If a hot and beautiful girl can't save X-Blades, nothing else can.
Ayumi is a treasure hunter and, even being cute and hot, she can't save X-Blades. The Introductory movie and all the other movies don't have sound or, at least, I couldn't find a fix for it. Anyway, in this introductory movie, she hears about a weird and powerful artifact that an old map tells and shows where the artifact is hide. After get there, in some sort of ancient and giant temple, she fight the guardian of the artifact and, after defeat it, Ayumi touch it and become cursed, faded to succumb to darkness. So, Light, the guardian of the artifact, tells that she must find the other artifact to become free of that curse. After this, she starts her journey to find the second artifact and this will not be the easiest of the jobs.
The history can look very interesting, but, in truth, lacks of a solid background and of a minimum history development that should give you a reasonable reason to fight with endless hordes of repetitive enemies. Repetitive enemies? Repetitive enemies are only the beginning of the repetitiveness of this game. Actually, this game should be called "Repetitive Blades"…
Before Ayumi advance to the next level, you MUST defeat ALL enemies, always. The problem is that you must face hundreds of them, and many times is the same type of enemy, sometimes changing to only one type to two types or maybe three. And they will just come to Ayumi mindless, just to hit and hit and hit a little more, and others will just stand and cast some fire balls from distance, or will stay flying above Ayumi's head, trying to fly down and hit her and, when she must face a boss, it will have almost a limitless resistance and health, plus the power to spawn endless monsters of the same type.
How we fight all that hordes and hordes of enemies? Just swing your blades like mad and when Ayumi's fury is high enough, cast your most powerful spell until the fury is over, and do all again. Do this until hundreds of monsters are dead or until you defeat the boss. And this can take the longest five minutes of your life or third minutes that more look like hours killing and killing masses of the same enemy.
Fury is like mana here, and can be recharged in three ways: when Ayumi get hit, when she hit something or collecting fury spheres inside of jars around the levels. This fury is used to make Ayumi release her powers that can be unlocked collecting the souls dropped from each monster that she defeat or inside objects around the levels. To get more souls as possible, the best way is to hit hundred times without being hit, making a lot of souls be dropped after each kill.
But the most powerful moves of Ayumi are the ones that can hit multiple enemies at once. So, in combat, the best and the only way to survive the waves is to cast these spells until all are dead. Only way? Yes, only way, because Ayumi DO NOT have a block system or a special move or even a defensive spell that can block enemy attacks or projectiles. So, you may think that 'jump' is the way out… but isn't. The enemies in X-Blades run to Ayumi looking for her future point and some of them can jump too and, considering that her jump is one of the worse jumps used in any game (slow and like she is in the moon), it will only make the enemies be closer to you and make her more vulnerable to hits.
And don't mind to use her shoots. Ayumi's blades are even swords like pistols. But the pistols are so weak and so unnecessary, that you'll only use it in some moments that X-Blades forces you to use it to kill some enemy that can only be affected by bullets. But these are few moments, making us to forget that Ayumi can shoot.
All of what I had wrote would be a lie if wasn't the poor control system. I can resume it in three things that will make any player hate this game, and all associated with the mouse: sensibility, aim and camera. And, for a game with a pace so fast, the controls are vital to keep a good play. But, unfortunately, this didn't happen. In combat, Ayumi will hit what we're pointing with the mouse. So, the camera is moved depending in what Ayumi is hitting, but, like I said before, the pace and the unbalanced sensibility will make combats be a little hard and very frustrating to keep the play a pleasure experience, like say "finally it's over!" instead of "I want more!!".
But Ayumi's powers could have a descent variation, having three types: melee, shooting and airstrike, including a good amount of magics to unlock with the souls. Unfortunately, they're so bad developed that you'll use melee and magic combination in 90% of time. To make them stronger, we'll find pieces of artifacts through the levels. Each three artifacts of some type will upgrade one of the Ayumi's skills, Also, she have the Light and Dark forms, that, when activated, will consume the Fury, that will not be replenished until the form ends. In these forms, she will be stronger and faster and will receive bonus resistance to any source of damage.
Visually, X-Blades don't disappoint and can show beautiful and nice levels with good concepts and details. Here, special attention to the light effects. Sometimes, depending where Ayumi is fighting, the bright of light will be so strong, that we will barely see her in the middle of combat. At least, Ayumi's model is awesome made. Unfortunately, I can't say the same thing to Ayumi's enemies, looking like cartoons more than "evil monsters" or challenging enemies.
But if you really want to look for something real good in X-Blades, don't make a sad face, because it exists: the soundtrack. When Ayumi is just exploring, we'll hear a smooth ambient music. But, when the action starts, the change can flame our will to combat, where the music will give us a boost of temporary fun while we don't stay tired of the combat. Like I said before, the combats are so repetitive and, sometimes, will take so long, that even the music will look repetitive and, eventually, boring.
Considering the number of high valuable titles of the genre in the actual market, I CAN'T recommend X-Blades even under torture. This game tries a lot of good concepts and ideas, but it can't keep it good enough to the player go until the end or stay wanting more. See, I promised to myself not review a game again without end it, but, with X-Blades, was impossible.