Infinity Blade III Review
PROS
- Still the best gesture-based fighter available on iOS.
- Leveling characters and weapons is rewarding.
- Loads of enemies and arenas.
- New combos and forging options let you customise your own fighting style.
CONS
- Overpowered bosses force you to repeat earlier levels.
- Grinding for XP can cause battle fatigue.
VERDICT
Though its grindier moments don't completely gel with its level-based structure, Infinity Blade III is a handsome and often thrilling end to a landmark series.
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So here we are again. Infinity Blade has returned for what may be its final episode of slashtastic god-battering action. The world is bigger, the weapons are more plentiful, and the RPG elements have been applied with a little more vigour. There's even a more traditional linear structure, which funnels your warriors through specific stages and locations in a set order.
But, while the beast may have grown and visited an armoury, its beating heard remains unchanged. Infinity Blade III is still about slashing oversized monsters to death using your finger, allowing you to deal fatal blows with a pinky, and fell gods with a gesture.
Accompanying Sirus on his quest is Isla, a female fighter who happens to be equally adept at chopping titans down to size. Both characters now have three fighting styles to choose from. You can focus on perfecting the art of dual-weilding, or push experience points into light or heavy weapon use. Each discipline has its own perks and penalties - powerful two-handed weapons pack a wallop but leave you unable to dodge, while dual-wielding yields deal less damage, but lets you leap around the battlefield like Yoda in that crap Star Wars movie.
The fighting itself feels incredibly familiar. When it comes to this kind of gesture-based fighting the Infinity Blade series is second to none, and this instalment manages to deliver the same thrills as its predecessors.
Perfectly executing a series of parries before letting fly with a furious flurry of sword strokes still gets the blood pumping, and the wide variety of enemy types keeps scuffles pretty fresh. There are a few tweaks - weapon specific combos and the occasional quick-time ruckus with a dragon - but Infinity Blade die-hards should find themselves immediately at home.
It's when you step off the battlefield that you notice the big changes. A linear story replaces the rudimentary kill-them-all-for-killing's-sake structure of the previous games. However, while the story adds a definite sense of purpose and momentum, its thrust is easily lost amid the inevitable retreading of previous areas.
You see, despite the switch to a linear narrative, the game still kicks you back to the beginning of each chapter when killed by the boss. These bosses are often tens of levels more powerful than you, and are deliberately designed to hand you your diced buttocks on the first encounter. When this happens, the game advises you to return to a previous level and grind out some more experience.
This is where the RPG elements take hold. Stats need to be levelled, unlocking abilities and bonuses. Better weapons and armour must be purchased. Existing blades upgraded with enchanted gems, of improved with the help of a blacksmith.
It's a costly business. And, if you don't want to pay out for in-app purchases, it's going to take you a substantial amount of backtracking to accumulate the currency required to give you warriors a fighting chance against some of the bigger bosses.
If all you were looking for from Infinity Blade III was more of the same, then this game should put a big tick your box. We found the low-level grinding to be a bit of a pain, especially when there's supposedly a story to be told. And, with the same gameplay foundations propping up a lengthier campaign padded with restarts, this episode runs the risk of outstaying its welcome. Niggles aside, though, this is a confident end to a platform-defining franchise, one which should keep fans plenty busy over the coming weeks.
Screenshots
$6.99
