This game is a weak knock-off of Devil May Cry with a time-reversal gimmick. In Blades of time, you play as Ayumi, a chick with a pair of dangerous weapons with pointed tips. She also has two swords. You progress through a series of levels, fighting baddies and solving puzzles that are brain-dead, yet somewhat satisfying. Melee combat consists of a basic attack button, a sort of jumping attack, a dash button, and several "spells" or combos that can be triggered once you've built up enough "Rage"--think DMC's Devil Triggers, but instead of going into Super Saiyan Mode, you build up enough energy to spend on one attack. There is also a counter/finishing move (similar to the Batman Arkham games); unfortunately about 25% of the time this move didn't trigger whenever I pressed the button. A major defect of the melee combat is the lack of a block or a good dodge; the dash is clunky (you do a short pause right after you dash) and I don't think it gives you any i-frames, or at least very few. Thus, a lot of combat involves rushing in to attack, taking a lot of damage, then rushing back out and waiting for your health to build back up. For ranged attacks, you can switch into Third-Person Shooting mode; you start out with a shotgun, can pick up Rocket Launchers and Ice Launchers (?), and apparently can unlock a machine gun, which alas, I failed to do. Much like DMC, shooting enemies is a quick and easy way to build up your Rage meter.
The major gimmick of this game is the time rewind function--you can press a button to kinda-sorta rewind time, and then you can watch your "Time rewind clone" do what you just did for the last five seconds or so. It's hard to explain and seems clunky, but actually works quite well. For example, some puzzles involve needing to have two characters standing on two separate platforms, so you stand on one platform, rewind time, then run to stand on another platform while your "time rewind clone" is standing on the first one. In a better example, some enemies require you to perform a special attack, rewind time, and then attack the enemy while your clone is performing the special. This is pretty cool, although it's horribly telegraphed--I had to watch a video to figure out that you needed to do this. The game pretty much encourages you to cheese this ability, and it's pretty fun to finish an enemy, rewind time, then finish another enemy while your clone is finishing the first.
The movement in this game is clunky; as I said, the dodge has an annoying pause at the end, and your jump animation ends with a sudden drop; platforming in this game is somehow even worse than the original Devil May Cry (although the camera is mercifully better). Both the main character, Ayumi, and enemies will sometimes just teleport to where the game needs them to be. One upside of this is that enemies can't attack you whenever you are doing your slow-mo counter/finisher. On the other hand, I had a boss literally throw me through the floor and into an empty void multiple times--a one-hit kill move that sent me into another dimension!
There's no doubt about it--Blades of Time is a clunky buggy mess with a plot and voice-acting that seem ripped from the worst C-rate anime dub out of the 90s (To be honest, I checked out after the characters mentioned that the story took place in "Dragonland"). And yet, I enjoyed this loads more than the more polished yet similarly buggy games like Bioshock: Infinite and Metro: Exodus. Why? Well, it was just more fun to play. Let's break this down and try to figure out why Blades of Time is fun and other games are not.
1) 30 Seconds of Fun: The first reason that this game is fun is that it is divided up into short segments that primarily involve using the primary game elements, namely platforming, puzzle solving, and combat. There is very little exploration in this game. Each section is fairly quick, so even if a particular section is boring or frustrating, it is over soon, and you can move on to the next one.
2) Consistent design philosophy: unlike other, more competently made games, Blades of Time doesn't feel like multiple game stitched into one. There are no distracting RPG elements, forced stealth sections, or other segments that feel like they belong in a different game. Yes, the platforming is bad, but it is part of a game that is built (badly) for platforming--the main character has a double jump. Compare this to, for example, the stitched-on RPG elements of Nu-Raider, or the bi-polar design of Dying Light, a parkour, DIY weapons zombie killing game that has you fighting humans using guns or whatever lame machete the story allows you to have. There are poorly-designed puzzles, but they use the (bad) mechanics of the order sphere in a way that feels like it fits, and most of the time you are trying to solve them while hacking and slashing. It feels like one cohesive game, not several games stitched together (Gamenstein!).
3) No frills. This is kind of the combination of the above elements. The game doesn't feel bloated; it has a short runtime (8-10 hours), cutscenes come after action sequences or at the beginning of the level and are easily skippable, all of the content feels essential and not like filler.
4) The time-rewind mechanic was cool and not like anything else I've seen in another game. I know Prince of Persia: Sands of Time has a rewind mechanic, but I think that one doesn't involve making a clone. I don't know. In this way, the game felt unique.
5) Power fantasy: Between the stylish combat animations, the counters and killing moves, the over-the-top spells, the fact that you can trap enemies on level geometry and then shoot them to death, and the fact that you are playing as a cute chick in a bikini wielding a rifle and twin swords, this game did a great job of making you feel like a badass. How many other games can you play where you can summon a clone of yourself when you are low on health (this is actually a viable strategy: get low on health, then let your clone fight the enemy while you hang back and wait for your health to refill)?
