Blade of Darkness is a mesmerizing 3D action from the 3rd person, the action of which unfolds in an amazing fantasy world. A brave hero must find the Sacred Blade, which will allow the final destruction of the evil. 4 heroes with unique skills and strikes, 16 types of terrain, 25 types of enemies with different tactics of combat, 100 types of shields, cold and throwing weapons.
Platforms:
PC
Publisher:
Codemasters
Developer:
Rebel Act Studios
Genres:
Adventure / Action Adventure
Release Date:
February 21, 2001
Game Modes:
Singleplayer
A brew of various genres packaged into one action-adventure.
After four years in development and getting passed through two or three publishers, it’s almost a miracle that Blade of Darkness (a.k.a, Severance) ever saw the light of store shelves. The game’s main selling points were its hand-to-hand fighting mechanics and jaw-dropping shadow effects. It also borrowed ides from a wide spectrum of genres – standard first-person action adventures, RPG elements with four playable characters, a beat ’em up style combat system, and no small strategy melded within the subtleties of the core gameplay. It was an ambitious project.
At its heart, Blade of Darkness is a castle and dungeon crawl – sometimes repetitively so – intertwined with a perpetual key hunt and search for six runes, hidden in secret locations within the game’s 18 levels. This journey across a traditional fantasy world overrun by orcs is made palatable by an eerie lighting system and some amazing injections of sound that cause the tense atmosphere to drip from the stone cold walls of each new location.
Technologically, Blade of Darkness has some nice details and killer real-time shadow effects, though the graphics aren’t quite as refined as those of, say, the UnrealEngine-powered Rune. In building a tense atmosphere of danger in every single environment, the sound in fact offers the winning grace. As you enter one cathedral area, decked with demonic iconography in its stained-glass windows, a rousing Gregorian chant drowns you. Elsewhere, the ambient sound is unobtrusive, and footsteps sound different on various surfaces, showing a keen attention to detail.
All this detail serves as a backdrop to the combat itself, which is an intriguing, carefully constructed affair of thoughtful thrusting, slashing, and parrying. Each of the four character classes — Dwarf, Amazon, Knight and Barbarian — has its own attack styles and weapon preferences: the Barbarian wields two-handed weapons with ease, for example, while the Dwarf is at home with axes and hammers and the defensive aid of a shield.
The characters also have unique special moves, pulled off using combos akin to those in a beat-’em-up. The quirky control scheme doesn’t let you strafe at all unless you’re in a combat stance–achieved by hitting the Tab key to lock-on to an enemy, at which point you can strafe around in a dance routine of jabs, swipes, and poetic combos. Some more powerful magic weapons have their own specific combo options
All these fighting features sounds wonderfully compelling until you discover just how hard it is to pull off the super-power combos. The ability to nail the super-powered special attacks makes a huge difference, particularly in the later game, when you’re faced with enemies sporting several thousand more hit points than you. But these attacks are tough to complete and frustrating in the chaos of battle, as your combos run together and quickly sap your stamina bar. At least when you do land special moves, you’re rewarded with a colored glow and increased damage
You’ll be fighting orcs, knights, skeletons, zombies, and golems, each with their own combat styles. Each encounter plays in a unique way. On top of that, multiple enemies will work together, with the strongest coming forward first, though nothing will inflame your ire more than a near-dead orc swigging from a full health potion it’s carrying while you’re dodging his buddies’ swipes. There’s a standard save-anywhere system, though no quicksave / quickload keys, so reloading a game is a bit tedious.
Blade of Darkness can be long and winded, but it’s encouraging that the designers seemed to keep the best for last, with the final levels featuring the most impressive boss enemies, and the most detailed and inventive level designs. It will be a hard journey getting there – from start to finish, Blade of Darkness will test your mettle, resourcefullness and, occasionally, your patience. The melee combat system and controls might not be for everybody, but for the seasoned action-adventure fan this is a journey worth taking.
System Requirements: Pentium II 400 MHz, 64 MB RAM, 8 MB Video, Win95
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Tags: Severance Blade of Darkness Download Full PC Game Review
Astrako Fucksia has informed us about a new ENBSeries mod for the classic PC title Severance: Blade Of Darkness. As the title suggests, this mod aims to overhaul the game’s visuals by implementing a number of post-processing effects. And, for a game that was released a decade ago, it actually looks good.
Here is a description for what this mod introduces to the game:
“The use of color correction and image post-processing techniques bring a new enhanced look for the game. Upgrade the already amazing lighting of the game with modern graphic techniques. However its not just a visual update. Now the light itself is a factor to account for in the player strategies. An archer standing against the sun will be hard to see. Circle your enemies so the light doesn’t hit you in the eyes or you’ll be fighting silhouettes. Fog is really dense so watch your step, it’s a long way down…
The intention is to create a strong contrast between light and Darkness. Increase the immersive aspect of the game by enhancing the lighting quality while preserving as much as possible the original color palette and lighting design. Sunlight is bright and intense but most of the interior areas where sun can’t reach are really dark. Torches can’t illuminate very far. Is very hard to fight your way trough the darkness so all weapons now can glow in the dark (and not only in presence of orcs like the old blades of Gondolin). You can switch the weapon light on or off. That creates spectacular fights in the darkness. While you are circling your foes, the shadows dance over the majestic environments like no other game can do.”
YouTube’s member ‘sirpiltrafus’ has released a video in order to showcase the visual updates that were possible thanks to this mod. Now if only there was a HD Texture Pack for Severance…