Blades of Time came out almost seven years ago, but it looks and plays like something much older. As a sequel to its so-so predecessor X-Blades, Russian developer Gaijin Entertainment took one very interesting mechanic – the power to manipulate time itself – and surrounded it with ideas we’d seen and played ad nauseam before. The controls were a little tighter, its levels a little more diverse in design and its heroine wasn’t quite so scantily clad as she was before. It was, however, still a bit of a mess, and that interesting mechanic at its heart simply wasn’t enough to forgive its myriad sins.
For reasons unbeknownst to anyone outside the walls of Gaijin Entertainment, Blades of Time has been repackaged for a new generation, with all the single-player action and co-op content included as standard. It's based on the visually superior PC version of the game and offers Nintendo Switch adopters access to a revamped multiplayer experience that transforms its PvP component into a MOBA-style arena battle more along the lines of Smite. It’s an oddity to say the least – more so now than ever – but is it intriguing enough to warrant a purchase?
You’ll spend your time in Blades of Time as the acrobatic adventuress, Ayumi. Presumably designed as a cross between Lara Croft, Dante from Devil May Cry and a Harley Quinn cosplayer who ran out of money part way through their costume, Ayumi has travelled to a mysterious island filled with treasure and dangers alike. You start off with your basic melee moves – including a basic strike and a cartwheel kick of launching air combos – but soon you’re adding ranged weaponry to your arsenal and magical spells unleashed with certain inputs. As you progress, you’ll unlock more powers – such as the ability to flit between glowing plants for some quick-fire platforming moments – and while its myriad combat models don't really gel, you rarely feel underpowered.
While the single-player story is passable, offering enough enemy types to contend with (ranging from broadsword-swinging knight statues to poisonous bugs that keep spawning their own backup), the lacklustre platforming and the wooden delivery of Ayumi's voice actress makes this a far cry from the fine-tuned experiences seen in the likes of Devil May Cry and God of War, two games Blades of Time tries as hard as possible to emulate. Only its time manipulation mechanic offers anything remotely ‘different’ to what we've seen before a million times already. In a similar vein to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, you can use this power to undo an untimely fall to your doom; alternatively, you can utilise your past self to activate a two-point switch for a door or double up your strikes against a boss. The frustratingly unresponsive controls rob this time-related malarkey of some of its allure, but it’s a rewarding mechanic when it works.
'Onslaught' mode has been reworked into a MOBA-lite model, where you’ll battle other players online in a simple setup that takes the rules of the genre and simply sticks to what you’re expecting. All the items you’ve unlocked from the story carry over, including the gems which serve as a microtransaction-based currency for buying new gear, such as outfits for Ayumi. Matches don’t do much to deviate from the standard MOBA formula, so don’t expect anything with the kind of customisation and tactical nuance as Smite. It’s a better use of multiplayer, but it’s still hampered by Blades of Time’s painfully inaccurate combat engine.
For all its lofty ideas and good intentions, Blades of Time still struggles on a technical level. The original version failed to do its own combat system justice, with combos often failing to come together because of laggy input issues. When married with the consistent problem of slowdown, the game’s original release too often stumbled over itself. Today, on Nintendo Switch, the game does run a little better (there’s some slowdown, mostly caused by too many enemies being on screen at any one time, but it’s not as much of an issue as before), but pulling off melee combos and unleashing spells is still largely a game of potluck. Some actions randomly don’t work, such as the ability to heal and strike (arguably two very important functions in a game such as this).
The decision to split ranged attacks off into their own stance – where you’ll press the right analogue stick in to pull out a rifle and use ‘ZL’ and ‘ZR’ to aim and shoot respectively – makes for a needless disconnect between long-range and melee strikes. The only way to disengage from the aiming mode is to press the right analogue stick in again or press the jump button, so if you want to strike an enemy that’s closed the gap or dashed away, you’ll need to manually drop out of the stance before you can do so. It’s so disarming a distinction that you’ll likely die needlessly in boss fights where mixing either combat style is necessary.
