@Rerejo28 said:
I saw this game called "Blades of Time" had a demo on the Playstation Store. I had never heard of it, and was bored, so I downloaded it.
It's seriously... Really good!
The combat is incredibly fast and satisfying, dashing from place to place, chopping guys up, jugging them in the air, setting them on fire, freezing them, and shooting them. It also has this really strange rewind mechanic that seems pretty nifty, like there's a moment where you rewind and make a copy of yourself, just to do some sort of double-finishing-move on him.
The story seems a bit... Stale? I don't know, it doesn't seem like the story is very compelling, but the gameplay more than makes up for it.
Has anyone else played it? What are your guys thoughts?
I did play this and I'm not convinced I'm ethically comfortable with telling you this is a great game. However, it's probably not as terrible as people might want to expect it is based on their experience or what they read about X-Blades either. After playing the demo didn't feel the urge to pick it up the same day and play it, but did so anyway because it appeared to be relatively cheap (€29) at my local European gameshop.
Also, I'm not afraid of playing bad games!
I had considered replying in that one other thread about this game earlier about what people could expect from this game, but then I remembered I'm not an avid poster on forums. There didn't seem a lot of interested in this game though. I also most likely got myself conveniently distracted.
So after all, here's an attempt at formulating some of my thoughts about this game and in particular what I considered its weak and strong points. Words below are primarily relevant to those who have played the PS3 Demo already and didn't dismiss it as utter garbage after that.
In general the Demo is quite representative of the rest of the game; you'll get to play with most of the mechanics, mostly Time Rewind and things you can use it for. To some extend this means, what you see (do) in the Demo is pretty much what you do throughout the entirety of the game. That's not to say there isn't any variation, because there is. While exploring the island you'll encounter a few different enemy types, visit distinct looking environments and even obtain less scantily outfits, which in and by itself could be crucial for those who had problems with Ayumi's appearance before. (Don't worry, you don't have to use it though) However, apart from the basic combat there is significant emphasis on various things you should do during Time Rewind, perhaps to the point where it feels too repetitive.
For the sake of orderlyness the next part will feature bullet points, categorized under the arbitrary labels `Good` and `Bad`.
`Bad` Things:
- Story; If you expected an Epic Tale of Adventure then you'll very likely find this game lacking in that department. The plot is pretty basic in a needlessly convoluted way, perhaps in an attempt to make it more interesting or appealing. Although I doubt there is immediate risk of spoiling anything, I'll limit myself to saying that the story plays out exactly like you probably thought it would.
- Voice-acting; People have been mentioning this and it's impossible to not notice, Ayumi says some pretty dumb stuff in this game. Most of these are internal observations about the environment, enemies or Zero. My issue with this is that it greatly undermines her credibility as competent human being and thus prevents any form of identification with the protagonist. On the other hand this allowed me to pretty much ignore the story and just hack and shoot my way through it.
- Repetitiveness; As mentioned above, this game doesn't offer a lot variation. Especially when it comes to enemy types and ways to deal with them, you'll find yourself literally doing the same thing over and over again. Of course, you'll get access to more (powerful) spells and abilities as well as equipment so you do have the opportunity to mix things up for yourself. However, the way most encounters are set up, you probably should use Time Rewind at some point. This becomes more apparent when opening doors or operate (series of) switches, you'll be doing that plenty.
- Performance; During my playthroughs the game suffered from several crashes or freezes, one of which ironically while engaging Time Rewind in an attempt to prevent getting frozen by an enemy. There are several graphic effects that linger on the screen, as well as ways to mess up the AI or the script by taking shortcuts or doing things not in the way or order you're obviously expected to. More seriously though is a remarkable drop in framerate during various encounters, not necessarily ones with lots of enemies on screen. Note that this is relevant to the (European) PS3 version and my particular experience.
- Visual Stuff; This is possibly only a personal issue, so if you didn't notice this during the Demo then you probably don't have to worry about it. There is a lot of motion-blurryness and refraction-type effects going on, as well as generous amounts filters or shaders. Most notably, the Order spell invokes a semi-transparent green-yellow dome on the ground, areas effected by Chaos are severely distorted, replay of Time Rewind is displayed in red or orange dichromacy, while dashing leaves a blurry trail. Having any number of these effects on the screen at once combined with the regular effects from your spell or enemy attacks, there is risk of visual overload. I frequently wanted to take breaks due to eye strain; keep this in mind if you're sensitive to this kind of thing.
`Good` Things:
- Gameplay; In general and compared to X-Blades (for as much as I can remember about it) there are mostly improvements, but even considered on its own the game plays surprisingly well. Some of the major improvements could be Ayumi's dash and the ability to dash to enemies, rebuilding the 'magic bar' with regular attacks and a slightly more interesting Magic/Spell combination system where you can chain Spells or abilities to alter the effect or enhance the damage. Also, no more monster generators! Regenerating health and the healing point system can make for less a frustrating experience during 'harder' segments.
- Checkpointing; Probably deserves some mentioning, because the games is quite generous when it comes to offering checkpoints, especially at points where it could otherwise be frustrating.
- Time Rewind; Although you're expected to this a lot to solve certain situations, you can employ this mechanic in a number of interesting and creative ways so it certainly doesn't feel like a chore all the time.
It seems that the list of `Bad` Things is longer and more substantial than the list of `Good` Things. I did leave some items out of either, because I considered them too much a matter of preference, for example the way the shooting is handled. Compared it to other games it's probably not great, but within the context of this game it's not terrible, while comparing it to X-Blades it may even be an improvement.
Regarding the Multi-player option, I didn't find it particularly interesting - to the point where I literally just chose to stand in one spot to get through 5 matches. To give an idea about the Versus mode, it's basically 1vs1 Base/Tower defense game with bots for both sides, potential 'neutral' AI interference and timed treasure. Or something very reminiscent of Dota/LoL/HoN focusing on one lane.
So yeah, maybe after reading this you didn't feel like wasting your time!
Log in to comment