This game is better than it's reputation. Perhaps the fact that i have missed all those genre defining classics has made me look through the faults of this game because faults it does have: pacing, messy combat (at least in the beginning), Annoying main character with a fake 'i am the best' -attitude. Story is easily forgotten. could not exactly figure it out even when end credits rolled.

Beginning is best described as confusing. Jumping, hacking and slashing and some shooting and then a nasty feeling that surely there is more underneath the combat mechanics hood than this? Combat is early especially bad if you like the flow system from modern Batman games. Well forget that. There will be flow allright but you will reach that level of competence much later by getting upgrades and combining them in combat.

Read that Bestiary when it updates. it really is worth your time as it directly tells what you are up against. Until then keep collecting those fragments and all the soulds you can find hidden in statues and clay pots. You will need them - literally millions of them. Luckily basic moves cost only some thousands that can be collected easily.

Game is often offered in bundles very cheaply - i do recommend checking it out and giving it some time before deciding. It is quite satisfying to be able to easily trash a multitude of different types of enemies. Just be warned that the game really only shines once you start getting a good list of element powers and learn which move/element works on what.

Does anyone remember the reputation this game got back in the days when it was released?! Well playing it now I think most reviews were....kinda harsh. Everyone was in teh DMC and God of War fan train back there and comparisons will not bring justince to X-Blades. So what is X-Blades?
It`s a nice stylish spectacle fighter with a unique aesthetic back in those days, a great soundtrack and tight controls (the thing that most games like this lacked back then). Combos are the backbone of every spectacle fighter and here we have something...unique. Other than switching weapons here you can enchant your weapons with elemental damage so you can`t blame the game for not having 200 swords and another 100 firearms. Chaining attacks is fast and easy and the animations are superbe sincerely and the leves are also detailed and intriguing (even the arena style ones) giving the battles a nice atmosphere.
I don`t know what to say about the game which was not said back in the original reviews but....it`s a great game actualy. Not as hard as most spectacle fighters but FUN. And that is the key word here: FUN! It`s fun to kill hundreds of demons with twin blades in over the top stylish combat sequnces.

My playtime: 8.1h (based on Steam, completed the game, good ending)

X-Blades is a hack-and-slash game where you have to beat enemies and bosses in several areas.

Pros:
- 2 endings
- 3 difficulties
- A lot of skills and weapons to utilize
- Collectibles to upgrade some skills

Cons:
- The camera moves too fast even in the slowest speed
- Some levels are too repetitive
- Character tends to jump all of a sudden
- It's hard to utilize auto-lock properly
- Some areas are too bright, some are too dark
- Sometimes it's hard to find rage needed to cast spells without taking damage from the enemies

No.
The mechanics are awful and the story doesn't make sense - I can't seem to find a good thing to recommend. I mean... I usually don't mind doing repetitive things, but this game is too boring. I'm sure there are a lot of better hack-and-slash games out there.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The graphics aren't that bad considering that this game was released in 2007. The characters are cute-looking although there are times where the character looks odd at some point. Some backgrounds are also breathtaking if you can ignore the fact that it's an old game.

The design is a bit outdated though. The main menu doesn't look appealing and some elements take a lot of space on the screen. People with OCD might also get annoyed with the fact that the health bar and the skill display aren't aligned in a straight line.

The game also needs to work on its brightness. There are times where the screen is too dark and some times where the light is too blinding to see.

Even though the game has a lot of cutscenes, I hardly could understand the story. I mean... I knew what was happening but it didn't give enough information as a story. It wasn't until I read the diary that was provided in the main menu that I understood what was going on.

As for the story itself, it sucks; it doesn't make sense and the ending is just absurd. The game seems to focus too much on the final boss throughout the game although the ending was meant for something else.

Battles
The game has battle as its main focus. You'll explore one dungeon and each section of the dungeon acts as a stage that will allow you to battle. There are two kinds of battles: a boss fight and a regular fight where you have to kill enemies until a bar is depleted. The second one is more common and the game will also help you by giving a bestiary that shows the enemies' weakness to finish the battle.

However, some areas are too redundant. There was a time where I had to fight these phantom enemies in 2+ areas. It might not be a problem if the enemy doesn't respawn, but the main problem with battles in this game is that this game has a mechanic where you have to kill a certain enemy to reduce a bar that will allow you to finish the stage once it's fully depleted. Other enemies will also respawn forever until you fully deplete the bar and I found them to be annoying since the enemies that I had to kill were flying and hard to reach. The camera also doesn't help since it moves too fast when you move it around quickly even though you already lowered it in the settings.

The game also has a problem with the spell casting. You need to fill up your rage bar which can be filled either by charging it, taking damage, or slashing an enemy or a purple crystal. Some enemies are flying, making them hard to hit, and it takes time for a purple crystal to respawn. Charging the rage bar is also hardly an option since it takes time to charge and you need to stand still to do that. Your only option is to take damage, which seems to be the best option although it doesn't work in some cases where the enemy deals a lot of damage.

