Deep down, there’s quite a fun game occasionally making an appearance in Blades Of Time. It’s a simple hacky slashy, very trashy, stare at the heroine’s predictably pert assy exercise in hitting everything that moves, and in an age where everything’s trying to be bloody Uncharted, there’s nowt wrong with that.
There’s some semblance of plot, but Christ, there’s only 250 words to talk about this, and I don’t want to waste any on describing the nuances and intricacies of a story involving a scantily clad treasure hunter kicking the piss out of beasties. We’re not talking Ulysses here.
Said treasure hunter is called Ayume, who stumbles into an unknown land, armed with a couple of huge swords and the kind of hazy disinterested voice that you’d find in a late Nineties erotic thriller on Channel 5, replete with soft focus nooky scenes, bad funk and a slightly downcast, hard up looking Malcolm McDowell. It’s your job to guide Ayume through a (nowhere near as good as) Devil May Cry-style quest, powering yourself up and using some convenient time shifting powers to overcome the evils that lurk in this quaintly tacky looking land.
Obviously it’s never going to trouble the likes of Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta, but there’s a car boot sale charm to Blades Of Time. The powers Ayume gets are good fun to use, and rewinding time Prince Of Persia-style to make clones of yourself to take out any opposition is a pretty nifty feature.It’s not a must buy, but it’s worth a punt during a Steam sale, if low budget, messy action games are your thing.
Also the console version was produced by Tak Fujii, who is a bit of a hero, so maybe add a star for that if you’re a fan.
