WARNING! Privacy concerns.

This game asks where you live up-front and forces you to sign a whole bunch of agreements before you can even play (after you've already bought it). For an offline single-player game this is not normal at all.

The company, NEXT Studios, a Shanghai (mainland China)-based game publisher, is responsible for a number of what seems to me to be questionable mobile apps. (Most of their Steam catalogue is Android-to-PC ports.) For example, one of their Android games that I looked at refuses to work without storage access and continuously begs for account access no matter how many times you refuse it: you close it—it opens up, you close it—it opens up, infinitely, preventing you from gameplay unless you give it access to your Google account.

The game itself apes Vanillaware's Muramasa The Demon blade, down to George Kamitani's visual style. The developer specializes on freeware mobile games, and it well damn shows. Personally, I decided that having this company's software on my system might be unwise.

“A polished hack-n-slash game in the new world of Chinese history and mythology”

Games from Vanillaware start to inspire a lot of indie studios in past few years. The combination of traditional art style and solid gameplay in good way, Bladed Fury is one of them.

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Story of Bladed Fury takes place on real Chinese history (around 481-379 BCE) where the Jiang clan, rulers of the state of Qi, was replaced by members of the Tian clan. You play as Princess Ji Jiang who was set up to kill her own father by officer Tian. Although Ji has bloodline of Ancient God to hold her trusty Fiendbane blades, she realizes her weakness and escapes from kingdom to seek help by obtain power of Soul Slivers to gain strength.

The presentation is one of highlight of the game. With influence of Vanillaware’s Muramasa, Bladed Fury uses traditional Chinese painting with fluid 2D sprites; creates sense of telling old tales. Moreover, the story adds some sci-fi/fantasy element along with Chinese mythology and principles. Ji also encounter deities and evil spirits with backstory as she progress through the story. Those present the twisted world between life and death to be far more interesting and engaging.

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Bladed Fury is a 2D hack-n-slash side scrolling action. The gameplay is mixed between combat and platforming. You fight enemies with three weapon types which serve purpose on each enemy type. Fiendbane is dual swords for fast and quick finish. Crimson Mass is slow greatsword, but deal high damage and can break enemy super armor. Lastly, Cicada Wings serves as shield weapon. It can reflect projectiles and connect counter move to first two weapons. As usual, you correct soul from killing enemies to unlock new moves which become handier on later fights. You also gain Soul Silver ability to summon deities as limited skills (restore on save point). Although the level is pretty much linear, there are some puzzle elements and running sequences which are nice touch and don’t slow down the pacing.

In term of difficulty, Bladed Fury offers good challenge from uncommon to various mini-bosses; encourage player to practice timing and learn enemy moves. Chapter bosses are well-telegraphed and designed. Some are very tricky, but they’re all fun and fair. I also personally like combo counter, animation, and strong feedback during combat even though there are only few effective moves to counter super armor enemies. Once you complete campaign first time, the game offers hard mode with more enemies (more reaction and extra moves). Finally, a challenge boss-rush mode which is a real deal to test your skills.

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Bladed Fury has great sound design especially in combat. It’s strong and satisfied. Good traditional Chinese ambient music. Voice acting is only presented in Chinese, but consider from price tag. I think it’s reasonable and fit well to theme.

Bladed Fury is developed using Unity engine with low requirement. Solid performance and I found no fatal technical issue during playthrough. The game might lacks rebind option of keyboard setting at launch which all side-scroll games require. But developers address an issue and patch (game now supports Numpad keys).

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I would consider Bladed Fury is an adaption from Vanillaware games. It follows core formula of similar genre, but different style. Yet, final product is polished and offer fun gameplay for hack-n-slash fans. Experience is worth even full price and it’s something I would to see more in game industry.

If you found this review helpful, please consider and give a thumb up or feedback to improve my review

Story is short and all honesty isn't all that great, Combat is really nice but the amount of stuff you can do seem pretty easy. Can beat the game in 3 hours or so, it doesn't have much reply value. 7 dollars for 3 hours of entertainment. Either that or buy yourself some lunch. All in all, I say it's worth.

In a way when I heard that this game was coming out I thought it might have been an early access game (I even thought it was going to cost more).

As the dev has mentioned they took insperation from Vanillawares's Muramasa and you can notice that from the way that the game plays. The game does feel unique and different than games by Vanillaware a bit but it also feels the same (which for me is a huge plus seeing how there are no Vanillaware games on Steam).

The map in this game is similar to Odin Sphere where each level has a closed off section. Meaning that there are multiple "rooms" that look like circles in the map so it's not hard to get lost seeing how linear the level design is.