Conclusion
As hard as it tries, Blades of Time rarely comes close to emulating the success of any of its obvious muses. Its mixture of third-person melee combat, environmental puzzles and platforming are entertaining for a while, but they lack the nuance of Capcom’s long-running Devil May Cry series or Sony Santa Monica’s refreshed God of War. Only the ability to control time, creating a co-operative element as you team up with your past self, offers something truly rewarding to use in battle or as part of a puzzle solution. The MOBA-style overhaul of the game's Onslaught mode offers an improved take on multiplayer, but the wonky combat and lacklustre presentation are impossible to overlook.
Comments 42
Wow two poors(4) today! I hope my day fairs better than the game reviews today.
But it has boobs. 12/10.
Totally disagree with this review.
I've been playing this game for a few days now. True, Blades of Time (BoT) is no God of War and certainly, there frame rate drops here ande ther and the voice acting is poor. As clunky as it is, BoT is a fun title. A 4 seems to low in my opinion. To me, BoT deserves something closer to 7/10
So, is this game really that bad or is this part of the “she’s half-naked and we need to score it low to teach men to respect women” group of games?
@Kienda I've seen online reviews of the original title complaining about the combat and terrible boss fights more than anything. That was coming from someone that would score a game higher for exposed skin. This review seems to gloss over the boss fights for some reason, but the score seems consistent.
I saw this on the eshop and was wondering about this. The screenshots looked nice, but reading the review talked me out of it.
A game that was awful in 2012 at home on an Xbox. Is also awful in 2019 on the GO on Switch. We needed a review to figure this out
@Vic_Atreides how's the price to fun ratio?
@Vic_Atreides
I haven't played it, but to me the score given doesn't seem in line with what the article was saying. By reading the article, I got the feeling the game was relatively "average", like, not very good, with some important issues, but I still felt some fun could be had with this game, depending on the price paid and if you're into this type of game.
I wouldn't have been surprised with a 6 or even a 5... but 4? To me, 4 means something that's hard to picture anyone having fun with. And the review didn't give me that impression. Maybe the review forgot to mention some aspects that makes this game worse than what they described?
Like the opposite of a review saying how stellar a game is, only to give it a 7... A feeling the score given isn't completely in line with what was mentionned by the reviewer...
But since you actually played it... how would a fan of hack and slash type action would like it? Maybe not for full price, but I'd be interested if it ever gets a decent sale.... doesn't seem THAT bad to me...
@Realnoize I don't know - I haven't played it either, but controls not working is a really big problem. If it is true that basic commands consistently don't work then I could see that sapping most of the fun out of the game. I mean, imagine Mario Galaxy, but 1 out of 20 jumps does nothing. I'd angrily blame most of my deaths on random chance.
Probably the bewbs were too big.
You guys read the review wrong... It's 4 per boob... Gives it a solid 8!
@Realnoize according to their scoring system
4 - Poor
A game with a four may well have some redeeming features, but we're clearly issuing caution to stay away from this game. Broken gameplay, bugs, bad control schemes, inflexible options, and repetitiveness - all these are factors which may contribute to a score of four.
I actually enjoy this one more so than Back in 1995.
This game looked halfway interesting back in 2012, kind of almost as a God of War clone. I ended up giving it a pass back then after it went to discount racks and will likely do the same again now. It's too bad they apparently didn't try to fix the issues the game had.
@Agramonte Of course. All Nintendo players get their reviews from Xbox specialist websites. It's a known fact
So glad I grew up in the 80's. We were an era of alpha males that were not only not offended by boobs, we celebrated them as you can see from the movies of our time. This looks like a game my generation would enjoy.
@Abeedo Well I am not a "Nintendo Player"... I play Video Games.
So, Hard to miss a game that has been out 7 years on 3 platforms and covered by just about every gaming site under the sun.
@Agramonte I can say it's the first time I even hear this game exists.
@Kienda read some reviews from 7-10 years ago to find out. But back then the issue was they took a more realistic style than the anime of the first game.
