Taking on a rogue-like game will always require a bit of patience and trial-and-error. Oftentimes, each death will send you back with just enough supplies to grab an upgrade or two before heading back out. What makes Blade Assault stand out though is what more Team Suneat and NEOWIZ have included in their active runs. It’s not only the home base that can give you an edge in the game with this one.

Story

After the devastating Red Stone War, the world is divided into three regions: the mutant-infested outside grounds, the Undercity where people have fled to seek refuge from mutants, and the sky city Esperanza where the rich and powerful rule over the world. As one of the strongest members living in the Undercity, you head out to take on the military rule of the Esperanza in hope of making a change that provides new freedoms to the people in the Undercity. Along the way, you’ll find yourself taking on harsh and heavy mutants that have infested this dystopian cyberpunk world.

Gameplay

Starting out, you are given nothing more than a weapon and a character full of ego. Running out into the world to take on the military, you will face off against your first enemies. This first level experience will show you some of what you can expect to see in each level as you make your way through a few sections filled with enemies, a safe alley with a chance to grab a bite to eat and call up a limo for travel, and then head back into enemy waves just before finding the boss of the level.

This is the typical layout of each section of the game, but there are a few changes due to randomization mechanics and plenty of intricacies that can be found within. For instance, you can find crates that can be opened with gems that will give you the choice between three different power-up options, breakable props that provide the gems you need for purchasing things, a power node that causes a final wave of enemies that will finish the section of the level once defeated, and then the thing that makes this game different from other rogue-likes; a power-up of varying kind.

Of course, when you are back at the home base, you can use some of the items you collected in your runs to upgrade your gear, abilities, and improve the friendship levels of different characters so that you can get discounts and deals with them. Those purchasable items include gold coins and green boxes. But the mid-run power-up nodes are only effective for the current run you are in. These power-ups include electric, fire, and freezing abilities, along with health and mana point increases. You will only get one per section, but once you finish a section you can pick between two randomly given options as to which power-up type you want to head for.

There are other collectibles as well, each with their own use, but for mid-run use, you will want to focus on the gems and red clusters. Gems can be used with NPCs to purchase a variety of things, such as health, upgrades, lower your enemy threat level, and more. Clusters are used by two specific NPCs and each one will give a major boost in your attack power and/or ability. Sometimes you will even be able to boost the elemental damage you are causing with your power-ups.

When it comes to the actual combat in the game, it slightly depends on which character you use. You have your base character, but after a few runs, you will be able to unlock two other characters to play as. Each character has three weapon choices in the armory they can choose from before heading out into battle. One is given for free and the other two have to be purchased, but they are crazy cheap so it isn’t much of an issue. I personally preferred my base character the most, but each character has their use so be sure to try each one out and look at their armory options.

Fighting enemies has a nice flow to it. You have your main attack that will be able to be spammed as a combination attack, which will hit all enemies within range as it hits multiple enemies at one time. Other than your main attack, you will have a sub attack that is different for each weapon, the ability to dash/dodge, and then a strong attack that costs mana to use. After getting some power-ups, you can upgrade these attacks to having elemental damage, simply do more damage, have side effects, and even gain extra moves.

I found myself using electricity for offense the most as an electric weapon with chain lightning damage was a lifesaver a lot of times. The fire element has some good choices as well for passive and sub attack damage. Freezing seemed to have the best defense options though. You don’t have to stick to one element, luckily enough, so look into finding the powers that fit your playstyle and character choice best.

Audio and Visual

Going with a design that appears as an artistically improved pixelart was definitely a great choice for this game. Everything was colorful where it needed to be while the destroyed sections of various maps always held the looks of a dystopian city space. Maintaining a cyber-focused design really added to the broken city aesthetic as well, especially when you get closer to the military levels and enemies start getting a more mechanical design style.

Sound effects in the game are fitting to the point that they are practically negligible to be noticed, which is a great sign of this game’s ability to be immersive as well. The music is what stands out the most as it does a good job keeping the excited feeling in the scene. Although there were a few moments in the game that the music could have been made to fit better, it was always fitting to the environment itself.

Replayability

As a rogue-like game, you will have to replay it over and over until you make it all the way through! The addition of the “easy mode” option in the settings is definitely going to help with the replayability as I can see many players playing through the game with that setting turned on just so they can see all the levels, defeat all the bosses, and then unlock as much as possible for their character to survive a standard difficulty run.

What Could Be Better

I wish I could have used some of my upgrade options that are in the city, mid-run. When you are five bosses deep into a run, you have a lot of supplies that could be used to upgrade friendship levels or purchase gear. It would have been nice to be able to go back to the hub temporarily in order to do this. It would be a nice option to include, even if you can only do it once per run.

Some of the aspects of a run should have been shown to the player in a tutorial of kind. For instance, there is a health power stem that when used has a chance to increase the enemy threat level. However, when you stand over it, it doesn’t have a name or says what it does for the player - it just says it can increase the enemy threat level. I skipped over this a few times thinking it was just some kind of trap to make the game harder until one time I was really low on health and I knew a boss was coming up, so I used it just to see what it did only to find out it gave me full health. I definitely wish I knew that sooner!

Verdict

Blade Assault is as entertaining as it is challenging! I tried the game a bunch of times on standard difficulty but had to test out the easy mode option and it is wildly different. That is definitely going to be a great inclusion for players who enjoy this type of gameplay but struggle with the challenge that it provides. Whether you play through this game on easy or go all out, it is going to be an enjoyably frustrating experience. Getting through all of the bosses in one run is going to take a few upgrades and a lot of skill; think you have what it takes?