Blade of Darkness

I played the game somewhere back in 2001 or something, from a demo that was distributed in pc game magazines and I would always be thinking about this one. Other games where good and players outgrew them as they got older, other games went from point A to point B and were streamlined, other games followed the trends of their time and remained as products of their time. However "Blade of Darkness" managed to capture some very specific and impressive game design values. The Impressive Parts: • Good mixture between fighting/adventuring: Not leaning towards one side in favor of the other. While modern games either promote aggressive gameplay mechanics or complex game systems and turn entirely monolithic by design, BOD will allow you to see a nice balance between combat-exploration-puzzles and give a richer type of pacing. • Combat: The combat elements are probably based on a more 'realistic' foundations rather than modern-souls-like design. This is what all of the young players probably are mistaken about, because they are used to in the established and well known formula. However with BOD, the entire point of everything is to wait still and manage the correct angle of attack with the correct timing. Enemies have very simplistic attack patterns but they still can deal a lot of damage. But somewhat managing the distance and timing and is like you find the loophole to beat everyone. • Gameplay Balancing: One very important aspect is that the game at some passages turned very difficult - due to full health potion stagnation - and I had to repeat some fights with a *no getting hit* policy. There are some aspects regarding the character class, the character level, the player skill, the weapon used and if this chain is broken then you might feel the pain as player. I played as Knight but watching some Barbarian gameplay videos, dude was able to one-hit most of the lame enemies. Also played a bit as Amazon and I noticed that the attack distance is greater and makes dogding much easier. In any way you look at this probably is the *beauty of the game* where it can significantly increase the replayability at least four times (for each class). • Graphics: The graphics within the context of a 2001 game, they are what they are. However one of the best aspects of the game are the hard shadows, and the water reflections, as well as the light flickering of the torches in the environment. Also the environments seem to be majestic, there are all sorts of varied themes from many civilizations so each level is unique and fresh to the eyes, preventing visual fatigue of seing the same things all the time. • Audio: The game is very atmospheric, full of ambience, some symphonic orchestra pieces. However one of the most interesting choice, for the most part, most of the levels are based on drum beats. This somewhat makes the game very grounded and based but also somewhat "primitive" - it combines really well with the ancient-fantasy setting of most levels and also as well with the theme of fighting orcs. The Interesting Parts: • Physics Bugs: Perhaps some aspects of the game involve collision-physics related bugs. Sometimes controls are stiff and player ends up getting hit, other times jumpings-landings are clumsy and unintuitive. So it would be about a matter of getting used to the controls first and tune your playstyle to match BOD. • Combat Bugs: I got the impression that somehow about 30% of the time my combos would not land well (with a Knight playthrough). One thing is that since you have to prepare the combo 3 seconds earlier (pressing buttons, managing distance, letting animation play) so is a matter of chance to get this right. Other times enemies would become smart and dodge, but for the most part problem is that the weapon hitbox is somewhat very thin. • Narrative Bugs at the End: THIS IS ALMOST A SPOILER ALERT!!! After getting the magic final sword, I had to search and see guides online if to get the runes (and where to get them) to unlock the full power of the sword. Anyhow I guess that the game would be almost impossible to beat without the power of the sword as such, but still it gave quite a bit of difficulty (see potion stagnation) but after multiple reloads and saving during each encounter (see "no getting hit policy") beating the game was manageable. This is the game with all of it's pros and cons! Somehow this is the identity of the game and this is that the original development team managed to create back in 2001. You can't help it because it is what it is... In some way, all of the annoyances are the identity of the game, in some other way those technicalities probably were enough to keep the status (and the public perception of the game) to one of 'unrefined gold' or 'unpolished diamond'. For the old fans of the original game, it is exactly perfect as it is. For the new players just discovering it, might require effort to become familiarized.

Is this a janky game? Yes. Do I enjoy it? Again yes. I love my jank ass rpgs. A friend of a friend described this game as "playing the video to Ronnie James Dio's Holy Diver." and they are 100% correct. To put it short, this game ♥♥♥♥♥.

This is not souls like, this is waaaaay before any Souls game, so if anything, its souls is severance'like. Good game.

It is an interesting old-school TPS with a fight system that is now called soulslike. It is a bit clunky, but it is worth playing as a little piece of gaming history.

