God of Blades Reviewed

God of Blades – Reviewed

by Nathaniel Liles

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] picked up God of Blades in a bundle recently, along with 30+ other games, having absolutely no idea at all what it was. I thought maybe it was your run-of-the-mill beat ‘em up, or maybe a weird God of War clone. Maybe it was an RTS game set in Rome, or a space exploration game with weapon crafting. Maybe it was a game where you dress up dolls in cute little bows and shit. I had no idea, so today I decided to go get an idea, and… Well, it’s an iOS game, so I don’t know how it got onto my computer, but it works, and it has controller support kinda, so I decided to give it a time because it’s Spring Break and I’m a nerd. How was it? Was it amazing? What kind of adorable outfits did I dress my virtual dolls up in?

Well let me begin this review as I begin all others: griping about the insignificant shit: This is a bit of a lazy port over from iOS, honestly. Many screens still tell me to “tap” an icon on screen or “swipe” through a list, but all in all, it wasn’t game-breaking, experience-ruining, or heart-smashing in the least, it was just a little annoying thing. Like a hangnail, or running out of milk after you’ve poured the cereal. Aside from that, things were relatively smooth sailing aside from the also half-assed controller integration. It’s one of those games where half the menus don’t support your controller, but the rest of the game actually tells you to “press A” with sweet tutorial icons, like they knew you were going to use a controller, they just didn’t think you’d want to navigate the menus with one.

Let’s get to the meat of the game, now, the gameplay itself. The game follows you, the Nameless King, on your quest to murder the faces of everyone that ever wronged you or brought the dimensional integrity of the universe into jeopardy. Unfortunately, the Nameless King is cursed with a horrible affliction that makes his run to the right eternally, even if he smashes up against something. You run to the right, with no control over your speed much like Bit.Trip Runner, but unlike Bit.Trip Runner, you’re also bolted to the ground, unable to duck or jump. God of Blades is controlled entirely with five buttons (or, on iOS, by swiping in one of four cardinal directions) to perform upward slashes, downward slashes, blocks, and heavy, spinning attacks. Honestly, the idea behind this combat system is great, and falls into that ever-so-popular “easy to learn, hard to master” sweet spot, but unfortunately, the combat system is married to some awful hit detection and some very strange control quirks. First of all, when an enemy comes to you, if you don’t time that first hit properly, you just… Bounce off of them, and you keep bouncing until someone dies. It really breaks up the flow of combat and it just looks silly. When the combat works, however, it’s fun, and getting the timing right on all the different enemy types is mildly challenging. The thing about God of Blades, though, is that there’s no difficulty curve. Main levels are laughably easy, never ever requiring more than a single try, however boss fights are unfair and largely luck-based, as you try your hardest to figure out how the collision detection works. If you fail the boss fight, you go right back to the beginning of the level and chop through an onslaught of boring enemies to get to the boss in the hopes that luck will smile on you and allow you to progress.

All in all, this game is only $2.99 on the App Store, so I’d say pick it up. You’ll definitely get $2.99 of fun out of it, and I know I did. For every bit of “off” this game is, it looks pretty damn good and plays pretty damn well for an iOS game, and truth be told, I’m about to go play it a little bit more, I just wish that God of Blades had reached its full potential and put a little more polish into the gameplay than the graphics. Pick it up, you won’t be sorry, and you’ll encourage the developers over at White Whale Games to make a bigger, better sequel.

[facebook][tweet][Google][pinterest][follow id=”Cliqist” size=”large” count=”true” ] [author image=”http://cliqist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/nathaniel.jpg” ] Nathaniel Liles is a freelance writer, writing major, and indie musician based in Southern Indiana. While procrastinating or avoiding real-world responsibility, Nathaniel enjoys playing rhythm games, action RPGs, and very colorful games with many bright, flashing lights. You can listen to Nathaniel sing songs or download his music for free at http://nathanielliles.bandcamp.com/.  [/author]