Blades of Gory

This game, in my opinion, is quite unique, maybe not in genre, but more so unique in it's design and execution. Pun fully intended given this game's theme. With this in mind, I honest to God feel like this game is as much left field as it's inspirations. At it's heart, Blades of Gory is a dumb and campy/cheesy fighting game, but in the best ways possible, whilst also being a pocket sized homage project. To put it humorously, if you looked up the term "Good Clone" in the dictionary, this fits that 90%, and the other 10% brings oddity in a fun way In my opinion, Blades of Gory, or BoG for short, feels like a mixture of the following games/design choices, I'll elaborate on each SNK Neo Geo Pocket/Neo Geo Pocket Color era/platform handhelds as well as SNK style difficulty Time Killers Bootleg era fighting games (Think of the oddities you see from the NES, Genesis, and Gameboy esque era Simplified Fighting Games Conan the Barbarian/Deadliest Warrior Each game inspiration and design choice is elaborated below Time Killers-Now this is the biggest left field design choice in my opinion. For those unaware, Time Killers was a Mortal Kombat Klone (yes that was intentional) created b…

Remember the times when playing against the CPU was fun, the bosses were challenging at first, but somehow you found the pattern to beat them? Remember those NES fighting games where you didn’t have to learn massive strategies to win, and you could just have fun with every character by finding their special traits, power, and range? Well, this is what this game is all about. Also, it’s the first game I’ve ever seen with interactive endings. This is awesome!

Great game! Nice mixture of Moonstone: A Hard Days Knight and old NES

It looks good for sure, with super-chunky pixels and tiny, almost cute sprites (except the much bigger bosses), a cartoony look contrasting with the fanservice and ultraviolence. The Continue screen is one of the coolest I've seen in years. It feels like a parody at times: Bill the Barbarian, Ikini in a bikini, Axel with an axe... interestingly, I've seen some comments noting how it's almost like the stereotypical representation of videogames in certain media, especially in the 90s and 2000s ("Buy me Bonestorm or go to Hell!") Unfortunately it's not fun to play. With three different parries, I'd have thought opponents would display wind-up times that allow the player to decide which is going to work, but it's not the case, making the system moot. Therefore, the only other way is to maintain an aggressive approach, as managing to be the first to connect one or two strikes can easily decide the match. It's very limited, as characters cannot jump, dash, or roll. And it gets only worse as bosses act in ways that increasingly stray from regular fighting, like the dragon even jumping and causing stalactites to fall, while the player keeps being woefully under-equipped for that. The end…

What a terrible game. The guard system makes little sense, and it's very mashy. The whole game is also hyper-sexualized. I feel like this game was made by and for socially awkward nerds with a fetish for half-naked ladies doused in blood. It's just bad. Play *Slice, Dice, and Rice* instead. It's a much better game with a similar combat style.

[h1]SUMMARY[/h1] NES-style fighting game that tries and fails to hit its mark. We have a decent selection of fights, we have adequate animation that fits the 8-bit aesthetic, and we have well designed bosses, on top of a decently catchy soundtrack. What's not to like? Well for starters, every single character plays identically. They all have the same attacks, the same blocks, just their attack distances and speeds vary, and they don't vary by much. The only unique thing about the characters is their taunts. For a fighting game, the most important aspect about it is its lineup, and for our lineup we get very bland, very uninteresting, not particularly unique-from-one-another characters. That kills a lot of the replay value right there. Secondly, there are next to no unique mechanics. Even the "gore" that it advertises is not very unique to it at all, just copying games like Samurai Shodown or Barbarian 2 for the Amiga. I would just recommend you play those games over this instead, especially since this is 10 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dollars. This is a 4.99 game, at maximum. [h1]OVERALL SCORE[/h1] Slightly Not Recommended [h1]REPLAY VALUE[/h1] Below Average