Blade of Darkness Reviews

Timeless

The Father of Souls-Like game

I bought this game when it came out 20 years ago and I still enjoy playing it today. It has a good story line (which is conveyed via a voice narration, decent graphics and layout, and fun game play. There are 4 different characters that can be used to play the game, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Zoe is the strongest of the characters, by far, and her weapons give her a long reach. The dwarf is the most challenging, mostly because his weapons have short reach which requires getting closer to the enemy. The goal of getting the runes and tablets allows for different game progression paths. They all lead to the same place eventually, but you can do the levels in different orders. There are quite a few secret rooms along the way, and some are well hidden. There are also a few oddities in movements where the enemy will get stuck or your character has some awkward movements, but nothing that detracts from the game play. If you go into the game installation directory you'll see there are different configuration files. They can be edited if you'd like to change around certain values such as starting health or weapons or location. There is a lot of information online to help decipher them. Out of all the games I have ever played, I've always felt that this one has the highest replay factor due to the range of characters, path choices, mods, and general game play. Definitely highly recommended.

A cult classic made possible to enjoy in today's systems. An absolute must play for those wanting to experience nostalgia. Has it's quirks but it's all part of the charm!

Game is fine. Controls are extremely janky, but despite that the camera is not that bad. It's pretty fun for the first 10-ish levels, but the last 4 show signs of heavy lack of polish, just corridors and HP spam on most enemies. Bossfights are passable, except one which is great. Traps/platforming are a joke and don't ever do anything, The "quest" weapon you get kinda trivializes everything in the last two levels. Maybe a few things should have been cut for more playtesting. Decent enough third person action game that ran out of budget or time at the end. 7/10. This port is ok overall.

