Review: X-Blades

Every now and then, a game comes along that redefines its genre within the realm of digital entertainment – X Blades is not one of those games. It misses that mark by exactly 3.2861 million light years. Exactly. In fact, there is more fun to be had in working that out than there is in playing this wretched, appalling, ugly, awful title.

There’s been a lot of attention paid recently to the Japanese game Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad – an exploitative romp through zombie-slaying and underage schoolgirl molestation. In many ways, X Blades is worse.

‘Sploited

Onechanbara exploits women, girls and has probably received letters of vociferous complaint from the various Zombie support organisations. However, it has reasonable gameplay that appeals to a certain niche of players, including the ones who inexplicably think that the interminable Dynasty Warriors series isn’t rubbish. It has decent visuals, including cutscenes that will appeal to teenage boys of all ages and to people with hairy palms who have to report to their local police station on a monthly basis.

X Blades wants that same audience. It wants to appeal to the Kleenex Brigade and to the Dynasty Warriors lot. This is pretty obvious even from the box art – a badly drawn manga-style ‘babe’ with her “aerse hingin’ oot“, as folks ‘round my way are won’t to declare. The art aches to be Shirow, and it fails in spades. In fact, the short version of the above is to point out that the whole game tries to be Japanese, but it just flops so badly it’s almost laughable. Almost. Unfortunately, X Blades isn’t even laughably bad. It’s just bad. God, it’s bad…

What’s This About?

In X Blades, you play with Ayumi, the bint off the box. Drawn by a twelve year old anime fan with no understanding of anatomy, she is a treasure hunter who goes through old buildings hunting powerful relics (Tomb Raider audience sought and duly missed), fighting with dual sword-guns (Final Fantasy ticked…) and wearing bits of string by way of armour (one-handed gamers ticked). An opening cutscene sees Ayumi grunting through the discovery of a map in a shop where she’s trying to sell off previous ill-gotten gains. Cue secrets, curses and a strange feeling that you’re playing the THQ Conan game again. Only without the quicktime events (yay!), the fun (boo), and the women-recognisable-as-such (boo sucks).

This is a slash-em-up played in a giant vat of treacle. Your basic attacks – sword strikes or gunshots – get gradually upgraded through spending the souls you collect from fallen enemies or through artefacts you uncover. There are spells to purchase that are assigned to the action buttons, clumsily in most cases, and that require you to build up your rage meter to use. Healing and immediate rage meter fillings can be bought using souls, or by shattering crystals dotted around the maps. And that’s yer lot.

All Fall Down

Oh God, where to begin…? The utterly, mind-bogglingly dreadful character design and animation? The hugely irritating Californian-princess voice over? No, No! Even better, how about the generally sub-PS2 environments and enemies? How about the fact that the near-silent, samey, uninspiring bad guys keep floating up into the air when standing too close to the scenery? Or the sucky frame rate? Ah, wait! No! How about the fact that you can barely run down stairs because of the crappy collision between character and environment? Or that the platform sections are totally screwed by the fudgy, unresponsive buttons, treacle-slow forward jumping, and the fuzzy placement of edges to the platforms you’re trying to reach.

Nah. Can’t be bothered. If Russian designer Gaijin thinks that, and I quote from its amateurish website, "X Blades is an opulent action spectacle" then it needs to get its eyes checked. This is by far and away one of the very worst games I have ever played. Ever. Oh, and before some sticky-handed fanboy tries to defend it, accusing me of not putting any time into it, they can do so when they can give me back the six hours I put into torturing myself with this dross. That said, if it means that no-one else has to play X Blades, I don’t mind so much.