Combat wise it's fun, I doesn't feel quite right but I still do have fun pulling off combos. You are able to upgrade your skills and while I have only played the first 2 levels in the game, it doesn't seem like you will have many options as far as upgrading your skills go (I think I saw a max of 20 skills that you can max and that's between you, and your weapon), but it is nice to see that you are in a way rewarded for collecting orbs.

The music is decent.

Artwise it does look pretty amazing even though when you are dodging it looks a bit off (the character models seems to move slow for some reason).


One of the con that I do have and would love for the dev to possible add to the game, would have been if during dialouge that the character sprites would also move instead of just being static images, it sort of takes away from the game.

I may not have played long but in the hour that I played I was impressed with the game and for the price I got more than what I was hoping for.

If you have been waiting for a Vinillaware-esque game on Steam then this is it.

A metroidvania which successfully mixes Chinese history and mythology. You don’t get to play that very often and Bladed Fury is thus, an interesting shift in direction and genre definition for NEXT Studios. Their previous projects (Iris.Fall and Death Coming) were puzzle games with light platforming sections, while this last element seems to have been included into their third release which I shall review now. I’m no stranger to metroidvanias (word play honoring both the Metroid and Castlevania series) as the genre is a hybrid which conveys a story along non-stop action in the forced perspective of the far more predictable platformers. Nobody should settle for “vanilla” when there are so many other flavours to try out.

I won’t bore you with a history lesson. Well, not a lot anyway. Let’s summarize Bladed Fury’s start as simultaneous with the tumultuous Warring States period in Ancient Chinese history during the 4th Century BC. Duke Kang of the Jiang clan, ruler of the Qi state has perished under suspicious circumstances and left no male heir to his throne. By force of arms and less through tradition, his two daughters (Ji and Shu) hold little claim to the realm while neighbouring states compete for control of Qi. The Tian clan abducts Shu with plans of a forced marriage, so her brave sister Ji must embark on a quest to save her sibling and the state from the ensuing chaos. Supernatural elements are ranging from mystical weapons, to ethereal foes and the obligatory dragons.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1596350158

This latter element truly stands as an object of fascination to me, since nearly all human civilizations envisioned dragons of different shapes and sizes despite never making contact between themselves in terms of an initial cultural exchange. We’re talking of different continents, halfway across the globe and yet giant fire-breathing lizards are well represented by local mythologies. Princess Ji carries both weaponized artifacts and the unlockable powers of the Ancients, as the game simplifies the notions of dynastic bloodlines and the concept of divine right to rule: The Mandate of Heaven. It’s fortunate that the game takes liberties when portraying this story, by only using sparse historic notions and focusing predominantly on the mythological side.

It’s been a very long time since I admired a game’s static artwork even more than the graphical elements constantly in motion. Truth be told, we’re dealing with cutscenes in the form of images which closely resemble traditional Chinese watercolors. They are moving, albeit slowly. It’s a a very nice touch and even the gameplay assets (fully rendered in 2D) are the obvious work of someone skilled in these drawing techniques. It won’t be the last time I’m comparing Bladed Fury with Shio and Sundered. The visual style sits on a crossroad between those two. Enemy types could include more visual variety though, since the henchmen resemble a clone army when compared to the boss-tier foes which really manage to stand out.

For the most part, there’s voice acting in the cutscenes and generic shouting during the actual combat. I have to appreciate the authenticity at the very least, since the only spoken language is Mandarin. You won’t ever read any complaints from me in regards to the absence of English dubs in stories taking place across Asia or any other continent where English wouldn’t be more common than as a secondary and entirely optional language. Keeping it as real to the source material as possible, is precisely why indie gaming shines in its own special way and I was more than happy to just read the English subtitles and listen to a foreign language I may never speak or write myself. Now onto the soundtrack, I was pleasantly surprised with the overall quality of the music which features a modern take on more traditional tunes you’d probably hear in a Chinese restaurant. As far as its genre hybrid is concerned, I really couldn’t demand more from Bladed Fury’s audio assets.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1598624841

No metroidvania/hack-and-slash could get successfully carried by the narrative alone, so the gameplay is obviously the main focus. Provided that we don’t have an absurd learning curve in Bladed Fury, players will still have to memorize combos along with anticipating the enemy strikes and parrying or blocking at the precise moment they may serve, during combat. Princess Ji will be fighting against what seems like an entire army but the supernatural artifacts that she’s carrying, can also prove to be efficient weapons in times of need. Remember to always keep moving, since ranged foes are a deadly threat to any static target. Some challenge stems from the sparse placement of the lantern post which serve as both save points and health/mana regeneration station. Special attacks called “Soul Slivers” will drain the latter pool and you don’t want to face boss fights with nothing but the “standard” attacks at your disposal.

