Blade of Darkness

"A well made and very fun amalgamation of fantasy stupidity."

Originally titled Blade: The Edge of Darkness (can you guess why it was changed when it was released in North America?), this is a simple dark fantasy action adventure game developed by a spanish company that was wildly ignored (therefore making said company went into bankruptcy because it cost an awful lot of money to make) despite the fact that it was a pretty kick ass game back then and it is still pretty kick ass now.

Plot:
I didn`t bother with the intro, but judging from the embarrasing bits of story every now and then and a couple of pointless, cliche and hilariously dumb cut-scenes it is nothing but pure fantasy drivel from start to finish. Laughably awful.

Graphics:
Blade`s graphics were just plain awesome back when it was released, so much in fact, that few PCs were capable of handling its visual awesomeness. That is why the game has aged rather well, I mean sure the scenarios are a bit empty and edgy, the lava looks hideous and I swear I have never played a video game with more clipping issues in my whole life, but it is still extremely nice to look at, with some nice light effects and a bunch of truly stunning set pieces.

Music:
There`s like, three themes in the whole game, and although the three of them are exceptionally good, that is not enough in my book, what a pity. As for the voice acting, the spanish one is quite decent, but I have no idea about the english one. There is not a whole lot of spoken dialogue anyway.

Gameplay:
This is a pretty straightforward third person action game. First you have to select between four stereotyped warriors: an average knight, a hot-ass amazon, a hulky barbarian and prominently bearded dwarf. Second and final, hack limbs like there is no tomorrow. Well, that and the mandatory switch searching and key finding plus a couple of deadly jumps.

It should be noted though, that the first scenario is different depending on the character you choose, and each one handles some of the weapons better than the others. It is also possible to select the order in which you want to complete some of the stages, a nice touch definitely, although it would have been a much better idea to be able to switch characters after completing each stage.

If standard, the battle system is hard to master but satisfactory enough once you get used to it. You can lock on enemies, cover with you shield, hit up, left, right and down as you please and perform a bunch of special attacks that really aren`t that special. Sometimes things get messy and complicated, specially in small areas and against several enemies at the same time because they tend to inflict gargantuan amounts of damage, but nothing overly drastic once you get used to the controls plus, you can save your game anytime you want whenever you want.

The variety of weapons is ridiculously high and each one makes your character attack in a completely different way. The only drawback here is that you`ll hardly use half of them, unless you beat the entire game four times using a different character each time that is, because as I said before some of them are completely ineffective if you are not using the right character. Also, as you make your way spurting obscene amounts of blood and hacked limbs your level increases, and this allows you to wield bigger and more destructive weapons and, of course, increases your health points.

The battles end up being the weakest aspect of the game though. All of the enemies attack in the exact same way, so once you finally get used to them the action gets a bit redundant, and the fact that although there is a fair amount of different enemies most of the time you have to face the same orcs over and over again makes it even worse. Sometimes you`ll just wish you could simply skip all the enemies, which you can`t because you`ll miss all the precious experience points.

Although this is a really, really long quest in itself (perhaps way too long) and the stages are filled with secrets (including an extra level so absurdly difficult that it`s pretty much impossible to clear), there is also an Arena mode for those craving for more mindless mutilation, only this time online. Yes, the game features unnecessary miltiplayer options, but I can`t say anything about them because I`ve never tried them.

Overall:
Even though this game is every bit as original as a light bulb and some battles get horribly irritating due to the ridiculous amounts of damage some enemies inflict and how long it takes to get used to the combat system, it remains a very long, very entertaining and very challenging title that`s definitely worth your money.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/18/09

Game Release: Blade of Darkness (US, 02/19/01)