Blades of Time Hands On

Developer: Gaijin Entertainment / Publisher: Konami / Played on: Xbox 360 / ESRB: Mature [Blood, Language, Violence] / Release date: Q1 2012

I really want people to pay attention to this game, so I’ll get right to the heart of why you should care about it. Despite seeming like a vanilla hack n’ slash, Blades of Time has two really cool features that make it stand out; time control and multiplayer. Since I listed them in that order, I’ll go with that in terms of explanation. After the first ten minutes of play, you’ll unlock a time rewind ability that — despite what you may think — doesn’t work anything like Prince of Persia. Time rewind in PoP rewinds everything, including yourself. Rewinds in Blades rewind the entire world, but leave your state as-is.

In that way, rewind is not a safety net against damage and death, but more of an offensive ability. Once you rewind and let time resume course, a shadow image of your character – a blonde Tomb Raider-esque heroine named Ayumi – sprouts out and does exactly what you did, freeing you to attack a new target or double-team your original enemy. The effect stacks, meaning you can run into a room of enemies, attack one, rewind, attack another, and do so over and over and over until you get to the point where the moment you enter the room, five copies of Ayumi spit out and decimate everyone at the same time. Orchestrating encounters in that way is extremely challenging and requires tons of forward planning and target prioritization, but it feels amazing once you annihilate every enemy in the room without taking a hit.

Of course, the premise is wrought with time paradoxes. Say you’re attacking an enemy and a second opponent hits you. You rewind and then intercept that enemy that hit you from behind, preventing your past self from taking damage. Since your state persists regardless of time manipulation, you’ll still have taken that damage, even though in this version of events, your past self never took the hit. The developers are well aware of this and have chosen to gracefully ignore such logical contradictions for the sake of gameplay. They do use that sort of thinking to put in a cool feature, though. If you’re low on life, a future version of you pops out automatically to help out as though you already rewound and are controlling a past image. It’s… best not to think about it too hard.

Several of the enemies I saw in the preview were built around the time rewind mechanic, meaning it’s much more than a neat gimmick. These enemies start simple. For instance, shortly after unlocking the rewind power I ran into a mech with a shield that has to be shot simultaneously by three guns to pop. That solution is fairly simple — shoot, rewind, shoot, rewind, shoot. The complexity gradually grows though, until you fight enemies that you can pin down with gun fire, then rewind, and flank around with melee weapons while your past self keeps your enemy suppressed. Some of the more novel enemies involved an invincible wraith that was immune to your time rewind, but would chase after past versions of you rather than your present self. To get past him, I had to send past decoys off to far corners of the room while I snuck through.

Blades of Time’s novel approach to time rewind means that the single player campaign will offer something new and challenging to hack n’ slash fans, but I was really impressed with the game’s multiplayer. Rather than a series of duels or something obvious like capture the flag, Blades’ multiplayer is more of a hack n’ slash DotA. You play against one opponent, effectively the “heroes” on the playing field, while AI enemies stream out attacking any hostile target. You level up by killing AI, with your ultimate goal being the destruction of your opponent’s towers. Huge boss monsters and treasure chests randomly spawn in the match too, which can mix up the pace and tension of the match.

There’s a progression system outside of matches that will earn your character permanent buffs as well. Though — again like DotA – you start every match at level 1, you can get permanent boosts of health and damage by collecting runes and medals in matches. While I obviously can’t speak to the balance of the game, it feels like a great mix of both worlds. You get the permanent boosts from extended playing, and the developers promise that superior player skill will trump statistical advantages. Additionally, you can partner up with a buddy and play against the AI, so if you feel like the general online populous is too strong, you can comp stomp a bit until you catch your footing.

Throw some impressive production values into the mix and Blades of Time looks like the best hack ‘n slash game you’ve (probably) never heard of. If you’re looking forward to Lollipop Chainsaw and Metal Gear Rising: Revengance, Blades of Time belongs on your short list too.

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