
	Platform Playstation 3 Genre Action Publisher Southpeak Interactive Developer Gaijin Entertainment ESRB M (Mature) Released February 10, 2009

- Really, really splashy art design - Never any shortage of things to slash

- Repetitive gameplay just kills it - Kind of like Heavenly Sword but without the charm, challenge, or variety

Review: Heavenly Sword (PS3) Review: Soul Calibur IV (PS3) Review: Star Wars: Force Unleashed (PS3)
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X Blades

Score: 4.0 / 10

X-Blades is one big cosmic joke. Besides featuring a female character about as endearing as a piece of sandpaper scratched across your cornea, the overall drudgery of gameplay should convince you that this is not one of those games you should be playing by about the fourth area of the game.

The story isn’t important because you’ll be continually locked into combat arenas that must be cleared of enemies before you can cross into the next arena, which

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will promptly lock you in until you’ve killed all the enemies. Then you get to do it all again! Or maybe you’ll be locked into a room where you have to dodge hazards for five minutes before the door opens to the next area! Yay, fun!

X-Blades also has this neat trick where enemies with specific weaknesses will show up. As each enemy is downed, you collect their “souls” which are used toward purchasing

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power-ups that are often put to use defeating these enemies that have specific weaknesses. The problem is that to purchase required upgrades means you’ll have to revisit areas – multiple times! – to score enough souls for the weapon upgrade or spell to be effective against a specific enemy so you can open the next door to face yet another horde of enemies. Obviously, the enormity of creating something else to do or making the combat so fun players won’t mind facing wave after wave of enemies was just too much.

The game feels purposeless at best and a Sisyphean task at worst. Why do I want to keep rolling the rock up the hill? The answer is: I don’t, so I won’t. All the splashy, light-blooming graphics in the world and a “sexy” anime-lite protagonist can’t save X-Blades.

- D.D. Nunavut

(March 6, 2009)