Blade Of Darkness: A Game That Gets So Much Right Yet So Much Wrong
I was browsing Steam awhile ago, on the prowl for my next hyperfix, and there this game sat, seducing me with its' tags, beckoning me to give it a look. I saw the front cover, read a few reviews, considered how much I still had left in my Steam wallet, and that was that.
Not mincing words, the early hours of this game were ROUGH. Nothing pube-rippingly frustrating, but just disorienting with all the early 2000's fantasy themed pc game clunkiness I had to wade through in the beginning hours. While I've come to understand and somewhat appreciate certain aspects of the gameplay, the controls especially felt so stiff and awkward they almost drove me to drink.
What doesn't help either is that this game is REALLY hard. Even with a fair few hours of experience under my belt and having gotten used to the controls this game can really put you through the fucking wringer, throwing either an inflated number of goons at you, forcing you to fight in awkwardly tight corridors, throwing you a frustrating mix of fast moving psychos, slow moving tanks, and ranged attackers that leave you crippled, with some combat scenarios of course being a sadistic mix of any one of these three things just listed.
In spite of its' age and putting aside all that archaic horse waste, there are certain things that I think shine through and really end up being charming relics of what's mostly considered a bygone style of game and level design. The best designed levels in this game always have that oldschool sense of reward and discovery in them, where so much freedom is given and you're always being encouraged to and rewarded for being observant and exploring for hidden areas and passageways with some kind of loot whether it be food or potions to top up your health which is likely going to always be low as a beginner, or even new whole weapons that can really help make certain fights against real tough bastards much more manageable. Often when going through a level even certain key items crucial for progression can be hidden away, so like it or not, you're pretty much forced to keep your eyes peeled and check absolutely everything for the sake of progressing.
In my opinion it can be a little overly ambiguous and confusing at times. I can recall a couple instances where I was just completely lost as to what to do, blindly running around cleared areas like a headless chicken until I either luck my way into the right path forward, or give up and look up a walkthrough, but I mostly attribute these instances to my own obliviousness, and I think these moments were few and far between enough that it didn't impact my experience too significantly.
But enough with all that. Let's talk about what people really play this game for; the combat.
Each character available has different weapon proficiencies, special attacks, and animations tied to their various actions. Regardless of who you pick, whether it's the sword and shield wielding knight, the spear toting amazonian, the big scary barbarian, or the dwarf, combat goes like this:
There are two distinct mechanics that form the foundations combat is built on; movement, and attacking. Outside combat your camera is free to be flicked around however you like. It's in this mode you're likely just exploring levels; climbing around looking for keys and seeing whatever cool little secrets and discoveries you can come across. Once in combat, your camera is locked into place, adding to your movement options the ability to strafe side to side relative to the enemy. Apart from this, you also have dodging, which very much unlike your modern game provides absolutely zero invincibility frames, making this dodge the most realistic I've ever seen, purely for sidestepping thin downward thrusts or away from dangerous attacks.
Attacking meanwhile bears similarities to any modern hack and slash you can really think of. A basic left click makes you execute a simple quick swing, however pairing that input with any directional key gives you a unique attack, each with their own use in combat. The knight for example on top of his basic downwards cutting attack has a quickslash, a downwards sweep, a head attack, and a heavy spin each with their own corresponding movement key.
It's difficult to describe what exactly makes this combat work so well, but I think for me, what I think makes it so satisfying has something to do with the gamefeel. Unlike any modern game which usually tend to place focus on parrying, rolling out of attacks, and making use of big obvious openings to perform big combos, here everything feels more muddled and muted. There are elements of dodging past attacks and using that opening to immediately counterattack, zoning your enemies to bait swings and using specific quickslashes or attacks with just enough range to interrupt them, raising your shield or performing slick high precision parries to deflect an enemy's attack making them stagger back which leaves them massively open, and it all just has this really hypnotic flow to it.
One thing that makes it stand out to me is just how grounded all the mechanics feel. Blade of Darkness is at it's absolute best when it's just you and another guy, both your attacks dealing low enough damage that fights can have some sense of drawn out dramatic weight, in a unique enviroment, where the ultimate victor is decided by whoever can outmove, out attack, and most importantly, outwit each other.
