BackSlash Reviews

Concept is okay if not unoriginal there are two action buttons a quick attack and a special attack that has a bar to fill. what really annoys me is how to to characters fighting are just randomly attacking I am sure there are way to trigger moves but its done by accident so often the fighting in this fighting game becomes unresponsive and annoying to play. the sound track isn't often HYPE the fight stages are cool. maybe in co-op this would be fun but I never intended to play it that way. I bought on sale and still I was very disappointed.

Concept is okay if not unoriginal there are two action buttons a quick attack and a special attack that has a bar to fill. what really annoys me is how to to characters fighting are just randomly attacking I am sure there are way to trigger moves but its done by accident so often the fighting in this fighting game becomes unresponsive and annoying to play. the sound track isn't often HYPE the fight stages are cool. maybe in co-op this would be fun but I never intended to play it that way. I bought on sale and still I was very disappointed.

2d platform fighting game with magic enchanced martial arts. cheesy fun.

This game is really fun and unique. Lots of variety with ten different classes (called "clans" in the game) that you can choose two of each fight, giving you eight special abilities (four from each class) that are randomly picked from each time you charge up by beating down your opponent with melee attacks. You can also pick two of the same class if you just want to use abilities from just that class. The controls are straight forward and intuitive, allowing you to dive right into the game and have fun. You move with the left stick or d-pad, then there is a button each for jump, attack, and using the ability that you "draw" after charging up all the way. The variety of abilities are what makes this game so fun to play over and over. Even if you pick the same classes over and over, the abilities come out randomly each time, so you always have something new to deal with. The abilities themselves range from offensive, like summoning a sword that you use with your melee button, to attacks like beams that shoot out as soon as you press the ability button. There are also defensive abilities like shields that form around you, or a shield that appears in front of you and stays there until the opponent hits it or it goes away after a while. There are also traps, bombs, and things that orbit you and damage the opponent if they collide with them. There's a few different modes, including a single player mission mode where you have different scenarios that you must fight through in order to get stars that then unlock more missions. There is also a single player survival mode where you play a series of duels and your life carries over from fight to fight. Then there is a versus mode where you can play against another player or the CPU. It's nice to see a game that takes single player content so seriously, and the AI is pretty challenging. My only gripes would be the learning curve of getting to know and get good with all the different abilities, but it is an enjoyable process if you have the patience for it. Also, you only start with four of the classes and have to earn the rest, so it might get annoying have to play the same classes over and over as you unlock more. Overall, this is a great first game from Skeleton Crew Studio that probably won't get near the attention that it deserves. I hope they do well with this game and make more.

Backslash is a standout competetive local multiplayer release. The clan system allows you to mix any two classes, or stick with a single class. This gives you a total of 55 different playstyles, and depending on the order you select your clan, 95 different character appearances. Each class has a passive and 4 skills. Rather than being key-bound skills go into a skill deck and once your mana is full, one randomly becomes available. This means you can choose to select a single class to narrow down your skill deck, but forgo a second passive. The combat itself is good. Mana generates slowly at first (and the rate seems to be different for different clans) but will generate faster in combat, and passively regenerate faster the longer the match continues. This manages the pace of matches excellently. The lack of control over which skills you get when also works surprisingly well. One would expect this to reduce your capacity to strategise, but this is not the case. Not only are you forced to adapt to the skill that becomes available, but you are also left with the choice of waiting to trigger it at the perfect time or triggering it at a sub-optimal time and hoping for the best in order to begin the charge up of the next skill. Balancing is quite good. Due to the single skill at any given time mechanic, syneries between two clans are limited. This means that instead of 55 permeations requiring specific balancing, there is only really 10. As is the case with every game with different classes, the balancing is not perfect, but as of yet I have not encountered any significant balancing issues. The biggest drawback this game currently has is the two player limit. This is a shame, as it appears perfect for 4 players. Hopefully this is a feature the developers will add in the future. Subscribe to my curator page for more local multiplayer recommendations: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/7189360/