Came for plot , Stayed for Booty. 7/10 would slay god again

"That's just crazy. How could anyone make all that stuff?"

I found this little gem as I was looking for games with the word Time in it. figured someone who likes to think about time must have interesting ideas, and I was right!

The story is clever. You and the characters have no idea who is lying or truthful. And it makes for funny situations. One of my favorite lines from the game: "Stop being so persistent. It's giving me doubts."
Ayumi is very on the nose, ("Unbelievable! I've never seen anything like this before...") which works well in a narrative sense. It's like you as the player are exploring this strange Dragonland with the protagonist.
It's also written in a way that things make more sense in the 2nd playthrough. You'll notice things that you didn't before.

The combat feels good with great animations, in particular the special (counter)attacks. Lots of boss fights. And also lots of chests with weapons with bonuses. They all look different, but in terms of mechanics, it's just the same sword and gun.
The Outbreak mode is pretty fun too, but nobody plays it anymore. It's a 1-2 player experience, either coop or PvP, where you need to protect your towers and destroy the opponent's, while hordes from both sides spawn endlessly. And bosses appear every couple minutes. What's most interesting to me is there's a leveling system, where you get more and more passive skills, exactly like in the campaign. This adds more stakes to staying alive, and killing as many mobs as fast as possible, as the respawn time is 15 seconds.

Blades of Time looks amazing in every regard, from the tropic environments to the characters. I feel like they did everything they could and more, using 2012 technology on a budget.
The soundtrack is also better than what you'd expect from a niche game like this. It's a shame that it's hard to find any information on any of the artists.
I wish they made some more DLC's. I think it would've driven some more sales and exposure. Sell the soundtrack for example, like they do for X-Blades, the prequel to Blades of Time.
Speaking of DLC's. Dismal Swamp was a lot of fun as well. Great story and writing, silly as the main campaign. The ending was really epic, both in terms of cinematography and gameplay.

The achievements are not too hard. Collectibles are hard to miss, and you can go back to a chapter if you do. The chapter will show an emblem if you found all the chests.

I can safely say Blades of Time is one of those budget games that leave a lasting impression. Definitely worth checking out.

The game looks great for an older title, the voice actress does a good job and I enjoy her frequent commentary, and the actions if fun and fast paces. Overall, this should totally be a game I would enjoy from beginning to end. The issue then? It's the bizarre glitches and crashes. The worst offender is being in a cutscene and having it freeze in place while the dialogue continues, then not being able to access the menu or anything forcing me to use task manager to end the process. I'm not sure if I'm the only one having this issue, but it is game breaking and frustrating and happens very often. With the autosave system this makes it more annoying because I have to repeat all cutscenes, dialogue, and combat encounters to get back to the place I left off. Add the frequent FPS dips to the equation and this game is miserable to play.

I'll definitely come back and play it in the future if they ever patch it or remaster it, but as of now it was not popular enough to warrant community attention like mods or patches, so I can only assume it was also commercially a failure due to the seemingly low interest and attention it has received. Too bad honestly.