The placement of these aforementioned lanterns and their multipurpose use, remind me of (by now) classic Prince of Persia titles in which water, of all things, was a true sight for sore and very battered eyes. Health regeneration from defeatead foes will only be of marginal use until you find a new lantern post. The upgrade system is strictly tied to the experience you gain from wave after wave of enemy troops. Investing early on in the Cicada Wings (the shield artifact) is a wiser investment, than simply increasing the hitpoint count since blocking attacks will become your second concern after counter-attacking, of course. Bosses are worthy adversaries, yet don’t expect Dark Souls levels of challenge. Once you spot the “opening” in their movement or attack patterns, things become fairly easy. Come for the combat and stay for the story, Bladed Fury will not waste your time either way.

A video game about Chinese history from the perspective of a developer well acquainted with this topic, certainly benefitted from the infusion of fantasy elements. The mix proved even better once the combat system allowed room for platforming sections as well. If you’re also tired of the same dreary concepts of “classical fantasy realms” as much as I am, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t enjoy Bladed Fury. It’s more than decently priced for what it offers and I see plenty of room for improvement or even a sequel.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1598625211

+ Steam Achievements.
+ Challenging gameplay.
+ Pleasant graphics and sounds.

- Combat can become somewhat repetitive.
- No Steam Trading Cards.

Rating 80/100

This review was submitted for Fun Fab Game Reviews through the Steam Curator Connect program.

Bladed Fury is a 2D action sidescroller reminiscent of Vanillaware games.
There are a few puzzles but your main activity will be fighting hords of enemies and bosses. And fortunately, combat is extremely fun!
The game is also really pretty, it looks even better in motion than in the screenshots.
The story is kind of whatever though.

Still, it's very much worth the asking price. A really fun game,

What is Bladed Fury? In short it is a Chinese, 2D, puzzle platformer with a cute girl as the protagonist. It has a cool art-style, some nice (if fairly forgettable) music, and there is a plot. It certainly happens. Characters are there too. Which is nice.

I guess what I am getting at is I certainly remember playing Bladed Fury. I remember enjoying it while it was happening. But now that I’ve finished playing it through I’m just kind of dry about it.

It was generic and short. The art was probably its biggest selling point, but I’m not convinced that even that left any significant impression.

I’ve seen a few other reviews that compared this game to Vanillaware titles. That may be the best comparison there is. However it feels a little needless because games like Odinsphere dominate Bladed Fury on every level. Better art, plot, characters and I would say game play. Not to mention playtime as Bladed Fury can be finished in about 5 hours — and that is with time to take breaks etc. However, it is worth remembering the Vanillaware hasn’t released their games on Steam. Bladed Fury is on Steam. But so is ICEY, Shante and Bloodstained, all of which I have much stronger memories of months and weeks after playing than I do hours after finishing Bladed Fury.

So is Bladed Fury a bad game? No. I still hold by the belief that I had fun playing it, and there was nothing in it that I thought was done badly. However, it feels a little much to go as far as to say that it is good game. Bladed Fury a perfectly ‘fine’ game.

Like Maccas is perfectly ‘fine’ when you are hungry and are in the mood for it. So if your interested pick it up on a sale. If you don’t care, get one of the Shante games.

(One final note. It does ask you for your location and to agree to a user license. Which seemed like a strange thing to include in an exclusively single player title. If you are nervous of that sort of thing, steer clear.)

Steam braindead version:

-good combat
-good artstyle
-meh story
-okay for the price

The real version:

Have I jumped dimensions or something, this is literally just ICEY wearing the skin of a lamer game. Same combat, same level design, SAME FREAKING ANIMATIONS AT SOME POINTS!

Not to say that ICEY is the most unique concept ever, it's just another 2D Hancky Slashy game, but the similarities are borderline lawsuit levels of identical. It's not the same company.

Eh whatever who cares it's at least okay as a game, but don't think I won't be pointing out what ICEY did well instead and what this is not doing well throughout the rest of this Steam review!

You are a Disney Princess who kills her father and runs away to avoid being hanged! I sure wish it actually was that interesting but it's nooooot. I'm actually not sure what's going on in the story other than that it's very Chinese. I skipped most of it because it's delivered in the most boring way ever (unlike ICEY, hey that didn't take long). You go through these visual-novel-like dialogue sequences, all voice acted mind you which kind of makes it a bit more bearable, but they so often break the flow of the game you'd find yourself skipping most of them. They are extremely boring as well, but that might be lost in translation and it's actually more fun for those who can understand Chinese. I don't and it was boring.

