Slash it up

Well now, here’s a switch.  X-Blades is a clearly anime-inspired hack and slasher, sporting surprisingly high production values for a game that no one’s ever heard of. The game places you in the, uh, skivvies of Ayumi, a typical chip-on-her-shoulder, blonde, treasure hunter searching for a mysterious artifact in some unknown ancient ruins.

Armed with gunblades (yes, I know Squall had these first in Final Fantasy VIII—Ayumi’s packin’ two, however) Ayumi knows how to kick ass and take names—and look good in a cheap, “sex sells” sort of way while doing so.

However, there’s precious little more to her than that, and that goes double for X-Blades in general. My first impression of the game was that it was a mash-up of Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia and Devil May Cry. That didn’t last long.

In reality, X-Blades is more like the what would happen if the 2001 shooter Serious Sam was re-imagined as a guns and blades, anime, third-person action game with a protagonist who has a thing for overt T ‘n’ A. I was actually a little confused when I first played the game, because I thought I was doing something wrong.

“Why do the enemies keep respawning? Am I supposed to find a switch to flip or something to make them stop?” I thought early on, still thinking that X-Blades skewed more on the side of adventure game.

That isn’t the case here, though. The enemies will respawn—often for 10 or more minutes straight—and much like the heavy-artillery-packing Serious Sam, you have to kill them all. That’s literally just about all there is to this game.

Which brings us to X-Blades‘ biggest problem—redundancy. The game’s progression involves moving into a room, slashing and shooting and magic-ing the hell out of anything that moves, moving on to the next room, and repeating. In fact, were it not for the linear progression and map, I would swear this could easily have been an arcade game—all that’s missing is a special “kill everything on the screen” button.

Gaijin Entertainment livens things up a little by allowing you to buy new magical abilities by collecting the souls of the slain (a la Devil May Cry) and letting Ayumi play in dark and light modes which naturally give her the offensive upper hand in some battles, and you can collect artifact pieces that in turn boost melee, shooting and air thrust attacks. This is appreciated.

But at its core, you’ve got to really enjoy hacking and slashing to think about seriously courting X-Blades. Not since the Dreamcast’s Sword of the Berserk have I seen combat this repetitive (the magic spells do help break things up) although I will admit that it’s fun if you play in small bursts, despite the lack of enemy (or game play) variety.

Like Onechanbara, you’ll probably feel a little dirty looking at Ayumi while playing, but the game itself is quite a looker (other than the weak, dated enemy designs). I was actually genuinely surprised at how swell X-Blades looks, particularly the environments, which could easily go toe-to-toe with a lot of the best triple-A games this generation.

However, if it’s straight action you want, X-Blades may satisfy your cravings. Ayumi may be shallow, but if you’re only looking for a quickie, she’s not bad. Just don’t expect any deep commitments.