To be honest, I found the boss fights in this game to be more appealing than the normal battles. Some enemies have a weakness and resistance to a certain element and sometimes you need to do a certain thing to kill them. However, you need to spam your spells to kill them and I ended up circling most of the bosses until I hit a purple crystal whenever I ran out of rage.

Spells
Although there are a lot of spells that you can use, you need to purchase them and some spells are too expensive to buy. The price of the spells might seem to be unimportant after you reach the second half of the game, but you most likely don't need those extra spells at that point.

You also can spend your money buying items to replenish your health and rage although I found it to be quite expensive in the first half of the game.

Collectibles
There are some collectibles in each area that will either give you money or upgrade your damage. However, some collectibles are missable since they can only be obtained in a boss fight and sometimes it's hard to collect them in that state.

Other Areas
Although the game has a lot of areas where you have to fight monsters, there are four areas that will test your skills. Two areas will test your reaction speed by pressing two buttons at nearly the same time while the other two will test your luck since you need to pass through a rotating pole with obstacles in it. To be honest, I found these areas to be horrible and it took me several tries to finish them.

Difficulty
The game offers 3 difficulties. I played the easiest difficulty and the difficulty is just right for me. There were some levels that I found to be very easy although there were some levels where I died.

Problems
I found it weird that the character tends to jump even though I didn't do that; the main character will sometimes even jump when I walked on a stair. This also might be causing a problem with the double jump system because there were times when I couldn't double jump, especially when I jumped close to an edge of a cliff.

The game also offers auto-lock that behaves weirdly. First of all, you need to use a middle mouse button to lock on an enemy, which most of the time doesn't work, and even if it does, the auto-lock will go off after you cast a spell to the enemy. I ended up giving up using it after a few tries since it was faster to kill the enemies without it.

It's a hack-and-slash game with a lot of problematic mechanics and an unappealing story. The game is also too repetitive at some points.

Follow our curator page Alexander's Club Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.

I played the demo for Blades of Time, and I thought it was pretty good, so I bought it in a bundle and bought this with a 90% coupon I got for free. To be honest, my expectations were low--X-Blades has a pretty poor reputation from what I've read, so it couldn't really go anywhere but up. It took me nine hours to beat the game though I could've cut it down if I wasn't stuck in one portion.

X-Blades is the story of a young woman in a skimpy outfit destroying statues and vases while slaughtering scores of monsters and critters. I guess I'd classify it as a beat-em-up of sorts, the kind where the game will seal off an exit and you have to deplete a health bar on the bottom of the screen with enough monster death to continue. Or maybe you have to find these monster generators and destroy all of them AND kill all of the monsters in the area to continue. Combat is fairly simple, as you attack with your gunblades with slashes or shooting at distant enemies. There's a Rage meter that rises with damage dealt and taken, which falls with time or when casting spells, as it's kinda like an MP bar in a way. You gain Souls from enemies you butcher and the things you destroy, which you spend on learning new spells or getting in a quick anytime heal or Rage boost.

Battles are largely repetitive barring the boss battles. You usually have enemies spawn in over a series of waves and you destroy them, or do the same with the monster generators, and then you get a Level Complete and you're free to explore the stages for artifact pieces to power up your attacks or other goodies. All while staring at your character's ass...I'm sorry, where was I? There really aren't any puzzles to solve again barring some of the boss fights, and you typically get a bestiary update that tells you pretty much how to beat the foe. This is the first game I've played where the bestiary updates BEFORE you kill something, but it's a handy hint system kinda thing.

For things the game did right...there's a pretty big variety of spells to spend your Souls on. Granted there aren't many effects, but they are at least somewhat different. Earthquake can't hit foes in the air, Ray of Light works best on darkness-aligned creatures, and Lightning Range is a kickass chain lightning spell. There are only four quickslots for spells but you can call up the menu and cast a spell there if you have enough Rage, to make use of a few combos or to use something you don't have bound. The music is a bit repetitive, being pretty heavy on the rock side during battles, but it kinda grew on me to be honest. Even the title theme sounded bad...at first. It's tolerable now, though I don't have to listen to it very much. And the manual is written entirely in-character, which I realize is corny as hell but I kinda liked it. There's also a results screen at the end of each stage so you can at least see if you missed any artifact pieces or are going for 100% completeness or something. And you can go right back to the previous stage if you want, but no stage-select feature here, unfortunately.

