Warrior Nation-Blade Review
PROS
- Tries to break the rigid beat'em-up mold.
- Huge variety of attacks to keep you busy and provide some unique strategies.
CONS
- Stiff animations.
- Slap-dash interface with too many buttons to keep track of.
VERDICT
Warrior Nation-Blade just skates through as something action fans might want to check out, but many problems plague the title so expect a rough ride.
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As horizontal beat'em-up-come-action-RPG titles go, Warrior Nation-Blade by Park Sun-woo isn't going to win any awards just yet, but before you discount this game off-hand I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with how it managed to hold my attention.
In most beat'em-ups I tend to have one particular pet-peeve that's very difficult to avoid: repetition. 'But that's what the genre is all about!' I hear you exclaim, but that's not entirely true. While button-mashing may be somewhat of a standard, this can be offset by clever enemies, unique power-ups or just plain old varied environments or challenges. Warrior Nation attempts to stave off boredom by attempting something rather clever - by eliminating the old button-mash routine. Players are given, almost immediately, a tonne of buttons to press with short cooldown abilities that suck up your mana and demolish the enemies around you. Between stages you can upgrade your abilities or earn new ones and for those persistent enough to max out their attack skill you'll even be rewarded with a longer 'combo' attack.
Unfortunately this is backed up by the visuals that lack a lot of polish, with enemies that are recycled with typical palette swaps; unfortunate interface design choices; and extremely basic animations that don't translate the actions of your character or your enemies clearly.
Warrior Nation-Blade has a strong concept that could definitely make for an entertaining action title in the future, but for now it's a hard game to recommend as repetition in other areas and bad design choices mar this interesting title.
Screenshots
