While fun, Blades of Time is heavily flawed with design choices that can make you crawl during the gameplay. Without them, this game could be a Devil May Cry clone well worth its full price.
What really amazes me in this game is its scenery and maps.
They've managed to create a world that is beautiful to look at and some vistas are worth the awe.
You will wonder in montains, forests, deserts, snow montains, sky alien ships islands and you will like it. They're gorgeous.
Unfortunately the praises stop there.
Gameplay is frustrating in many ways.
Some examples:
You do not have free flow of movement
Ayumi can 'dodge' and double jump pretty high, but after each animation she will have a delay animation of almost 2 seconds, which breaks the flow of movement in a way that you feel the developers decided to punish players that would try to be creative and experiment with her moveset.
That means that you cannot jump, dodge, attack, use a magic attack without the almost 2 seconds animation delay that will stop her after each action. (This is so frustrating I cannot express enough)
Some areas have repetitive combinations of enemies that are REALLY annoying to deal with
By annoying I don't mean hard as if Im crying because I couldn't handle with it (I play DMC, MGRR and other HacknSlash without problems). By annoying I mean annoying combinations that force you to play the way the developers intended, again, breaking free flow and creative gameplay, which is the strongest point in games like this
Time rewind mechanics are FUN to combo with, but you cannot move while you rewind time
There's a mechanic that is a huge part of gameplay and puzzles and it is really fun to experiment with (specially when you can create more than 5 copies of yourself and combo enemies to death haha)
BUT - and it is a huge BUT - You cannot move when you rewind time, only after you use it. Again, breaking free flow of creative movement and gameplay.
Overall a fun but heavily flawed experience.