But to balance things out a bit, what the game does better than ICEY is the artstyle. It's a fairly ... unique looking game so to speak. The artstyle sits somewhere between "Impressively creative" and "Ugly Bastard Tag". All women look like what a horny talented speed-artist would draw and all the men look like stereotypical rich fat muscly middle-aged men, again drawn by the same talented speed-artist. Even the backgrounds and actual levels are no exception to that, they look like someone who's good at drawing made them as good as possible but as fast as possible. Yet it never actually looks bad, just stylized with emphasis on very specific anatomy. I might not remember the name of a single person in the game, not even the main character that you play, but I do remember their looks and way of movement.

Speaking of movement, combat is a thing, which is basically ctrl c ctrl v ICEY, but with a few more additions. It does feel extremely satisfying, too bad the pacing of the story does not compliment it at all, but what can you do... Whenever you do get combat though you want more of it, as if you get rewarded for not giving up on the game. You have your strong but slow attacks, your less strong but faster attacks and special unlocked abilities you earn throughout the game by fighting bosses. All of them satisfying to use and all of them having their own usage so mostly nothing remains unused. It’s not mind-blowing, but it’s well executed.

To accompany that there’s the level design, which is … there. As I mentioned above, the game looks great, but the level design is just “go forward with a few side and/or hidden paths for achievement hunting”. The best I can say about it is that it never becomes annoying to traverse the game, and even in situations where it could have been exactly that, the dev was wise enough to allow for the option to skip it. That's something ICEY did better because the level design was directly tied to the story.

Regarding the game’s performance, it’s fantastic. It might be capped at 1080p, but a game with this kind of animation mixed with a few 3D effects doesn’t exactly need higher than that. It runs at 144fps no problem. ^.^)b

To conclude!!!! It’s weird that it exists, but eh it’s alright for the price.

A fun, short, good, hack and slash platformer.
get it on sale and enjoy.

+ bosses are well balanced (yeah i died a few times)
+ Artstyle
+ music

playtime - 3+ hours

Thanks null for gifting me this game <3

This is a 2D hack and slash. Unfortunately, this is another one of those games in which all the combos are pre-set and you can't make up your own moves (i.e. there are no infinite combos, or even LONG combos for that matter :P). Worse is that this game only has 4 combos to work with:
• Ground light combo
• Ground heavy combo
• Aerial light combo
• Aerial heavy combo

With so few combos, I quickly learned how best to deal with each enemy:
• "Light" enemies: Upper light attack (to launch them into the air), air light combo, down light attack, upper light attack, repeat
• "Heavy" enemies (before final stage): Aerial heavy combo (will remove their super armor in 1 combo). Aerial light combo when you break their super armor.

Because the above works on so many enemies, most of the game is fairly repetitive. It doesn't matter what new enemies the game throws at you since you already know what you're going to do against them. However, you'll notice that I put "before final stage" in parenthesis. This is because, to the game's credit, it actually becomes decently difficult in the final stage. This is because the "heavy" enemies have like….. 3 times the super armor. Therefore, doing heavy combos in order to break their armor is a bad strategy.

Instead, it's much better to parry their attacks and follow-up with a heavy attack, as this usually ALWAYS breaks any enemies' super armor (even in the final stage). I'll also give credit to all of the bosses. The bosses' attacks are telegraphed fairly well, so to kill bosses fast, you want to parry bosses' attacks and follow-up with a light attack. While you can ground light combo/heavy combo and dodge as needed while chipping away these enemies' health, parrying feels a lot more rewarding.

So there are 2 enemy types that were actually somewhat fun to fight against:
• "Heavy" enemies (final stage): Ground heavy combo and dodge whenever they attack. If you're good, parry and use heavy attack when they have super armor. Aerial light combo when you break their super armor.
• Bosses: Ground light combo and dodge whenever they attack. If you're good, parry all their attacks and use light attack.

Here's the thing: the above enemies only comprise like….. 25% of your time in the game. And the game is only like 4 hours long. So basically, that's 1 hour for a "decent" level of fun……

There's a story, but I am pretty sure you need to be well-versed in Chinese history/mythology to understand what's going on. While the story SEEMED to be about a princess getting revenge for the slaying of her father, each stage is about the bosses. Each boss is supposed to be some historical/mythological figure? That's my best guess because the game states their name and continues to elaborate that they're bad without giving any context, so you're supposed to understand them just by what their name is (e.g. imagine a character named "Jesus Christ". No game/media/whatever would explain the person's background and would simply state that this person is the savior of mankind and you as the audience are expected to understand why). Unfortunately, I know nothing of Chinese history/mythology so the whole story flew by my head.

So yea, like I said, 4 hours of a game with 3 hours being repetitive and 1 hour being only "decent" fun. Not something I would recommend.