The motion fantasy/sword and sorcery style on the Xbox just isn’t noticeably underpopulated, which speaks to the enduring reputation of moving into a personality’s footwear and swinging a sword about, or firing off spells.
Nicely, strap yourselves in as Insurgent Act Studios, Hearth Falcom and SNEG have delivered one other of those video games, simply this time it comes with a little bit of a twist – it isn’t a brand new sport in any respect. No, Blade of Darkness is a remaster of Severance: Blade of Darkness from 2001, now coming full with all of the “quirks” of the unique. Described by some as a Soulsbourne sport earlier than the idea was even invented, its problem was well-known for being hardcore again within the day. So it begs the query – in a world the place Elden Ring and Bloobourne exist, is the world prepared for a remake to attempt to muscle in?
I’m going to begin by inspecting the story of Blade of Darkness, as it’s all the time a great level to start, proper? Nicely, what we now have here’s a typical sort of excessive fantasy narrative that was frequent within the video games of this period. Assume Conan books crossed with Lord of the Rings (each of which had been cited as inspiration by the builders of the unique sport) and also you received’t be too far off. It begins with a Supreme Being who creates Mild and Darkish, after which the remaining is a historical past of battle. For sure, the gods want a hero to reclaim a holy sword in order that they will cease a horde of evil monsters spreading internationally. That hero is us. Will you settle for the mission, or flip the sport off and play one thing else?
Now, whereas I’m not a graphics snob, Blade of Darkness could be very a lot of its time. The visuals are precisely how ‘leading edge’ was again in 2001, and whereas they’re ample, they’re terrible to really take a look at. The world is a mass of inexperienced and brown, while the draw distances are stored quick by sensible degree design. On this approach, I think about again within the day that pop-in was stored to a minimal, and so it’s right here.
The characters we play as are fairly properly designed, if considerably polygonal; the enemies, likewise, a bit angular however in any other case completely high quality. The digital camera is price a point out although, largely as it’s a bit unusual – you understand how once you play a sport of this type, from a 3rd individual perspective, panning the digital camera to navigate across the sport? Nicely, there’s a bizarre disconnect between the motion of your character and that of the digital camera right here. For those who transfer the digital camera with the suitable stick, the character stops shifting briefly, and this feels awkward, particularly in fight.
Additional, sound is okay, with the same old swords and fight screams you’d anticipate, some grunts from monsters and so forth. However there’s nothing right here that may give Sekiro any sleepless nights. It’s all very 2001, nonetheless, it’s optimised for Sequence X|S.
Upon firing up Blade of Darkness there’s a selection it’s a must to make – what character are you going to be? There are a complete of 4 to select from, with not an inkling of your fancy character turbines right here. We are able to select to be Tukaram, a barbarian; Naglfar, a dwarf; Sargon, a knight; and Zoe, an amazon. In fact, every character has completely different stats and may wield completely different weapons extra successfully than others. For example, I selected Zoe as my first character, and she or he is kind of at dwelling with a workers or a spear in hand, however can’t use a honking nice battle axe. Having these selections at the start is kind of good, however I haven’t seen any huge distinction between the assorted characters.
However most significantly, how does Blade of Darkness play. Nicely, the information right here is fairly ropey to be trustworthy, as the principle a part of the sport, the fight, is clunky and stiff. Even the controls are fairly counter intuitive when you’ve performed as many video games of this kind as I’ve – as an example, to lock on to an enemy, it’s a must to maintain the suitable set off down, after which assault with the A Button. This feels bizarre, I’m not going to lie, and whilst you do adapt, it by no means stops feeling awkward.
Fight is a no from me, then. Though there’s one factor that made me smile – if you find yourself preventing enemies and utilizing edged weapons, there’s a mechanic that lets you sever the limbs of your foe. You’ll be able to then decide them up and hit them with their very own arm. It’s fairly humorous.
Exploration is fairly tough as properly, primarily as a result of muddy wanting textures making it exhausting to see the place traps are. Within the first degree as an example, there’s a part the place the trail is roofed by two traps taking pictures arrows. The factor is, these arrows are virtually utterly invisible. You’ll be able to hear a faint “pfft” noise as an arrow is fired, however the place they’re coming from and the trail they take, no clue. Oh, and to place the cherry on the cake, these traps are a one hit kill, so any progress you might have made by way of the extent is gone. I do know Blade of Darkness is supposed to be a hardcore sport, however there’s a distinction between hardcore and unfair…
All in all, Blade of Darkness will make you admire the video games we now have as of late. It seems fairly poor, performs badly and is usually missing in any enjoyable. In case you are a card carrying masochist, you could get some pleasure, however I’d suspect the bulk can be higher off enjoying one thing from the FromSoftware again catalogue. I do know it’s an previous sport reworked, and plenty of do have a hankering for the retro, nevertheless it’s exhausting to make a case for Blade of Darkness being the sport to advance the case of the previous getting remastered.
