Omega Force is well known for the long-running Dynasty Warriors franchise and Bladestorm’s gameplay is largely inspired by it. Warriors games are numerous and unique enough that they’re practically their own genre, and like other ‘niche’ genres and franchises, they’re fairly polarizing. Yet, they clearly have at least a strong enough following to generate new entries year after year. Generally speaking, I tend to gravitate away from the Warriors games, but given the chance, I wanted to give Bladestorm: Nightmare a go, especially given the Nightmare campaign and its dark fantasy elements.
Well, I have yet to complete either The Hundred Years War or the Nightmare campaign and I don’t foresee myself making the time to finish either after this review (which is already running quite late). Bladestorm has some good ideas — both the original game and the new one — but for me, it’s just too hard to become invested in the story or the characters, even though you create your own Mercenary (which can be used in both games, or you can make several). The Mercenary has a name, gender, a default weapon type, and, well, off you go. In The Hundred Years War, the story is based somewhat on historical events and does include some historical figures, such as Joan of Arc, but it’s not meant to be a history game really any more than the Dynasty Warriors games are. It provides a good setting for anyone interested in the time period, or more specifically that particular conflict, but as with the Total War games, the history angle is appreciable, but just not interesting.
The game’s setting alone cannot be expected to hold over one’s attention, so the gameplay must of course carry much of that burden. With Bladestorm, it plays a lot like a Dynasty Warriors, but there are some additional strategic layers that give it more of an RTS spin, for better or worse. After creating your Mercenary you are then able to take on quest or jobs for both the English and the French, the warring factions. Nightmare, via a short intro cutscene, offers a new, much more interesting story. The premise is that a truce is suddenly called between England and France as a new, very powerful and overwhelming dark army has arisen, seemingly commanded by a bizarro-version of Joan of Arc. Dragons, wraiths/banshees, skeleton warriors, even annoying little goblin dudes show up by the hundreds. Some thirty-two new playable characters are included in Nightmare, as is the ability to control up to four army units, ordering them to stay put or capture an area marked on your busy map.
That said, combat in both titles is actually squad-based, although your Mercenary still takes center stage. You can change between your character and other squad leaders to give yourself different combat options or maybe to balance the damage you’re sustaining, or to just mix up the strategy. There are a variety of different “squads” or units, that have different weapon types, be they swords or pikes or bows, on horseback and not, etc., and a key part is knowing which of these to use against particular enemy types. Each type also has three special moves, with a cooldown timer, in addition to the button-mashing attack system the Warriors games and subsequently Bladestorm rely on.
I found the AI and controlling other friendlies to be troublesome and not very intuitive. Many times I had groups of soldiers standing by, not helping clear a Base Commander and similarly I could walk right by stale AI squads or simply run right past them, too. It’s not uncommon to see enemies get stuck, even if just for a few seconds, on buildings or horseback soldiers galloping straight into fortress walls, only to realize they’re trotting in place for a few seconds before turning and continuing to move. I’ll add that, the battles, especially in the Nightmare mode, can run on way too long for my comfort, too. The very first mission took me well over an hour to clear and I was playing on Easy, which was the in-game recommended mode for newcomers. Side note — you might want to check out the demo for a good tutorial on the battle mechanics if you plan to just jump right into Nightmare, which does not feature such a tutorial. Anyway, the back and forth flow of capturing sections of marked territories and losing them, sometimes just a few minutes after you leave to go on to the next one, promoted additional fatigue because it felt like I wasn’t winning, but also not losing. This feeling, combined with some other factors such as having a whole host of squad leaders I knew nothing about nor had no vested interest in, made Bladestorm just feel flat and forgettable.
I won’t soon forget the presentation quality, however, and I wish I could mean that in a good way. Now as someone who grew up with the Sega Master System and Genesis and early PC gaming, and still play those today, I’m not a graphics snob by any stretch. If a game is fun, that’s paramount; great graphics or sound are not required, but Bladestorm, especially for a $60 release on the PS4, should have received a massive overall in presentation quality, starting especially with the graphics and moving right into the audio department. Visually, this has the graphical tech of a game from 2007 — or perhaps even older. It does not matter if there are a hundred or a few hundred characters on screen at once if they all look bland and animate poorly, it’s really a bad thing, not a good one. Environments are similarly ‘blah’ and fail to promote any real excitement or intrigue. Some of the Base Commanders and other undead-ish characters like the banshees are decent-looking and are the only standout visual goods in the game, but otherwise, wow, this looks like a late PS2-era/early PS3 title at best; just keep that in mind. Aurally, there is a lot of repetition in attack phrases and voice-acting in general is kinda meh. A lot of time is spent traversing areas on foot and this gives ample time to listen to the music, which has some good qualities, but in the quantity that you consume it it gets a bit grating.
I’ve spent the majority of this article discussing aspects of Bladestorm: Nightmare I did not like, but as with series like Total War, Madden, and many others, I know that there are gamers that are going ‘get right passed’ the issues or barriers I am having, if not outright embrace them. For those folks, that’s great, and I think the depth of the RTS-esque gameplay and the upgrade system will lend itself well to creating more interactive and satisfying battles. Personally though, I’m hopping off the Bladestorm train and am eager to jump into Toukiden: Kiwami (another Omega Force game actually).
To the summary…
