I thought the mechs looked pretty good, for what it’s worth. The environments tend to get repetitive, but they’re perfectly serviceable. While still pretty basic, it’s a welcome addition to the game.Īesthetically, Blackwind is a decent-looking game. To Blackwind’s credit, you will gain blue orbs when you defeat enemies that you can use to upgrade your mech, giving you increased attack, new abilities, and more. Unfortunately, the enemies themselves only come in a handful of varieties and start to look and feel the same before too long. Once the enemy’s health drops low enough, you can perform an execution move that starts off feeling rather satisfying, but quickly loses its fun when Jimmy won’t stop saying the same handful of execution lines. You’ll switch to energy blades for close combat, and you can chain together light and heavy attacks into combos. When using your ranged laser attack, controls will switch to a twin-stick shooter configuration, with the left joystick letting you move and the right joystick letting you aim. There are two methods to attack: ranged laser attacks, and close-combat hacking and slashing. So how about Blackwind’s battle mechanics? Can’t have a hack-and-slash without some hackin’ and slashin’, after all! Too bad there really isn’t much hacking or slashing to be had. Sadly, none of these elements add any excitement or any real challenge to Blackwind, and feel tired before you’ve finished more than a few levels. Occasionally said button will move a platform, and at its most exciting, the movement of that platform will have a time limit before it returns to its original position. Sprinkled throughout each level is a puzzle or two, though they’re mostly just finding a button that unlocks a door that you’ll have to backtrack to. Gameplay is your standard fare of “start at point A and find the exit at point B.” This would be perfectly fine if it wasn’t for the fact that the levels are fairly uninspired and start to look repetitive pretty quickly. Sometimes that happens at the worst possible time – such as when you’ve stumbled into a swarm of enemies, and you can’t get at them. You’re given a top-down view, which generally works – until you run into enemies or bits of geography that apparently don’t have clearly defined boundaries. I have to say “generally” because every now and then, you’ll get stuck on a random piece of geography in the level, and it’s almost impossible to get off whatever gets you stuck. Once you are in control of the Battle Frame (with Jimmy stuck inside of it), you’ll explore a fairly good-sized map and progress from one area to the next. There’s nothing that’s really going to jump out and hook you, nothing that makes you want to come back and play more. If I had to choose just a single word to describe Blackwind’s gameplay mechanics, it would be: basic. It’s unfortunate that the gameplay doesn’t really make up for the bland story and the subpar voice acting. You will quickly grow very, very tired of Jimmy saying the same thing over. And the voice acting! While it’s nowhere near the unbearable levels of, say, Chaos Wars, it’s still awkward, stilted, and just… not good. And the “humorous” banter between Jimmy and the AI of the Battle Frame just ends up feeling so, so forced. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t really get better from there. Of course, we don’t actually see Jimmy’s dad die in the fiery explosion, so the game leaves open the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he’s not dead. He gets jettisoned just before the ship blows up. Trope-ily, their ship is attacked, and Jimmy is shoved into a prototype battle mech/robotic armor known as the Battle Frame. Jimmy and his dad, who happens to be some sort of brilliant scientist, are on their way to make a delivery to some planet. The story of Blackwind follows the misfortune of a gawky teenager named Jimmy. So what makes a game that’s full of action so very, very dull? Let’s dive in. Unfortunately, Drakkar Dev’s sci-fi hack-and-slash Blackwind is one of those rare games that manages to be boring and forgettable without ever being outright bad. Blackwind Review: About as Interesting and Engaging as Reading Tax CodesĮvery now and then, you play a game so unremarkably bland that you struggle to remember enough about it to cobble together a review.
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