The range of your weapon like in any other game is important. Longer weapons suffer at closer ranges with windups leaving you open to being interrupted, but thrive at ranges where even being deflected mean little when you reside in a weapons' supposed "safezone". Smaller weapons have shorter ranges forcing you to go up close, but have faster swing speeds making your counterplay absolutely crucial. In a regular fight against any normal guy imbued with the intent to slice you in half, the actual chances of landing a hit after simply swinging while they're in range is extremely luck based. Often times, all this does is serve a big opening to your enemy on a silver platter. Whether it's standing far enough away that you can chip at an enemy's health with slow long ranged teeps or skillfully predicting and baiting an enemy into giving you chances to counter their attacks with quick jabs, the only way to succeed consistently is by reading what your opponent is going to do, and trying your best to outsmart them.
As a new player, you're basically bound to get completely fucked over by every enemy you face; always swinging faster than you, shutting down every offensive move with a block, reading your attacks, just constantly always being 10 steps ahead of you leaving you at the mercy of their radiant AI, but when you get good, the majesty of this game's incredible combat unveils itself, and feeling the combat click for that very first time feels amazing. You gain a feel for their attack patterns, you consciously memorize counters for each of their moves, you take advantage of every micro opening that presents itself to chip more health off whoever you're fighting. Suddenly each action has this way of so beautifully flowing into the next. Every attack lines up with every combo, sidestepping an enemy's swordswing and immediately following up with your own feels so smooth, all through your own ability not to overpower your enemies, but to outsmart them, and the combat begins to melt into that aforementioned hypnotic flow I mentioned a few paragraphs ago.
For all its' astounding strengths, this game is still really old, and there are issues that pretty massively impact this game's as a whole. For every brilliantly designed level, there are an equal amount that are more bland and basic; sprawling maze-like enviroments, interesting gimmicks to deal with, and unique enviroments for combat encounters, all contrasted with flat uninteresting terrain, bland levels with no interesting bells or whistles, and fights that can feel samey and boring to go through. You can really tell which characters get major focus during development, as the Knight gets a truly well designed opening level filled with traps, a mix of different enviroments, a super well rounded difficulty curve that slowly gives you more enemies and more interesting enviroments to fight in, and to top it all off an intriguing final boss fight that serves as the ultimate test for anyone just starting, whereas the Barbarian just gets to trot through some dusty crypt fighting throngs of skeletons and ghosts.
As is to be expected with the age, there are also a good few bugs which can vary from bullshit to literally game breaking. Earlier on when just starting out I passed some sort of a checkpoint in the Knight's beginning level, and every save I created past that point would unexplicably just completely bug my game out and cause me to crash, forcing me to reload an earlier save and play up till where I initially left off. Sometimes while in combat accidentally backing up into a slope sends you soaring into the high heavens which would screw me over constantly all while I was in the middle of combat which really doesn't feel good when you're focused and locked in only to have any chance of victory ripped away from you randomly.
The biggest most heartbreaking issue to me however is the enemy variety. In all the levels I played, I only ever faced a handful of enemies, one being these small eyeless big mouthed imps that died easily and rarely popped up, knights, skeletons, and undead warrior types that while technically different felt so similar they practically felt like clones of each other, and large elite orc types that while really proving to be challenges especially in the early game, became boring after the umpteenth encounter. Through all the hours, I can only name about five enemies, one of which never appeared, three of which felt near identical, and one more that gets spammed to the point of becoming boring to fight. For how good the early parts of the game were, it felt so tragic progressing forward only to be hit with the bitter realisation that everything I'd experienced so far would be all I'd experience going forward, and I think after a good 10 hours I've pretty much lost all interest in continuing forward to see the ending.
A lack of enemy variety isn't always necessarily the death of a game, but the issue is that with Blade of Darkness there really is nothing to this game beyond mastering the combat in terms of interesting game mechanics. Playstyles are baked into each respective character making weapons nothing more than reskins that deal more damage, levelling up begets you new fighting moves to try, which are cool but feel a little lacking, no mention of any kind of skill trees or wearable armour, experimenting with unique weapon types, majorly good story or characters to cling on to, all there is is the combat, which sucks because without any major gameplay twists, the game gets stale once you pass the early hours
Blade of Darkness is an interesting game. It gets so much right for being such an early game of its' type, yet it suffers from so many little issues that really hold the game back from being a true masterpiece. Regardless, I still think it's a good game that at least warrants one playthrough, and I'll still probably load it up from time to time to start a new Barbarian or Knight save when I'm bored. I think it's a shame that poor marketing made this game fly under the radar the way that it did, and I think despite all it's flaws I still got my money's worth. Oh shit hey that's it.
absolute cinema
ReplyDeletethis is so attractive
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