This game originally came out on the handheld devises: Playstation Vita, and Nintendo 3DS befre getting ported to the Playstation 4 6 monthsThis game originally came out on the handheld devises: Playstation Vita, and Nintendo 3DS befre getting ported to the Playstation 4 6 months later. With that in mind, let's proceed...
I'm gonna start off by saying that Aeterno Blade's lack of voice acting, outdated graphics, and stiff movement and animations isn't at all the problem! The playing style takes up a retro feel that original Castlevania fans will no doubt appreciate. In this hack 'n' slash/metroidvania; mashing the attack button will often punish the player, as it becomes impossible to cancel the attack animations without using Blink. Most gamers will see this as an issue when it really shouldn't be. The game teaches you to control your actions, and not go all Incredible Hulk over everything. There's also a lot of advanced attack combos that certainly earned it's dues.
But is where the positive feedback ends. And the rest of your hopes & dreams shatter like glass. Everything else in this PS4 port is a disaster!!!!
Why does this game continue to spam tool tips and tutorials?? Whose bright idea was it to not allow players to turn them off???
1. Story
The story revolves around a girl named Freyja, whose out to seek revenge on the dark lord, Beladim, for destroying her village, as well as it's residents.
The story is so dull, so boring, so pointless, that it's existence is actually hurting the game! You will constantly be stopped to read 2 to 8 pages of gibberish dialogue they call "cutscenes", and this will happen during battles. The only cutscenes that matter however is the first one that plays at the start of Stage 1, and the ones that play during Stage 7. There will also be some slightly more interesting scenes should the player go for the hidden ending, but even that manages to screw itself. There is no reason for "this" story to be in this game!!
2. Graphics and Visuals
(Refer to the review intro)
3. Gameplay
The enemy variety is well done. Even if some of those enemies only have different coloured pallets, they're still given at least 1 new attack, so it always keeps the foes fresh. The game has platformer moments where you have to dodge and jump over spikes using the abilities you acquire from gameplay. Finally, when you defeat an enemy, you collect "Yellow Orbs" or Y.Orbs, which can then be used to power up your character. You can improve HP, MP, Attack, and many others, All of this sounds great!
.... Unfortunately, there's no balance in anything stated above. Despite the amount of attributes you can power up, it's still quite linear, and is almost punishing in it's design. In fact, if you don't upgrade your attack power, you'll eventually find yourself hacking & slashing at a regular enemy for over 5 minutes. Not a boss, not a superpowered enemy on steroids, but a REGULAR ENEMY. It will become nearly impossible for you to kill bosses, you won't hold your ground, and it is completely unfair! To make matters worse: you are already hitting the yellow orb grinds halfway through the game. Wanna speedrun the game? Too bad! Wanna casually playthrough the game? Too bad! Build up your health and attack power first or else get horribly owned by an overpowered boss or enemy horde. And by the time you finish that grind, you'll become sick of playing this game. I know I was.
Here's the insulting part: when you die, you restart the area with a little bit more health. You can exploit this to get full HP in an area. Continue to die even more, and the game will ask if you want to reduce the difficulty. There's no f***ing penalty for death!!! Was this even playtested? Or were the designers afraid people would rate the game poorly for being too hard?!? What's the point in checkpoints if players can just heal through death?? Like I said: no balance.
4. Soundtrack
The soundtrack is pretty much the only thing that won't make you vomit. Some tracks will serve as a aspirin, while others will lead you to question it's existence.
5. Bugs & Glitches
These are the bugs I encountered in the PS4 version of Aeterno Blade...
- The game randomly crashed on me 4 times during by playthrough! - Save often!
- The music will bug itself during cutscenes by not playing the audio properly.
- When an enemy dies; it registers as dead, but it doesn't despawn and continues trying to attack you.
- When battling flying enemies, attacking them can cause them to travel upwards until the point where it's completely out of bounds. When this happens, the enemy will instantly die.
- The enemies will sometimes get locked in a turning animation when it tries to turn around and face you, leaving it completely defenceless, and giving you an easy kill.
6. Overall Verdict
There was fun here and there, but there were also times when I didn't want to play it due to how boring and repetitive it got. I just wanted it to end, and that is not a good feeling. Aeterno Blade gets a 4 out of 10. There is nothing perfect about this game. Itt isn't complete trash, just a tier above trash.… Expand
