X-blades (PS3)...

The vast majority of the time, I'll only play games that garner praise and accolades from the press. There are only so many hours in the week, after all; no sense wasting time on sub-par experiences. Every once in a while though, I'll take a 'bargain-bin' mediocre title out for a spin, if it's in a genre that I enjoy, in the hopes of finding a 'diamond in the rough'.

X-blades (2009; Southpeak Games) is just such a mediocre title. Most of its reviews were middling to poor, but a few critics spoke favorably about the game, comparing it to Devil May Cry and other character action titles. While nowhere in the league of the good DMC games, it does have some cool design ideas. Unfortunately, it's also brought down by oh so many rather obvious flaws.

As stated above, XB is a 'character action game', meaning that the action revolves around a versatile character (in this case the ninja/artifact hunter Ayumi) whose moves and abilities can be upgraded as the game progresses (think Ninja Gaiden, God of War, Devil May Cry, etc.). The comparison to DMC comes from Ayumi having swords, guns, and spells at her disposal, each of which can be chained together to dispatch the hordes upon hordes of foes that come her way.

A brief digression about the main character: Ayumi is the most over-sexualized character I've seen in a game in a long time. She literally isn't wearing any pants:

Most games endow their female characters with unrealistically large breasts. In the case of X-blades, the detail with which the developers drew Ayumi's posterior is umm... impressive? To be honest, her head, hips, and bust are somewhat creepily disproportionate. Image cred here.

You (get to) stare at her thong over the course of the entire game (which doesn't feel like pandering to 14 year olds or anything). I actually think that there should be more sex in games for people who want it - both because sex is a normal part of human existence and the inability to discuss the topic in deep character relationship games tends to make intimacy feel very juvenile (see many, many JRPGs). I'm also unopposed to having attractive characters in games - there are certainly enough examples of those in both sexes. What's somewhat off-putting is when a bunch of guys decide to make a heroine who's fighting thousands of monsters in her underwear.

Anyway, the combat system is the game's best feature. It's fast and fluid and features a lot of different abilities and skills that must be used in combinations to defeat a vast number of opponents. Switching in and out abilities among the 4 quick-buttons is a bit of a chore, but worth it given the diversity. Sadly though, the first major problem with the title is that the developers throw so many foes at you at once that what starts off as a very tactical, skill-based combat system eventually turns into either a frantic button masher, or a rote checklist of using the same moves over and over (stun the crowd, take out fliers with your guns, switch to magic to kill the now unfrozen foes, repeat).

It's clear for many reasons that the devs ran out of development time and vastly increased the number and strength of foes in order to draw out what is ultimately a fairly short experience. Level design is extremely simple, featuring around a dozen arenas made up of one type of area (a ruined castle), which you will visit a couple of times each (there's little to do between arenas except find and collect upgrades). The worst aspect of lack of development time is certainly the story, which is completely nonsensical. I couldn't describe what happened other than the main character releasing a curse from which she has to free herself. One of the two other characters that you meet and interact with (in this case only once) suddenly becomes a love(?) interest towards the end of the game with no explanation. Obviously something got cut out in between. (Also incidentally, the English voice acting is so nerve-grating and terrible that I played through the entire title in French).

The development team, Gaijin Games of Russia, is obviously quite talented as the character designs are great (sexual innuendo aside) as are the graphics. The lighting effects in particular are quite impressive, and get shown off a lot in the dark, shadowed environments. Image cred here. 

It's often more disappointing to play a title that's got highs and lows as compared to something that's just plain bad. The combat and upgrade mechanics of X-blades are pretty good and were enough to keep me playing. On the other hand, the lack of environment variety and anythin to do other other than fight in the game are a major drag. 

I need to end by pointing out one other heinous flaw that I've seen a few times in games and have never understood. In order to get the 'proper' ending to XB (the 'bad' ending is only a few seconds long and is awful), you must refrain from putting ANY points into a particular set of abilities from the very beginning of the game. Nothing warns you of this - you just have to somehow 'know' not to touch one part of the skill tree. If you do, getting the good ending will require a complete restart. Who thought that this was a good idea? Why do developers do things like this? I don't feel the urge to play their game again - in fact, the only thing I feel is being cheated out of a complete experience.