Sword x Staff is an idle fantasy RPG that was released on May 13th, 2026. It’s a relatively new game but it has already reached 1M+ downloads on the PlayStore. Although I believe a good chunk of that comes from all of the ads you might have seen on different platforms. I’ve seen my fair share of them but never caved in until recently where I’ve started a series of testing all these games to see how much they differentiate from actual ads. Which isn’t what we’ll be discussing here. I downloaded it and wanted to test it for a couple of hours but ended up playing way more. So here’s a full review on it:
Gameplay
Classes
At the start you have to pick between a sword and a staff. If you pick a sword, you would be a warrior class that utilizes close combat but also has higher survivability stats. On other hand if you pick staff, you would be a mage class that can cast long range spells.
My go-to is always a mage so that’s what I picked, but if you’re someone who has a hard time deciding, you can pick whatever you like more because the game has an option of changing classes at any point. The only catch is that the skills you acquired do not transfer and you have to start from the beginning. There’s another, better option which can transfer all the skills and levels for free once a week but you need to reach level 100 before you can use it.
On top of that, each class can be upgraded into a new one that will boost your stats and give you new skills. There are 4 tiers in total but reaching them takes a lot of time and grinding. I’ve stayed true to my mage and continued working on it but I had an option to shift to a sage subclass which leans more towards a healer/cleric class. In all honesty, I don’t feel like it’s as impactful in early stages of gameplay as some of the other options.
Gacha
Before we talk about any other aspect of the game, I feel like we need to talk about the most predominant part of it, and of course it’s gacha. Shocker, I know, right?
Anyways, there are a few things that you can summon in Sword x Staff. First you get to summon skills. Shortly after, you get to summon relics and then finally you get to summon Fantomons (aka pets).
Each of these things are detrimental for increasing the power of your character. Just like with any game that has a gacha system implemented you can expect to see the difference between P2W and F2P. The whales are clearing content faster, getting more rewards than the rest of us and PVP top leaderboards are highly dominated by them.
To be fair, they do give out a decent amount of free stuff via quests, events and campaigns. It’s enough to keep someone like me satisfied and happy. Not enough to compete with whales but it’s more than enough to help out with the bare minimum power requirement for the PVE aspect of the game.
Skills
I can only talk about the part that I’ve experienced and that’s mage class. The skills can be separated into 4 elements: Wind, Fire, Water, and Light, and you can switch between them depending on the enemy you’re fighting against.
All of the skills can be upgraded by getting copies of them, but also they can be leveled with the materials that you can get from being AFK and doing all the content available. To be honest, for the first 50 levels the synergy of your skill doesn’t really matter. As matter of fact it’s a really good portion of the game to test various builds and see what works the best for your character.
Relics & Fantomons
These are also part of items in game that can boost your overall stats and power and mainly they’re obtainable with gacha but occasionally you can receive them for free. Relics have main stat boost but they’re also separated into elements that I’ve mentioned above with an addition of dark elements.
It’s a superb system that can really boost your characters and it really makes a difference between regular players and people who spend real money.
As for the Fantomost, I feel the stats they provide really help out when you unlock them but as you start climbing higher, the difference that they make becomes less significant. Also, I wish that there’s a bigger pool of pets available and that they play a more important role in the gameplay of Sword x Staff.
Gear
Gear is an essential part of building your character. You can equip 5 pieces of gear, each having different stats and bonuses. Each part can be leveled separately but there’s an added bonus when you level all of the parts for 5 levels.
You can obtain gear pieces with the AFK method, doing a dungeon specifically designed for gear (4 times a day is limit) and you can get it randomly by doing other content. Unfortunately all of the gear gets random substats which means it’s very luck based.
Paired with limited options, it’s almost impossible to get good gear. Knowing my luck, it would take me decades to get perfect desired stats.
Campaign, Exploration, Monetization, and Rest
The main campaign is tied to clearing new zones that require a certain amount of power before you can do them successfully. Generally you can go with a lower power but it all depends on your attack power and more importantly, the speed of your character. If you have an option to pick between a really high power gear but substats are all defensive and a slightly lower piece but has a speed substat, always pick the second one.
Once you clear the stage, you’ll have an option to farm materials there but it will require energy to gather. Don’t let energy fill up and go to waste, it’s a valuable resource that can help you boost the characters stats.
In Sword x Staff the monetization mainly revolves around selling packs related to gacha, resources, and skins. It’s obviously a huge boost for people who choose to spend and genuinely it’s no different from any other mobile game. At least they aren’t pushing packs in your face constantly and there’re no ads whatsoever in it.
The events in the game are great for collecting additional rewards and to some level they’re designed in such a way that the whole server has to cooperate. But unfortunately, they also are done quickly. Still better than most idlers.
Conclusion
I’ve enjoyed playing Sword x Staff and I’m going to continue to play it more, at least until I get sick of it. I feel like this is a great game if you’re looking for something where you can log once a day, do stuff for 15 minutes and forget about it till the next day. I mean that’s what idle rpg’s are designed for, so there’s no hate about it. In case you’re interested in looking at a few more idle games, I’ve got a really great list here. Check it out.
