicates.
Despite being a party game, there are some things you can unlock by spending your points which you collect from playing the game. You can unlock sountracks and images/stamps.
On the sound department, the game is simply good. It uses some original sounds that re very good and it brought back the cast of the Japanese and the english dub.
On the visual department the game is once again okay with it's high and lows. For example, during demon boss fights or fights in general you can see some animations which are similar to the quality of those found in Hirokami chronicles. These animations last long which is nice and the ammount of details is commentable.
The minigames are well presentable and the maps greatly designed to look at. However, animation is lacking im alot of areas. For example, in many overboards you can clearly NPCs who have static animations as if they re frozen in time, they do not move at all. Some walk cycles are left mid way, some expressions re frozen and since
everytime you re about to use an item or roll a dice you see them, they re clearly not appealing. Again the NPCs appear in the back of some minigames as well, and again they look souless and bad.
The game does not support amiibo.
Overall Demon slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba Sweep the board is hard to reccomend as an alternative Party game unless you re a fan of the series. It had so much potential and hype around it, but it miss its chance. The game brought many originals ideas and cleverly use some that we no longer see. For example, the board gimmics, the Slayer dices, the day/night cycle, Nezuko and boss fights are really good and cleverly infused themselves with the Demon slayer IP. I personally played the game locally for all of my games, but from what was stated by many online reviewers and gamers, the online experience is bad with lag, synchronization and other errors. What really drags the game significally down is the lack of minigames. With only 35 minigames to play, the game becomes very repeatitive. Visually the games has its high moments with cutscenes that screams CyberConnect2 at it's finest, but also has the moments where it looks like it had a very low budget. In a market where Mario party dominates its really hard to reccomend this over the other available options. If Mario is not your style, there are games like Smurf Party with more minigames or even garfield which has almost the same ammount(33 minigames) which is much cheaper. I would only recommend Demon Slayer Sweep the board if you re a fan of the IP, if you find it on a sale or if you find a bundle with other games. I got mine as a +15 euros add on when i purchased a physical copy of Demon Slayer Hirokami Chronicles 2.
