Blade & Bones (2016) PC

Indie developers have long been out of the underground and are trying to compete with big-name studios with multimillion-dollar budgets. But unfortunately, most of these attempts raise a lot of questions, as happened with the recent Blade & Bones, created under the strong influence of the legendary action RPG Dark Souls series. Formally, all the elements necessary for a successful project are present in the game, but the dubious execution of each of them makes an ambitious clone only a faded shadow of the original.

Nero's Bloody Tears

The representative of the genre in question immerses the player in a rather original universe created under the obvious influence of Japanese culture. The main demiurge of the universe named Nero, who has a rather melancholic disposition, creates a world out of his own tears during one of his bouts of bad mood. Later, from the same dubious material, a race of demigods Orins appears, who immediately start a war against their creator.

The father deals with rebellious children, as a result of which only seven representatives of a powerful race remain in the entire universe. It is for these survivors, represented in the game by seven irreplaceable lives, that the player will control, whose main goal will be to find seven legendary swords that can lift the curse from the once dominant race in the world.

At the same time, it is quite difficult to follow the development of the plot, since the quality of the dialogues leaves much to be desired. And after localization into Russian, many dialogues turn into an incomprehensible stream of lamentation.

If we talk about the graphic component of Blade & Bones, which is implemented on the latest version of Unreal Engine, then it looks good: a lot of combat effects, the change of day and night and other beauties could attract fans of juicy pictures, but their hopes are dashed by an unsuccessful design that turns the sad world of Nero into a sad wasteland.

The last hope of the game, which many indie developers are betting on. the gameplay is immediately knocked out to the player by its overestimated complexity. And along with inconvenient management and reduced capabilities (for example, the rifts are so important in Demon Souls, they are absolutely ineffective here), the battle with each ordinary bot turns into a protracted boring fight.

As a result, Blade & Bones fails to achieve success in any of the key elements:

1. Technological, but empty level design – 5/10.
2. An original, but indigestible plot with a disgusting translation – 4/10.
3. Difficult and inconvenient action – 4/10.

Thus, the universe of emotional Niro can attract only special connoisseurs of the free gaming industry, who are no stranger to looking for grains of gold in tons of waste