Customer Reviews

Severance Blade Of Darkness

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It was a pretty cool game. I have played with all 4 warriors (Barbarian is my favorite) and finished the game more than one time. Although the four warriors start with different scenes after 5th or 6th level it's same story/scene for everyone. Of course the deadly strikes (combo) with the sword (I am talking about Tukaram, the Barbarian) are difficult to maneuver at first but if you practice a couple of times (when no enemy is around) then you would be at ease to strike with them. The combo strikes are absolutely brilliant and the stroyline is also decent. Given the time it was produced the graphic features are pretty cool in this game. For better performance you also need to know which weapon to be used against whom, e.g. a club is more effective against the skeletons whereas the swords are more effective against the fleshy enemies. There is only one flaw that I have noticed. The game gives you an option of using the Sword of Ianna (the deadliest one only if the special strike is available) if you can collect 6 relics scattered throughout the game. After playing the game at least 6-7 times, I could find only 4 of them. Either they are hidden at a place beyond a player's reach or they are not present at all.
Overall this is a nice game and would recommend to people who does not always love shooting in a game.

Edit made on August28 2008; Re reading my review months later I seem to come across as quite harsh and give the impression that I didn't like the game, but really, I did quite a bit. It's atmospheric and fun but I maintain that the control system is often frustrating. Anyway, here is my original view of this game.....

Severance Blade Of Darkness is a third / first person swords and sorcery fantasy adventure, with one very noticeable feature.- IT IS VERY DIFFICULT! Unless you possess the finger dexterity of a pianist, you'll have trouble finishing this game. Even then you'll need a lot of luck. And with no scaleable difficulty levels the casual gamer is truly going to be in for a rough ride.

It's essentially a hack n slash romp through various fantasy environments. Which in itself is a viable subject for a computer game (anyone ever played Drakan?) but what could have been enjoyable is instead frustrating. The basic idea is that you choose between 4 heroes (well balanced Knight,sturdy Dwarf, fierce Barbarian and a female archer type) and your character will gain experience by defeating enemies. Higher experience levels will allow "combo moves" to be used. Unfortunately, although your enemies tend to be somewhat weaker than you (albeit not much) you will almost always find yourself outnumbered and battles will usually end up being a frantic free for all with no time for thinking. If an enemy manages to hit you when you're in the middle of a potentially fearsome combo move, the sequence is broken and you'll stand there stunned for 2 seconds, all the while taking more damage from other enemies.

The real flaw with this game though is the incredibly fiddly "combo" (combination move) system. Having such a fierce array of combos means nothing if you are unable to successfully make them work, For example the rather cool sounding Vampire Attack means that you press "attack left", then the backwards and right buttons. Getting this to work with no-one around is tricky enough, but in combat it's what I might call "beyond frustrating" Maybe one try in ten will you get it to work (even then it might not hit, or you may get hit yourself beforehand) , but the other 9 times will have your character swing his sword and then simply walk to the right, all the time a sitting duck for an attack. I'm not sure what the problem is, but in case you think it was just my clumsy fingers it seems from visiting online forums that other people have the same problem. Maybe it's a 9 nanosecond window of oppurtunity to make the correct moves (okay I exaggerate...slightly) or there's some other problem that prevents moves being recognised. This makes many combats mainly a matter of fluking your way through to a win. There is also a "Lock On" feature which allows you to keep facing an enemy for greater accuracy, but it's sluggish and often takes a second or so to take effect. The net effect of being hit mid combo, the unreliability of actually making a combo ands sluggish controls means that a battle with more than two opponents end up being frantic "press the attack button/ jump back/ attack again" affairs with luck playing a major part.


What further aggravates this is long loading times. You'll find yourself reloading many, many times, and having to wait 45 seconds or so to get back into play rapidly becomes a chore.

Jumping too is difficult to judge, and a succesful jump is literally a case of split seconds. No margin of error here I'm afraid.

On the postive side though, the graphics were for the time very good, (dynamic lighting and shadows are excellent) and the ambient sounds and music are generally quite effective. Sometimes you really do get a feeling on being in another environment.

Overall a bold attempt, but a game that's beyond the patience of the average gamer, If you like traditional fantasy settings and prefer two handed Doom Axes to railguns, then I can hesitantly recommend this game, as it can be very enjoyable in places, but be aware that some frustration awaits.