Again, it just feels so much more weighty than Ninety-Nine Nights, where I might as well have been flicking hundreds of plastic dolls around for all the heft the special moves had.
It's an odd game. I'd never recommend Bladestorm for game of the year or anything; Koei are a lazy, lazy developer and even with a new franchise they still recycle far too many of their usual gameplay elements, good or bad. I can only dream, for example, of how much better this could be with a decent graphics engine, more of an emphasis on realism (why can you only turn the hit point counter off?), actual individual cities... but it is still just so much fun. It's not hard to see how someone could rate this higher than Assassin's Creed or Mass Effect, both of which shoot far higher than Koei's ever tried - but where they fall down all over the place Bladestorm just delivers some really tight, solid gameplay which stands up pretty well even after playing it for hours.
It's an odd game. I'd never recommend Bladestorm for game of the year or anything; Koei are a lazy, lazy developer and even with a new franchise they still recycle far too many of their usual gameplay elements, good or bad. I can only dream, for example, of how much better this could be with a decent graphics engine, more of an emphasis on realism (why can you only turn the hit point counter off?), actual individual cities... but it is still just so much fun. It's not hard to see how someone could rate this higher than Assassin's Creed or Mass Effect, both of which shoot far higher than Koei's ever tried - but where they fall down all over the place Bladestorm just delivers some really tight, solid gameplay which stands up pretty well even after playing it for hours.
I guess I'm just trying to balance the gushing enthusiasm, in some small way... 
and it is a pity this game is largely going ignored.
Comment