Blades of Time – if only I could rewind time
Sometimes a game ends up sitting in my rental queue for a while and I completely forget about it until it ships. Usually it’s a game that I added before it was released and just never pushed up to the front. That seems to be the case with Gaijin Entertainment’s Blades of Time. Since I hadn’t heard anything about the title except that it was supposed to be an action game along the vein of Devil May Cry or God of War, I was happy to pop it into my PS3 and give it a spin. I’m not quite as glad about that anymore. The game was unremarkable at best, but since I spent the time playing it, I might as well give my opinion on it.
Where to even begin with this one? The player takes on the role of Ayumi, an under dressed, self narrating, sword swinging treasure hunter. We join our heroine as she bursts in on a secret meeting comprised of what appear to be cultists and begins cutting them down with the help of her rather beefy partner. Turns out that those poor souls are actually her guild mates, but she really really wants to use the mystical sphere to travel to Dragonland where it’s rumored there is a dragon temple full of treasure. That’s about where the plot stops making sense. I guess you don’t really need to worry about plot or explanations when your main character wears a bikini top, hot pants, and keeps her hair in ribbon tied pigtails. What could be more reasonable for treasure hunting in a hostile environment?
Clearly the story of going after the Vicar of Chaos, freeing the Keeper, and uncovering the mysteries of Dragonland and its treasure is taking a backseat to the visuals. How about that game play? I know you were thinking it. Well, it’s generally what you would expect. Lots of jumping, sliding, shooting, and sword swinging. There are at least some interesting aspects to all of that hack and slash. Firstly, there’s this concept of areas of chaos which hamper your ability to move and fight. You cancel these by making small spheres of order in which to move normally for a short period of time. Secondly, healing charges are acquired (up to 3) by chaining together attacks and building your rage meter. Healing is done on the fly with a button press which consumes a charge and usually fills your health bar. Lastly, there’s the ability to clone yourself by rewinding time a bit. The clone does what you had done prior to using the rewind. Despite what adolescent players may want the clones to do, they’re used largely to help in difficult battles or solve multi-part puzzles. The best part here is that the time rewind lasts as long as it takes to recharge the ability. Thus you can seriously put together a large cadre of clones to go wallop an enemy.
Early on you’re introduced to the altars that litter the game and you’re bestowed with the ability to collect the chi (described as a life force) of your defeated enemies. Also the chi of boxes, vases, and any other breakable items in the environment. Dragonland is apparently a very spiritual place. You trade in this chi at subsequent altars and receive new powers (like setting fire to or freezing enemies) for your efforts.Oddly enough there isn’t anything that I could find that really counts the chi and the acquisition of abilities seems to be somewhat arbitrary. Reach an altar, get two powers. I am not at all sure why the developers even bothered with collecting an unused currency.
The game does contain a multiplayer component, but after playing through the story mode I just couldn’t bring myself to care about playing with other people. That’s partly because I’m an antisocial nerd that sucks at any kind of multiplayer gaming, but mostly because I had already spent enough time on a game that fell short of being fun to begin with. I did try outbreak mode against the computer and found it to be a weird League of Legends style game. It’s just one lane with each nexus defended by 5 towers and you play in the same third-person action game perspective as you would in normal play. It’s weird and not at all interesting to me.
Blades of Time is unfortunately not something that I would recommend to people looking for a new and exciting action game to play. Even forgiving how glitchy the game seemed to be (hey, maybe there are micro scratches on the rental disc I just don’t see), it’s difficult to ignore the lackluster game play, haphazard plot, and dry dialogue writing. Maybe it works for some, but in my eyes just putting a scantily clad woman in your game does not make it good. If I could rewind time, it would be to tell myself not to put this game in my queue.