Blade of Darkness - это несомненно игра детства. Игра не слабаков. Хардкорный экшн и прародитель соулсов, до того как это стало мейнстримом. Нет, тут нет идиотизма, что все воскрешаются, как только ты взаимодействуешь с "костром". Blade of Darkness дала в детстве понять, что даже рядовой моб может надрать тебе задницу. Спустя лет примерно 20 захотелось вспомнить детство, тем более тут что-то типа ремастера. Вся проблема именно в том, что ТИПА. Начнем с того, что все мы прекрасно знаем, правильно говорится не Джек Воробей, а КАПИТАН Джек Воробей. Так и тут: вообще-то не Blade of Darkness, а SEVERANCE: Blade of Darkness. Дальше разработчик и издатель взяли файлы игры, заставили ее запускаться на современных системах, натянули типа HD текстуры (нет) и дали возможность растянуть картинку на современные мониторы с их разрешением. Добавили ачивки. Это дело выставили за смешной ценник. Собственно все. Все содержание ремастера. Не помню как там было 20 лет назад, но сейчас я увидел лютые подергивания камеры, персонаж какой-то рваный, дерганый, не чувствуется вообще отзывчивость в управлении. Само управление вообще какое-то нестандартное и непривычное, странные привязки клавиш и не все можно перенастроить. Источники света мигают до боли в глазах. Ну можно же было по-человечески подтянуть текстуры, добавить графические настройки, осовременить управление и какие-то функции интерфейса. Ну сделайте вы все красиво. Обратите внимание на разработчиков Gothic Remake как они заморочились. Сделайте адекватно все, по-людски. Сделайте круто и конечно поставьте ценник подороже, привлеките новых игроков. В итоге сделано все через задницу и непонятно для кого. Я как игрок с теплотой вспоминающий данную игру не оценил вообще. Современным игрокам такой продукт не упал в принципе. Вот охота поставить палец вверх, ну реально классная игра, а с таким подходом разработчиков и издателя только отрицательный отзыв. Эх, а ведь хотелось перепройти столько лет спустя, жаль, но только не в таком формате переиздания

my old teasure

This has been one of my favorite games since my childhood. Amazing atmosphere, amazing gameplay.. hands down... I used to play it a lot with my father and recently completed it again with my wife.

Лучшая. жду Ремейк... уже 26 лет

Vamos hablar del elefante en la habitación y vamos directo ¿Sabes por que todo el mundo dice que esto es un dark souls, es el abuelo de dark souls o mas triste un proto souls? Por que todos lo que estan escribiendo reseñas viene del mismo tontotuber con problemas graves con la ducha y ha dicho que esto es un proto souls y viene todo cristo a comprar por que un tipo lo ha dicho sin tener ni zorra de videojuegos. Vamos... Lamentable que Miyazaki hable que la formula souls es una evolucion de sus propios juegos anteriores, pero aqui por que un youtuber que cuando habla parece que tiene algo metido en el culo y le cueste gesticular sin forzar la voz, mate opiniones propias que puede formular la misma gente. PERO no, es mas sencillo por lo visto cree a alguien que comienza diciendo "hoy chicos os voy a enseñar a derrotar a X jefe" y en el "LOS" directo le matan a el 15. ¿Sabeis cuantas veces me han matado a mi en este juego en mi primera vez tras 17 niveles? 0, 0 como la opinion propia que aqui se gesta. Esto es un juego de acción y aventuras, POR NIVELES (17 en total) (nada de mundo conectados como un metroidvania y del cual se inspira Dark souls en su formula). Pero... PERO... la barra de estamina se inspira de aqui y PIPIPIPIPI la barra de estamina ya la inventaron juegos aun mas antiguos incluso que este. Juego como Ultima (1992) ya incluia barra de estamina para no spamear el botón de ataque. Es mas... En epocas de ps2 habia este tipo de juegos a patadas como Warriors of Might and Magic (tambien tendreis los huevos de decir que es un proto dark souls cuando el genero ya existe como juego de accion y aventuras). O deathtrap dungeons (Que deja a dark souls como un gatito recien nacido cuanto a dificultad) de Ps1 y tambien relanzado en steam. ¿Influencias del juego? ya sea comentado en entrevistas Warhammer para algunos enemigos (oh sorpresa caballero del caos es un sub jefe) y conan el barbaro. Nada de Berserk. Si te gusta los juegos de accion con un mapa de combo y algo de plataformeo, compra, no esta mal el juego, desafiante... Depende si no te llevas bien con los combos. El juego tiene mecanicas interesantes aun para lo viejo que es, como que el escudo se rompa por abusar de el, o que la habilidad de arma cuando sube, desbloquea ciertos movimientos nuevos. El resto... El juego es un paseo si te haces bien con el control poco amistoso a veces. Repito, este juego es un dark souls como yo un super sayan, si me lo imagino podria serlo, pero no lo es. CONSEJO: formar vuestras propias conclusiones y dejar de comer los vomitos de los youtubers como si fuera verdades absolutas. Pensar es gratis.