X-Blades
- April 30, 2009
- Gaijin Entertainment
- 4h median play time
X-Blades has visual charm, but the grind of monotonous combat soon starts to wear thin. The longer you play it the more you'll hate it.
Get on SteamX-Blades is a single-player Fantasy Hack and Sl game with anime-style graphics and a stunning soundtrack, but its gameplay is underwhelming with lots of grinding. As Ayumi, you'll dance through hordes of monsters in a variety of magical indoor and outdoor worlds, using pistol blades and magic spells to defeat imposing bosses and collect experience points for new skills. Despite its flaws, X-Blades' impressive effects and animation will make you laugh and leave you in awe.
Mac OS
PC
Windows
Linux
PlayStation
Playstation 3
Xbox
Xbox 360
Reviews
- The game features a visually appealing art style and character design.
- The soundtrack is enjoyable and fits the action well.
- The combat can be fun and engaging, especially with the use of spells and upgrades.
- The gameplay is highly repetitive, often involving waves of the same enemies and tedious grinding.
- The story is weak and lacks depth, with little character development.
- Controls can be clunky and unresponsive, making combat frustrating at times.
- story319 mentions
- 12 % positive mentions
- 63 % neutral mentions
- 25 % negative mentions
The story in this game is widely criticized as boring, shallow, and poorly executed, with many reviewers noting that it lacks depth and coherence. While it starts with some potential, it quickly devolves into a repetitive hack-and-slash format with minimal narrative progression, leaving players feeling disconnected from the plot. Overall, the consensus is that the game is not recommended for those seeking a compelling story, as it is overshadowed by its gameplay mechanics.
“The story, what little there is, started out interesting enough to get me going, but leaves pretty much everything unanswered.”
“The story is decent and the character designs are impressive.”
“This game surprised me, a very complex storyline as well as amazing character development and backstory.”
“The story is dull, the character is annoying; she is trying hard to be Dante.”
“The story is pathetic. As basic as it gets with no real plot and almost no characters in the entire game.”
“The story was also especially lackluster, and with lacking exposition, I couldn't tell you why things were happening, even if I wanted to.”
- gameplay214 mentions
- 11 % positive mentions
- 64 % neutral mentions
- 25 % negative mentions
The gameplay has been widely criticized for being clunky, repetitive, and lacking depth, with many reviewers noting the absence of a proper dodge mechanic and limited combo options. While some players find enjoyment in the basic hack-and-slash mechanics and the nostalgic graphics, the overall experience is marred by poor controls, tedious combat, and a lack of variety in enemies and attacks. Despite a few redeeming qualities, such as a decent soundtrack, the gameplay ultimately fails to deliver a compelling or engaging experience.
“The gameplay remains primarily true to the characteristics of classic hack and slash: rapidly staged battles against a large number of opponents.”
“Collecting artifacts to unlock new abilities that you can swap out and buy during gameplay as only four are equipable at a time so you need to strategize based on the opponents you're facing through each level and there's a bestiary too which helps and a set of side completion tasks with each level like breaking all objects and collecting all artifacts.”
“Fast-paced, stylish gameplay with an even more stylish protagonist.”
“The gameplay is highly repetitive, the story is practically nonexistent.”
“The gameplay is just slash, shoot, use an occasional magic spell and fight endless amounts of enemies with the worst hit detection I've ever seen.”
“The gameplay is tedious, the mechanics are terrible, and if you buy any of the dark power spells you get an unavoidable bad ending that there is zero warning of.”
- graphics172 mentions
- 37 % positive mentions
- 45 % neutral mentions
- 17 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews, with some praising the cel-shaded art style and vibrant visuals that were impressive for its time, while others criticize the overall quality as outdated and inconsistent, particularly in environments and animations. Many players noted that the character designs are appealing, but the repetitive enemy models and lack of detail in level design detract from the experience. Overall, while the graphics may have been a highlight during its release, they have not aged well and are often overshadowed by gameplay issues.
“Game is super repetitive but gotta say that the eye candy graphics for this game is beyond amazing even when it was released.”
“Graphics in this game is very good and also game is well optimized (I've seen games with bad graphics and poorly optimized, for example Dreamfall Chapters).”
“The graphics are great, and the fast-paced interaction in the game is fun, with magic upgrades, weapon upgrades, multiple difficulties, this game is great -- as you play as a stuck-up blonde.”
“The combat is janky and unresponsive, the graphics look horrible and I had to actively change the lighting to make sure I could see from the 2nd level onwards. The bosses are dreadful, the music is repetitive, the levels are just glorified, same-y arenas where you fight the same 5 enemies over and over again; it's all just so terrible.”
“For a game made in 2009, the graphics look and feel kind of sloppy, more like it was made in the early 2000s.”
“The graphics are really bad but oddly enough the art direction of cutscenes is good.”
- music164 mentions
- 41 % positive mentions
- 45 % neutral mentions
- 13 % negative mentions
The music in the game receives mixed reviews, with many praising the heavy metal and rock soundtrack as a standout feature that enhances the gameplay experience. However, several players note that the tracks can be repetitive and generic, detracting from the overall enjoyment. While some find the music to be a perfect fit for the action, others criticize it for being mismatched or overly loud, suggesting that it may not appeal to everyone.
“Amazing soundtrack”
“The music is amazing.”
“Secondly, the music in this game is by far its best feature.”
“The music is a silly mess of electric guitars and snares that sounds like the track from a classic episode of the Power Rangers, which would be cool if it fit the game, but here it feels mismatched.”
“The story is weak, the ending doesn't make sense, the main character is annoying, and so is the music.”
“Sadly, the tracks are repetitive, and the in-game music was much too loud for my taste.”
