Apparrently there is a bug in windows direct draw that severly limits the framerate, this can be sorta fixed by disabling direct draw hardware acceleration.
I can't explain why I enjoyed X-Blades, Maybe it was just the scantily clad anime character, maybe it was the absurdly cracked gameplay. Lets start with what is undeniably good. The ruins in X-Blades, are beautiful and very detailed... ok, that's about it. I just played through the game on normal, and the combat was fairly easy. but actually chaining combos together with the sword fighting is difficult, what makes the combat enjoyable, and it is incredibly jank, so bear with me, is the 'rage' mechanic. as you hit or get hit by enemies, you build up rage, which can be used to power powerful special abilities. now this isn't that unusual, but the rage meter fills in about 3 hits. your character is so gloriously overpowered chaining specials attacks into special attacks. and your going to need to chain those attacks because it is a slog. get used to the earth quake/fire rage/dark rage animations cause you will be hiting them evercouple of seconds in crowded fights. Other scuffed details, tutorials, its not too unusual to have tutorials for less used mechanics a bit later in the game. this game has a few tutorials introducing enemies that are only vulnerable to certain attacks, these enemies never show up outside of the tutorial fight. one of these tutorial fights is right before the final boss, explaining a mechanic you probably never used, and is actually useless against said final boss. its madness, this is not a game for people who enjoy beat em ups, but if you want to spend some money and go on an adventure of really questionable designs and button mashing. the experience is bizzare and unique.