While I'm surprised as anyone who might be aware of this game that gaijen is even still around let along thought porting this was a worth while endeavour. The least you can do is get the opening paragraph right. This is not a sequel. It's more of a spiritual successor or reboot of xblades. The director of this game just seems to have a hard on for twin tailed leggy blonds with huge tits name Anya. I think that was the name of the character. Beyond the recycle combat engine and the character borrowing from xblades , it has little in common. I'm guessing some market researcher told them that cell shaded visuals and attitude were out of style. Also xblades main character isn't human, check the ears.
Again I'm surprised this is even a thing. I got both games for 2 dollars on steam and still couldn't be bothered to give either the time of day after spending an hour with both. They need new creative talent and to start from scratch. I seriously hope one of their community devs sits down and reads this so they know they are sinking their studio on a garbage product that will never be appreciated in any generation of society or pop culture. It's just not note worthy enough to even recommend or point out as some kind of oddity. It'll never be a hidden gem either. gaijen has done a lot of interesting projects, but it's still looking for it's gold mine.
Smooth: "Presumably designed as a cross between Lara Croft, Dante from Devil May Cry and a Harley Quinn cosplayer who ran out of money part way through their costume" 😄
@Agramonte If you say something in public, you have to be prepared for the public to speak back, especially if you're opinion doesn't apply to many of the people reading it.
Well, with Astral Chain and Bayonetta 3 coming, i think this game can be an honest pass (at least for me).
Sigh. I was hoping this would turn out well. More games with female protagonists that are actually attractive are always desireable, but a lot of the complaints seem consistent across multiple reviews, like the controls failing at times. Maybe if the price drops to sub-$10 I'll be willing to try it for myself.
@Kienda its an average game $3 to $5 an okay waste time but for this old 360 game $20 its deff a 4. But under $5 youd get your money out of it.
The main character of it's prequel Xblade has a far more skimpy outfit... if you can call it an outfit at all.
It does run pretty bad (especially rewinding time) sometimes to the point of almost crashing but some patches hopefully will make it better
@BradC40: Amen to that!
@Kienda Sounds about right.
It's a Russian company apparently but the titular character being named "Ayumi" and lends credence to my saying this...
The name "Gaijin Entertainment" : "Gaijin" in Japanese for "foreigner" or "outsider" and is not considered to be polite. It's not quite a curse word but if the developers are familiar with Japanese, as their choice of character name implies...
I don't know, maybe the same word exists in Russian and means something totally different.
At least they didn't change the one thing that worked in the original PS3 release: the box cover! I played the PS3 demo when I saw this was coming to Switch. Time travel is a bit of a forced gimmick in this game. While dropping a rock on a switch would be the most obvious way to keep a door open, you must instead time travel so your past (or future?) self must stand on the switch. Simple!
@Vic_Atreides
I also gave7/10. This guy gave only 10/10 to mario and zelda, rest games for him are apoor in quality and in gameplay.
@Diuran @Realnoize @Nurfhurder
In my opinion is a 7/10 but I am a bit biased (big hack and slash gamer here). I enjoyed the heck out of Devils thirds (I would give Devils Third a 6/10) and DT was broken.
Regarding price to fun ratio, I would say that 20 bucks is a bit pricey. 15 bucks would be the right price tag.
Positives:
Negatives:
@Abeedo If you express a general assumption in public, you have to be prepared for the public to speak back. Specially if you're assumption doesn't apply to people reading it.
Either way. I guess now some will not be surprised when the Switch on-screen button prompts are for the Xbox 360 controller.
@Agramonte They didn't bother changing that?
@ballistic90 I disagree. The game is at least a 6.
@Agramonte @Abeedo That is not true. The prompts match the layout of the switch controllers
@Vic_Atreides thanks for the info, sounds like I should wait for a sale lol
@Nurfhurder Yeah, I think getting blades of time at a sale is the best way to go
It always mystifies me when a game as bad as this ends up getting a rerelease randomly. It’s like how Drake of the 99 Dragons got a rerelease on Steam. People didn’t like it back then, so what’s the point of releasing it again if you ain’t gonna improve anything?
I’m expecting a Ride to Hell: Retribution port at some point, lol
This game is super dope if you’re looking for a quick fun mindless journey and not get caught up in a 50 hr open world game.
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