Overall, I'd say this is a good rental game if you are into hackie-slashies, but probably not a great intro point for the genre. I would definitely recommend DMC and DMC3 above this, as the combat in those games is deeper and allows for more emergent possibilities. The spells in Blades can't really be chained and there are no advanced combos, enemy juggling, etc. I would also recommend the two Lord of the Rings games before this one, and I suspect that the God of War series is much better as well. Still, I very much enjoyed playing the game, even if I don't suspect that I'll replay it. It often goes on sale on PC for a couple bucks, so pick it up then.
The major gimmick of this game is the time rewind function--you can press a button to kinda-sorta rewind time, and then you can watch your "Time rewind clone" do what you just did for the last five seconds or so. It's hard to explain and seems clunky, but actually works quite well. For example, some puzzles involve needing to have two characters standing on two separate platforms, so you stand on one platform, rewind time, then run to stand on another platform while your "time rewind clone" is standing on the first one. In a better example, some enemies require you to perform a special attack, rewind time, and then attack the enemy while your clone is performing the special. This is pretty cool, although it's horribly telegraphed--I had to watch a video to figure out that you needed to do this. The game pretty much encourages you to cheese this ability, and it's pretty fun to finish an enemy, rewind time, then finish another enemy while your clone is finishing the first.
The movement in this game is clunky; as I said, the dodge has an annoying pause at the end, and your jump animation ends with a sudden drop; platforming in this game is somehow even worse than the original Devil May Cry (although the camera is mercifully better). Both the main character, Ayumi, and enemies will sometimes just teleport to where the game needs them to be. One upside of this is that enemies can't attack you whenever you are doing your slow-mo counter/finisher. On the other hand, I had a boss literally throw me through the floor and into an empty void multiple times--a one-hit kill move that sent me into another dimension!
There's no doubt about it--Blades of Time is a clunky buggy mess with a plot and voice-acting that seem ripped from the worst C-rate anime dub out of the 90s (To be honest, I checked out after the characters mentioned that the story took place in "Dragonland"). And yet, I enjoyed this loads more than the more polished yet similarly buggy games like Bioshock: Infinite and Metro: Exodus. Why? Well, it was just more fun to play. Let's break this down and try to figure out why Blades of Time is fun and other games are not.
1) 30 Seconds of Fun: The first reason that this game is fun is that it is divided up into short segments that primarily involve using the primary game elements, namely platforming, puzzle solving, and combat. There is very little exploration in this game. Each section is fairly quick, so even if a particular section is boring or frustrating, it is over soon, and you can move on to the next one.
2) Consistent design philosophy: unlike other, more competently made games, Blades of Time doesn't feel like multiple game stitched into one. There are no distracting RPG elements, forced stealth sections, or other segments that feel like they belong in a different game. Yes, the platforming is bad, but it is part of a game that is built (badly) for platforming--the main character has a double jump. Compare this to, for example, the stitched-on RPG elements of Nu-Raider, or the bi-polar design of Dying Light, a parkour, DIY weapons zombie killing game that has you fighting humans using guns or whatever lame machete the story allows you to have. There are poorly-designed puzzles, but they use the (bad) mechanics of the order sphere in a way that feels like it fits, and most of the time you are trying to solve them while hacking and slashing. It feels like one cohesive game, not several games stitched together (Gamenstein!).
3) No frills. This is kind of the combination of the above elements. The game doesn't feel bloated; it has a short runtime (8-10 hours), cutscenes come after action sequences or at the beginning of the level and are easily skippable, all of the content feels essential and not like filler.
4) The time-rewind mechanic was cool and not like anything else I've seen in another game. I know Prince of Persia: Sands of Time has a rewind mechanic, but I think that one doesn't involve making a clone. I don't know. In this way, the game felt unique.
5) Power fantasy: Between the stylish combat animations, the counters and killing moves, the over-the-top spells, the fact that you can trap enemies on level geometry and then shoot them to death, and the fact that you are playing as a cute chick in a bikini wielding a rifle and twin swords, this game did a great job of making you feel like a badass. How many other games can you play where you can summon a clone of yourself when you are low on health (this is actually a viable strategy: get low on health, then let your clone fight the enemy while you hang back and wait for your health to refill)?
Overall, I'd say this is a good rental game if you are into hackie-slashies, but probably not a great intro point for the genre. I would definitely recommend DMC and DMC3 above this, as the combat in those games is deeper and allows for more emergent possibilities. The spells in Blades can't really be chained and there are no advanced combos, enemy juggling, etc. I would also recommend the two Lord of the Rings games before this one, and I suspect that the God of War series is much better as well. Still, I very much enjoyed playing the game, even if I don't suspect that I'll replay it. It often goes on sale on PC for a couple bucks, so pick it up then.