Price: £ 7.49
Developer: Studio of the rebels/Snow
Publisher: Snow
Platform: PC
Initially, the release in 2001, Severance: Blade of Darkness was an innovative hacker RPG, notable for its expanded dynamic lighting engine and a cruel, complex battle. This was always one of my favorite games, but after a bad commercial reception after launch, the game spent most of the last two decades, languishing on the muddy sites of Abandondware.
Fortunately, the game was recently given a second rental of life thanks to the publisher of SNEG, who acquired the rights to the game and reprinted it in Steam with a slightly shorter name and some of the necessary functions of the quality of life. Since I was too young to look at him when he first launched, and probably never get a chance to write about it again, I thought that I would take this opportunity to say: “Hey, you! Play “Blade of Darkness, you are a lemon.”
Blade of Darkness ambitions are clear from the moment you choose which character to play how. There are four to choose from, Sargon Knight, Naplefar Dwarf, Zoe Amazon and Turkars, Barbarian. Not only does each character have his own moives and weapons (Sargon is a guy from a sword and protection, while Zoya prefers spears and polyarms), they also have their own initial places. Sargon, for example, begins the game with a daring escape from the castle of evil knights, while the Turkars are looking for damned burials for the burial of his homeland for the sacred stone circle.
Each character has its own advantages and disadvantages. Well, with the exception of the Naplfar, which, as a rule, is a little garbage. In any case, Sargon’s skill with shields makes him a good starting character, like Zoe's dexterity, allowing her to easily avoid enemy attacks. For me, although the blade of darkness has always been about the Turkars. Not just because his burned face occupies both the cover of the game and its shielding, but also because the main inspiration of Blade of Darkness is Conan the Barbarian.
The world of Blade of Darkness is largely directed by the cruel, rapidly developing and often contextual fantasy stories about Robert E. Howard. Fortresses, temples, mines and tombs, which make up 14 levels of game (not including four inputs), are represented only with a few lines of dialogue that summarize the history of this place. The rest is left to the level of design and your imagination. The levels of the game draw a picture of the fantasy world, slowly decomposing into oblivion, where noble knights fall on poisoned swords of wild orcs and where the dead lie in the graves.
In the whole game there is a terrible, otherworldly atmosphere. You rarely know the names of the opponents you are facing. You can guess the names of some – in the end, it is obvious what the skeleton looks like. But others can be one of several fantasy creatures, or, not similar to something in traditional fantasy in general. For example, a boss without the skin with whom you are facing the island of Karum is, by the same, a vampire, but I know that from the achievement that you now get when you win it.
The minimalist storytelling of the Blade of Darkness story was criticized during its launch, but in the game it makes sense where most of the conversations are done with your weapons. Blade of Darkness' Bight withstands amazingly good. Each character has a number of basic attacks, along with a dozen special attacks, which are unlocked as you increase, and one unique step for each weapon that can own your character. You can also block enemy blows, either with the help of a shield, or their sword. However, both are fragile and easily break. Thus, the best way to avoid hit is a thorough operation of the legs and evasion.
It takes some time to get used to the movement of the character, which seems tough compared to modern near -combat fighting games. But combat animation flows together, and this will not take much time to get into the rhythms of the battle. The battles also incredibly satisfy, not only because you can discard the limbs and heads of enemies, from the supply of viscous blood spraying from the stump, but also because most of your enemies are really dangerous. Skeletons and orcs are especially complicated. It is easy to explode on their movements and be hacked pieces. But even humble goblins can seriously affect your bar for health, especially if they rise to your or an attack from a range with onions and an arrow.
The whole game is just an amazing adventure. Alignment is developing well, and you are never far from taking new weapons, while each level is filled with unpleasant surprises that keep you in your feet. Although there are several problems. Some weapons and abilities are better than others, some of them are either too complicated to perform, or too long to complete, to be properly useful. In addition, while the battle is well designed, there is no platforming. Some of the problems with jumping in the game is extremely clumsy, and God forbid that you will enter the fight on a narrow ledge.
Nevertheless, for a twenty -year -old militant Blade of Darkness, it seems incredibly fresh and driving. It also looks fantastic for its age. A certain loan should go to SNEG for the fact that it began to work consistently on modern machines, adding proper support for broad -screen and HD perceptions. But most of the loan is still in the law on rebels. The dynamic lighting and shadow of Blade of Darkness has lost little strength over the past two decades. They make a huge contribution to the capricious and depressing atmosphere, and the game really knows how to enter them into the game, often forcing you to navigate in black media using a portable torch.
If you missed Blade of Darkness for the first time, I strongly recommend making its crack for the miserable £ 7.50 that SNEG charges. Doubly if you are a fan of Souls games. The blade of darkness is not quite in the same steering house. He went seven years before the soul of the demon and does not have a real cause -effect relationship from the “Software” series. But there is enough similarity between them to make it likely that you will like one if you like the other.