TL;DR: An amazing cult calssic though with some flaws that can be a deal breaker to some. Let’s start with positives first. Blade of Darkness has some nice visuals, especially in lighting department. The dynamic shadows look gorgeous, create nice atmosphere and are used in some cutscenes to great effect. I don’t think any game could match it in this aspect until Doom 3 came out years later. The levels are varied and there are some nice vistas. The water also looks great, although it’s not interactive in any way and there is no swimming. Combat system rewards positioning and timing. And even though you can cancel out of most animations, button mashing is discouraged. Limb dismembering system allows you to finish enemies in style and then use severed limbs as improvised weapons or to throw them at opponents. There is also a decent physics engine that unfortunately can create some gameplay issues. Probably most importantly this game features amazing level design. The levels feel like a coherent places rather than a combination of corridors and rooms. You’ll visit a bunch of castles, temples and tombs. There is a heavy emphasis on exploration with some traps and puzzles thrown in. The levels usually loop back on themselves, and contain tons of shortcuts, side areas and secrets. By the end of the level you’re usually free to go back to earlier parts in case you missed something. The are unfortunately some deviations from this rule, as some levels are more linear and have points of no return. You also can’t freely go back to previously beaten levels. It’s an action game first after all and devs have a pacing to keep. The music is… there. It’s not bad and fits what’s happening on screen. But I’m pretty sure I heard some of the music tracks elsewhere. I don’t know if they used some stock music or it’s just that generic. At least sounds are great. Many areas have a distinct ambiance. And each enemy type makes unique noises which sometimes allow you to hear them beforehand and prepare for the fight accordingly and avoid ambushes in general. You can choose to play as one of the four characters. Each having not only different weapon specializations but also distinct movement and interaction animations. Some are better at dodging, some run or climb faster, some use shields or non-character-specific weapons more effectively. It might not warrant a second playthrough on its own, but it will add some variety if you do decide to replay. The game also uses interesting approach to difficulty. There is no easy or hard option to choose from, but you can save at any time and as many times as you like. So if the game is too hard you can just savescum all the way. The game does judge you however based on the frequency of saves that you make. First it calls you awesome and heroic, but as more saves are made it starts calling you careful and even a coward. This doesn’t affect anything aside from a couple of achievements, but it is still surprisingly motivational way of making you want to improve. You want to be called awesome, right? The game does have some problems however. Some are bigger than others. The biggest issue (or rather a combination of small related issues) has to do with controls. First, the camera is tied to character’s movement and position too strictly. You’ll feel every move, turn and “bump in the road”. That can be disorienting and doesn’t feel great in general. Second, the camera turning speed is different depending on whether you’re standing still or moving. When you start walking the sensitivity shoots way up and causes you to drastically change direction at the slightest movement of the mouse. This make walking over thin bridges way more terrifying than it should be and can lead to unfortunate deaths in general. Third, the movement animation is rather jerky. On one hand it’s great that you don’t feel like a hover tank, but still I would prefer some smoother movement and transitions between movement states. Fourth, the physics engine is broken in some aspects. You can’t run or sometimes even walk down stairs. You constantly loose grip with the ground and start falling. This makes movement even jerkier than usual and has awkward pauses upon each “landing”. If the steps are steep enough you and can outright hurt yourself by falling down the stairs. Fifth, the physics can also bug out outright. I once died by running down a single shallow step when the game suddenly triggered “falling to death” animation. On the other hand I fell into death pits a bunch of times without triggering said animation and survived with no way to climb back up. Jumping off or onto a moving elevator usually leads to instant death as well. And sometimes your jumping arc can be unpredictable. All of these lead to some awkward controls and unfortunate deaths. Platforming never feels good. Fighting enemies on anything but a wide flat ground is a recipe for disaster. Which does force you to be more tactical, sure. But it also invites cheesing and AI behavior manipulation more than it should. You CAN get used to the controls but it might take a while. Which in turn might make the beginning harder than the rest of the game. Even as a returning player I was struggling at first and was in doubt whether I would get used to it again. Nowadays I’m spoiled too much by modern and better controls. There are also a bunch of issues I have with the game that aren’t deal braking, but I’ll list them anyways. While using severed limbs and furniture as makeshift weapons is neat, it’s almost entirely pointless since they do practically no damage. And it’s not like you loose or break your weapons every 5 seconds, so you would need to search for an improvised replacement. You can light torches and burn wooden crates with them, but outside 1 mandatory section it's never useful again. The food and potions restore a fixed amount of health and don’t scale with level-ups. The food especially looses it’s usefulness very quickly. But even potions don’t heal that much by the end of the game. Drinking everything that you can carry takes unnecessarily long and barely restores half your health. And no matter how many full life potions you’ll find, you can carry only one at a time. The inventory in general is limited and slow to use. Bow isn’t viable in the late game and is mostly used for puzzles since it deals low damage and cannot be upgraded. Weapon type distribution is a bit uneven. The barbarian, for example, has access to only one blunt weapon that is only found in one place late in the game. For the rest of the time he is forced to either use less effective slashing weapons against skeletons and golems or awkwardly use blunt weapons of other characters. Meanwhile an Amazon starts with a blunt weapon while most of her first level features enemies weak to slashing. To the point where fighting the easiest enemy in game, a zombie, becomes a chore. Oh, and yon can’t move sideways unless you’re locked onto the enemy. Which usually isn’t a huge problem. Just awkward. Also, while this modern version that was released a couple years ago fixed some issues, it seems it also added some new ones. For example, skyboxes aren’t affected by fog now, so they contrast quite a bit with the rest of the level. They also don’t look that great to begin with, but it was less noticeable before. At least I can play with unlocked framerate and alt+tab at will now. Still, even with all its problems it’s an amazing game. One that I loved back in the day and enjoyed revisiting now. To bad it wasn’t that popular and never got a sequel. For years I was waiting for a game like it. Thankfully my wait ended with the release of Demon’s Souls and it’s spiritual sequels. Challenging dark fantasy action-RPGs with emphasis on exploration are quite common these days. Still I think this classic is worth trying at least once and maybe even revisiting from time to time. If you can get used to controls that is.

Your grandfather's Dark souls. Here's what you'll get: + Controls and camera from the 2000s + Hellish combinations with timings + Complete dismemberment of enemies + A sea of blood + Different character classes + Great plot + There are secrets in the locations + Traps that don't spare + No mini map, no signposts + The achievement of "Speedrun without a single save" My favorite childhood game that killed all the life in me