X Blades is a third person action adventure game,which centres around a treasure hunter named Ayumi.She accidentally unleashes a dark force and finds the only way to save the world from it is to beat the living daylights out of the wave after wave of the nasty creatures it has unleashed. Armed with a blade in each hand and a series of nifty moves she is sent on her way.It would appear that she was in such a rush to start her world saving mission that she didn’t have chance to finish off getting dressed !.

The game loads up and the first things which struck me about it were its graphics and overall presentation.They were much better than I was expecting from this title.It’s brightly coloured and superbly defined backgrounds look very impressive indeed.Ayumi herself is also well defined and animated and even with a huge number of enemies attacking her from every possible angle the game appears to run without any slowdown or frame rate problems.Audio wise the game sounds pretty good as well and when you see it in action it is impressive.The game has an anime style,look and feel to it.There are also many anime style cut scenes throughout the game.Again these look extremely good,even if the voice overs are pretty cheesey.During the first 20 minutes or so that I played this game I was beginning to think I had discovered something of a hidden gem.

Graphics & Sound 8/10

Gameplay wise it’s pretty easy to pick up and play.The control system is straight forward and familiar to fans of this type of game. There are three types of attacks at your disposal : swords for close combat,gun blades for attacking far off enemies and a collection of special magic attacks.As you progress through the game you can upgrade all of these attacks.You can also assign these attacks to the buttons on your controller. These can then be instantly selected during gameplay.This selection can be altered at any point throughout the game as you unlock more powerful attacks.The game works in a very simple way,you enter an arena and all the available exits close.You then have to hack your way through the waves of enemies which spawn in that arena before you can collect any treasure and move on to the next one and that’s basically it.There are a few platform style parts scattered throughout the game but these are few and far between and are not great anyway.I quite enjoyed playing the first half an hour or so of the game before thinking ‘is this all there is to it ?’.The camera angles can also be very unhelpful,as believe it or not there were times I really needed to see what was going on and not stare at Ayumi’s backside !.Another area in which the game falls down on is its automatic aiming system.Quite often it will lock onto an enemy miles away while there is a pack of nasties trying to chew your face off.At other times it will do the exact opposite and lock on to some little creature who cannot do you a great deal of harm,this allows a huge boss to leap in and finish you off.Boss fights can also be very tedious,you must dispose of the waves of spawning smaller enemies while attempting to hit the boss character with whichever special attack is required to defeat them.This is fine.but the sheer number of times you need to do this on some characters is ridiculous.Some fight sequences seemed to go on for an eternity until a lucky shot thankfully brought them to an end.Another thing with some of the bosses is that you need to find out which kind of special attack is required to beat them.This is done by pressing ‘start’ and scrolling through your monster database.Having to do this mid battle really breaks up the gameplay.It’s a shame that a game which looks so good and basically plays well enough is let down with these hugely frustrating flaws.

Gameplay 3/10

Personally I do not have a problem with having a semi clothed young lady as a games lead character,as its nothing really new.This has been done to death with the Tomb Raider franchise for years.Ayumi is basically a poor mans Lara Croft in a thong !.The problem I do have with Ayumi is that I just found her really annoying.She mutters an endless barrage of airhead clichés which really got on my nerves.Also with a character like this a touch of humour would not have gone amiss.It may well have made her just a little more tolerable ?.

Overall X Blades it is just such a flawed game that I would not recommend it.Where is the fun in a game which in places basically requires you to do little more than mercilessly smack the ‘X’ button ?.I know ‘hack and slash’ games are nothing new and to be honest I have nothing against them.It’s just that other games such as the Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry series have done this many times before and much better .The real shame is that buried deep within this mess of a video game is something which could and should have been fun.With better level design,some decent platforming and puzzle sections,a more varied combo system and enemies which didn’t take forever to beat this game would be improved enormously.Unfortunately though,beneath its very pretty graphics lies a tedious and infuriating game which I imagine will be heading to bargain bins very soon.

Overall 4/10