- grinding38 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The grinding in the game is described as excessive and tedious, often feeling like a chore rather than an engaging gameplay element. Players note that while grinding is necessary to obtain better spells and progress, it leads to repetitive and frustrating combat experiences, particularly during boss battles. Overall, the grinding mechanics detract from the enjoyment, making the game feel longer and less rewarding.
“The boss battles are more tedious than challenging and you end up using the same one spell to go through most of the game.”
“As it is, it takes too long to get through combat, and the levels only appear to be one long tedious combat session.”
“Another thing was that the battles were rarely fun and felt like grinding more than anything.”
- character development26 mentions
- 31 % positive mentions
- 31 % neutral mentions
- 38 % negative mentions
Character development in the game receives mixed reviews, with some players praising the complexity of the storyline and the depth of character backstories, while others criticize the lack of meaningful development and poor execution. Many reviews highlight that character design is often uninspired or poorly executed, detracting from the overall experience. Additionally, the presence of multiple endings based on character choices is noted, but this feature does not seem to compensate for the overall dissatisfaction with character progression.
“Also, since the game doesn't make this clear: there are two possible endings to the story determined by your character development choices.”
“Mechanics from these two games are entirely different; X-Blades is a dynamic hack and slash with a character development system.”
“This game surprised me, a very complex storyline as well as amazing character development and backstory.”
“The story sucks and there is no character development.”
“If you wish to subject yourself to a painfully boring, poorly voice-acted, poorly character-designed game from six years ago, this is the game for you.”
“Zero character development.”
- humor20 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is characterized by its intentionally bad voice acting, cringeworthy animations, and a self-aware, over-the-top narrative that often elicits laughter. Players find enjoyment in the absurdity of the gameplay, particularly the protagonist's brash personality and the ridiculous scenarios, such as battling monster-shaped piñatas. While the game may be repetitive and poorly executed, its comedic elements provide a redeeming quality that makes it worth a low price for a brief, entertaining experience.
“The entire game is smacking monster-shaped piñatas over hilariously edgy music and then moving onto the next arena filled with monster-shaped piñatas.”
“The cringy trailer, typo-ridden and laughable bio, and sheer hilarious shittiness that I gathered from the screenshots made me think this would be worth 99 cents for a laugh.”
“The protagonist is a funny, overconfident, and arrogant female lead; this may be a turn-off to some, but I enjoyed the humor.”
- stability14 mentions
- 14 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 86 % negative mentions
The stability of the game is mixed; while some users report smooth performance and successful controller detection, others experience significant graphical glitches, choppy mouse controls, and buggy movement mechanics. Overall, it appears that while the game can run well for some, it may require troubleshooting for others, particularly on laptops.
“It's not a native port, but a Wine wrapper; however, it runs great and even detects my controller flawlessly.”
“I had bad graphical glitches from the beginning, not to mention the fact that I could not remove the mouse cursor that moved at a different speed than the camera.”
“Mouse controls are choppy and very rough, the movement is buggy, the motion blur is way over-exaggerated, and the combat system seems thrown together.”
“What it should say is 'X-Blades is an absolutely horrible hack 'n slash game that can compete with major titles of the genre when hell freezes over.'”
- replayability8 mentions
- 13 % positive mentions
- 50 % neutral mentions
- 38 % negative mentions
Overall, the game has low replayability due to its repetitive gameplay and lack of significant content to encourage multiple playthroughs, aside from an alternate ending. While the storyline and soundtrack are appreciated, many players feel that once completed, the game does not offer enough incentive to revisit it for years. The absence of achievements on the Steam version further diminishes its replay value.
“Ill give it a 7 out of 10 for the art; for the replay value, it's okay, but once you finish the game, you don't even want to play again for the next few years.”
“Somewhat interesting storyline, decent cutscenes, fantastic soundtrack, boring and repetitive gameplay, graphics haven't aged well, developers were too lazy to add achievements (even though console versions had achievements, should've transferred those to Steam), not really any replay value unless you want to play the entire game a second time for the alternate ending.”
“Not all that long story or much of a replay value.”
“Low replay value, maybe just to kill time.”
- emotional6 mentions
- 67 % positive mentions
- -17 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
The emotional responses to the game are mixed; while some players appreciate the satisfying difficulty curve that enhances their sense of skill in combat, others express frustration and disappointment due to poor combat mechanics, lack of a compelling story, and subpar voice acting, leading to feelings of sadness and boredom. Overall, the emotional engagement varies significantly among players, with some finding joy in challenge and others feeling let down by the game's execution.
“The story was incredibly boring and failed to evoke any emotional response.”
“I found the narrative to be dull and lacking in emotional depth.”
“The emotional aspects of the game were overshadowed by a tedious storyline.”
- optimization6 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 33 % neutral mentions
- 17 % negative mentions
Overall, the game is well-optimized with good graphics, and users report no significant performance issues on mid-range systems. However, lowering the resolution can lead to unresponsive mouse behavior, which may affect gameplay.
“The graphics in this game are very good, and it is well optimized. I've seen games with bad graphics and poor optimization, for example, Dreamfall Chapters.”
“Less than $5 on Steam when on sale, it is solvable, and I had no performance issues running this on an i5, Windows 8.1 platform.”
“The game runs smoothly without any performance issues, making it a great experience even on lower-end hardware.”
“If you have to use a lower resolution for performance, the mouse becomes unplayably twitchy and fast.”
- atmosphere4 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 50 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game's atmosphere has been criticized for lacking personality and depth, which detracts from its overall experience, despite some positive remarks about its audio. Overall, players feel that the atmosphere does not effectively support the game's core ideas.
