Blades of Time (Wow, X Blades got a sequel)

And thankfully it looks a lot better.

Ah i'm still stuck on that "incrediblely accurate" boss in the first game so i'll just burn through that when i get more time

Where are the tits.

This name should be called XXX Blade

Bag of Oranges wrote:

Where are the tits.

Spoiler:

X Blades was never really about tits.

I thought you were making a cruel joke when you said it looks better.
But the video of this game actually looks better then it's predecessor.

Then again, the bar is set extremely low...

Despite X Blades being bollocks, this one looked alright and it was only £22 to pre-order on Amazon, so my copy is now on it's way.

This is actually alright. The time rewind thing works pretty well and it's mostly up to you how you use it in a fight. Most of the enemies can be beaten without it so it becomes a fun tool to experiment with rather than having a set purpose for each encounter. The combat itself is incredibly simple with just one sword combo and one kick combo, but you soon get some special attacks and there's a targeting dash. You can also shoot but it's annoying to switch mid-fight.

Ayumi talks a lot, but it's somehow endearing rather than annoying. It's like she just says whatever pops into her head as she's wandering around. The dialogue is pretty poor, but again it's likeable. "That doesn't make any sense in Dragonland". It's like that Xena TV show. It's not trying to adhere the highest standards of gaming, so it's harsh to judge it by them. It's a budget title that knows it's a budget title.

Also, Ayumi has the pointiest boobs I've seen since the PS1 Tomb Raider games.

Taking on a large group of enemies is a lot of fun if you rewind smartly. The clones follow your exact moves but the enemies react to what's happening it real time, so things don't always repeat. You can end up bringing enemies back to life if you not careful.

Wait when you say time mechanic do you mean when you rewind the past selves are still active? because if thats the case and this character talks a lot that sounds like things i like in a game.

Yeah, you rewind time to create clones of yourself. It's not like Prince of Persia. You run in and start fighting, then rewind and continue fighting, but now there's 2 of you.

can you ever make more then two of you appear?

When you finish it, let us know about unlockables and game length.

You can make as many as the meter allows. During the last boss fight I had about 4 or 5 of me all over the place at times. If you rewind say, 5 seconds to create a clone, that clone lasts 5 seconds. When those 5 seconds are over you can rewind 10 seconds. Then you have a 10 second clone, and 5 seconds later the 5 second clone will appear again. And so on.

Unlockables so far are just chests which contain various weapons and items. You have swords and a gun, as well as a ring and amulet to equip, and they all have boost various attributes. You also gather chi from enemies to get new abilities. Although there seems to be no stat screen whatsoever, so you can't actually check exactly what all this stuff does.

So do all weapons have the same moveset?

There is no move set. Like I said, you have one sword combo (mash square), and one kick combo (mash triangle). I'm not just making fun of the combat by over simplifying it, that is literally it. Apart from the special attacks, but those are really simple as well, like a fire blast, ice blast, etc.

There's a demo going up on the sstore today.

Ayumi's costumes get more concealing as you go on. Wasn't expecting that. The character design does make me laugh though. Every human man in the game looks like Marv from Sin City. In fact I'm pretty sure that apart from Zero and the Guildmaster, every human man in the game has the exact same character model.

They all dress like hobos, which makes sense considering they're lost on a magic island and barely surviving, but their leader is an indredibly slender brunette in a spiffy leather outfit complete with beret and ridiculous platform heels. It's the most impractical thing ever.

Oh, I forgot to mention there are quick kills and counters. When an R1 prompt pops up over an enemies head, it means you can either kill them or counter them. You have to face them to do either, which can be tricky when there's 6 enemies and 3 other Ayumi's running around, but it's still fun.

Are you happy with the boob to game ratio?

Very.

So I finally got back to this. Turns out my last save was right before the final boss. Having finished the game, this is what I can make out of the story.

There's this treasure hunting guild, and they send people to Dragon Land to find treasure. They go but they can't get back because the doorway on the other side isn't working properly. That or they die. So they're trying to fix it I think.

Anyway, at the start of the game, the guild are preparing to send some people to Dragon Land, but Ayumi and Zero bust in and ruin it because they want to go Dragon Land instead of the guild people. However once they get there they realise it's a shit place and spend the rest of the game trying to get back out. And destroy the fragile peace that was keeping Dragon Land from all out war along the way.

They're pretty unsympathetic characters. Ayumi's like "Let me go to Dragon Land! I want treasure!", and then she gets there and it's like "There's no treasure, I'm outta here!". The Skyguards are all "You can't turn on the portal because it will awaken the Keeper and he will destroy our world.", but Ayumi's like "Screw you guys, I'm going home. Enjoy your war and junk".

Admittedly you kill the Keeper in the end but Ayumi's still and unlikeable selfish twat.

Oh and the final boss fight is a mess. The key to beating him is just having 8 of you beating the shit out of him at any one time. It's so chaotic.

Well, that's just the first stage of the boss fight. The second one is even more hectic but the last one is a bit more refined.

Oh, looks like I didn't mention this, but the most hilarious part of the game is when you get to the human camp. They're trying to build a ship to get out of Dragon Land. So Ayumi just wanders around freely, some people chat to her and stuff, it's quite nice. But the only way to advance is through this one door. As she approaches the door the guys say "You can't go through that door without permission". There's no actual way to get permission, and nowhere else to go, so Ayumi goes through the door. Everyone gets mad so she slaughters the lot of them.

Later on when you meet Zero he says "I've been to the camp. You murdered those people Ayumi. They were humans just trying to survive." But Ayumi just flat out lies and starts going on about how the camp was horrible and they were keeping her prisoner and she had no choice. She's a total cunt.

at least its intended

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

Oh, looks like I didn't mention this, but the most hilarious part of the game is when you get to the human camp. They're trying to build a ship to get out of Dragon Land. So Ayumi just wanders around freely, some people chat to her and stuff, it's quite nice. But the only way to advance is through this one door. As she approaches the door the guys say "You can't go through that door without permission". There's no actual way to get permission, and nowhere else to go, so Ayumi goes through the door. Everyone gets mad so she slaughters the lot of them.

Later on when you meet Zero he says "I've been to the camp. You murdered those people Ayumi. They were humans just trying to survive." But Ayumi just flat out lies and starts going on about how the camp was horrible and they were keeping her prisoner and she had no choice. She's a total cunt.

God my oh, that's terrible.