As for what I didn't like, some of the controls kinda bothered me. There was a section I was stuck on that required crossing a chasm or fall to my death, and more than a few times did I accidentally dodge-roll right off a ledge when I meant to jump. Dying in this game means you start the stage all over. Did you get a Level Complete and die? Too bad, start all over! And this happened to me a few times. Thankfully that section was optional and this game has no platforming sections like that anywhere else...and you get to keep all of the Souls you had already, so that's some consolation. Another thing was that the battles were rarely fun and felt like grinding more than anything. Even when you knew how to kill something, some things just took forever to die, and I hate attrition wars like that. I did kinda like the game, but at no point did I really tell myself, "boy, this game is fun!" I honestly bought it just to see how bad it was, and it was cheap, so no major loss to me.

So I'm not recommending this. I try to be patient with games, even ones that are said to be outright bad. This one...it's okay, I guess, but I wouldn't recommend this to anybody, or really most people. It's a rough game, it's trying quite a bit, and while I haven't played the games this gets compared to, it's largely mediocre and probably "a poor man's" version of those games at best. The game likely will be remembered more for the outfit the protagonist wears than the content of the game, but all in all, it's not a bad game. Just not one I'd see myself coming back to anytime soon.

Bought it for 1 dollar, I got thongs, swordpistols
magic, more thongs and nice music.
Overall, great game for 1 dollar

While not being a great game, it isn’t a complete waste, nor as bad as people make it out to be.

The bad:
-A completely boring, badly written story, that is completely throwaway, but thankfully doesn’t hinder you too often or too much.
-Some enemies can be annoying beyond belief, mostly the flying ones and enemies you need to shoot with a special power.
-A lot of throwaway attacks.
-Repetitive. Slashing and shooting enemies from start to finish.
-Below average boss fights that aren’t always explained well.

The good:
-Gameplay is decently fun, and it feels relatively good.
-Graphics aren’t overly high-fidelity, but they still have a nice cartoonish look for them and are appealing to the eyes.
-And yes, the main protagonist’s looks will probably carry this game for a lot of people.

So taking everything in account, the game is nowhere as bad as people often make it out to be. Is it repetitive? Yes, very. Does it have huge mechanical faults? Yes, and you will notice them immediately if you have played any better games of this type. But if you just want a mediocre hack-and-slash with little variety and can ignore some faults and the absence of a proper story, the gameplay and its protagonist (as well as her behind) might be enough to keep you invested and entertained. If you can’t overlook some of those bigger faults, and solid gameplay and aesthetics aren’t enough to convince you to spend money on it, you might want to give it a pass. Otherwise, this is a solid little time-sinker for fans of the genre which I recommend buying at any sale.

Nice Hack 'n Slash game. I would recommend buying it on a sale though, due to it's age.

The overalls mechanics are quite basic, sometimes whacky (such as hitting jars). Overall, the execution is solid but not top notch.

I very much liked literally slashing through hordes of enemies towards the end of the game. The "story" is so basic, it could basically be non-existent.

You will max out all skills in one playthough, there is no New Game Plus. The game is about 5h long for one complete run on easy difficulty.

Spoiler: To get the good ending do not buy any of the dark magic skills.

This game sells itself on being a hack and slash with a scantily clad female protagonist. That's what it is. Don't expect a triple A story, or ground breaking graphics, but as a cheap game to screw around with, it's great. At a price under $5, it's totally worth it

This is X-Blades, this is a hack and slash game that is over ten years old. I played this on the PS3 and guess what? It was terrible then too. The main character is annoying, the combat is a broken mess, the enemies are all model swaps, the levels are short with nothing interesting going on. This is a fourteen year old early access game by the same guys who went on to make War Thunder, a much better, grind game. I can only recommend this game if you can put your self back into the mindset of playing a PS2 game, cause even when this game came out on the PS3/PC originally, it felt 10 years old.

I am a wierdo who will go back and play old trash out of nostalgia, if you can't slap on those goggles, then chances are you're better off spending your money on a different, more superior product.

X-Blades greatest flaw is its redundancy. Enemies, environments and actions will all be extremely familiar territory by the end of the adventure. This isn't helped by the fact that the first portion of X-Blades is spent working your way through arenas in the light of day, then turning around working your way back through those arenas in the evening. It's a serious copout on the part of the developers to not create new architecture and instead relight the same areas. A copout that should not go unnoticed.

What's Good:

- The game offers a nice challenge
- Does a great job at encourging a variety of approaches in battle
- Plenty of upgrades to purchase
- Rewarding collectibles
- Good variety gunplay
- The heavy role magic plays in combat

What's Not-So-Good:

- Battles can be repetitive
- Lack of variety in music
- Uneven difficulty in boss battles (ridiculously easy final boss)
- A few visual errors

What's Bad:

- Overly sensitive movement controls - ^ Unresponsive aerial movements
- Very poor storytelling
- ZERO character development
- Pointless levels
- Penatlizing players for buying life refills with very little alternatives
- Lack of variety in sword combo

In all, there are certain aspects of X-blades that are well developed while there are many others that are not. Depending on your level of tolerance, it can be a decent experience.