Twin Blades - Review

For several months, Twin Blades from Press Start Studio reluctantly enjoyed the distinction of beingness the only Xbox Live game to be pulled from the Windows Phone Market. During its absenteeism, it earned something of a cult status as mobile gamers all of a sudden realized they were missing out on a hardcore activity experience. Now the game is back with green zombie claret instead of the original red. Is Twin Blades' return cause for celebration? Yes, unless you're a zombie, in which case, stay out of Sis Angelika's manner.

Slice past the pause for our full review.

Combat nunnery

Twin Blades tells the story of Sister Angelika, a warrior nun. Her village has been overrun by zombies and her 'best friend,' a fellow nun, kidnapped past the necromancer who is causing the chaos. Father Richiardo, monastery boss and shopkeeper, places the sole responsibility for stopping the nefarious magician on Angelika'south shoulders. The storyline is surprisingly mature for a downloadable title and the player even gets to brand a difficult choice at the end. Be that as information technology may, Twin Blades is very much a pure activity championship with story sequences serving as a reward for reaching sure milestones every now and then over the class of the game.

A boondocks in anarchy

Twin Blades' action takes identify in a small hamlet and the surrounding wilderness. Angelika starts out inside of the monastery before heading out into nine unique environments spread beyond the map. She volition visit most of these locations multiple times, clearing out zombie infestations every bit they announced. Every not-boss level works the aforementioned style: movement from left to right, killing a specific number of zombies earlier you're immune to move on.

Sister Angelika has to different ways to dealing with zombies: her scythe and an assortment of guns. Guns are much safer to employ but their armament is limited. To refill it, Angelika only needs to slash at zombies with the scythe. It's a simple and constructive arrangement. Angelika can besides unlock an aerial attack in which she dives to the ground bract starting time. It puts the thespian uncomfortably shut to the zombie hoards, simply frequently stuns them too.

Controls

The combat in Twin Blades is controlled by a virtual stick and buttons.  The two activeness buttons are for slashing and firing guns. Pressing up on the virtual stick makes Angelika jump. This takes some aligning from players who are used to jumping with a button. The just time pressing up to bound feels natural to me is in one-on-one fighting games. But any more than two virtual buttons on the right would exist harder to keep rails of, and then it'south an understandable pattern decision.

Switching between guns is handled by tapping the gun icon at the elevation-right of the screen. I wish guns could exist inverse while the game is paused every bit it can exist difficult to switch them on the fly while dealing with the game'southward bosses and their zombie minions. Speaking of which, whenever a zombie grabs Angelika, players accept to milkshake the phone violently to free her. This got me some odd looks and comments in public once; in that location should be an selection to turn off the silly shaking.

Nuns honey shopping too!

Immigration levels isn't the simply purpose of killing zombies. Zombie hearts are the game'due south currency. Pocketbook of hearts in-hand, Angelika can return to the monastery and purchase diverse upgrades for herself and her guns. It's fun edifice up your grapheme'due south health and abilities, simply you never really feel all that potent due to the ever-increasing power and numbers of the zombie hoard. As for the variety of guns Angelika tin wield, the Holy Gun is far and abroad the best firearm in the game. The others volition but collect dust in the player's armory, except for when they are needed in boss fights.

Twin Blades' bosses are visually impressive and quite challenging. The offset, a behemothic zombie butcher, charges at Angelika while swinging his clever. It tin can be tough to bound over his strikes due to the hectic nature of the battle and the slightly imprecise nature of jumping with the virtual stick, only he is certainly beatable. The other two dominate battles, both sorcerers, play a lot differently as they have color cycling weak points. Each color is vulnerable to a certain gun, giving the not-Holy weapons some utilize.

Stunning art

Press Showtime has imbued Twin Blades with an fine art style that resembles Japanese blitheness while remaining distinctive. Angelika'southward animation is extremely fluid. Zombies are creepy and silly at the same time, frequently wearing pots on their heads ala Plants vs. Zombies. Twin Bract isn't as lighthearted as PopCap's magnum opus, however. Here zombie pots, heads, and torsos go flying as Angelika defeats them, accompanied with spurts of (at present) dark-green blood.

The Windows Phone version of Twin Blades features a total of 10 different environments. Each one is extremely detailed, moody, and atmospheric. My favorite is the level that takes identify abreast a lake with a giant moon staring down. Outdoor environments have both 24-hour interval and night versions, adding a touch of visual variety. Even still, some animation – maybe scared bystanders or woodland creatures – would have livened them up further.

Repetition of the Dead

In add-on to the story mode, Twin Blades also has a survival mode that challenges players to brand it through 30 zombie-infested levels. Merely like the story mode, that means Angelika will exist running through each environment several times. Excluding boss fights, the game play never changes – it's e'er just running from left to right, alternate between slashing and firing guns until no zombies remain.

That repetition is Twin Blades' only major problem. No matter how beautiful the environments are, they get old because you see them then often. Each level feels identical to the others, too. They all incorporate the same enemies: zombies. Tougher zombies only look and act slightly different from weaker ones, and so they all run together. At the very least, levels should be more distinctive from each other. Uneven topography would have helped. Instead of entirely flat levels, a few hills and possibly even a mount path to climb would profoundly mix things upwards without requiring much more work from the programmers and artists.

Achievements

Twin Blades' Achievements don't help it experience any less repetitive. To get them all, players would demand to shell Story and Survival on both Normal and Hard difficulties, for a total of four play throughs. Sure, it'due south squeamish to get more playtime out of a game, but iv play throughs combined with the lack of variety is a bit excessive. Many games award both the Achievements for Normal and Hard when beating the game on Hard, a far more convenient solution. Notwithstanding, none of the Achievements here are as well difficult, and that's a good thing. Spend plenty time on Twin Blades and you'll reap its total 200 GamerScore.

Overall Impression

Twin Blades may non have a ton of variety, simply it's yet a very solid action title. It'southward fun to chop and blast away at zombies in brusque spurts, and the upgrade organisation may have players putting in longer sessions to ameliorate their arsenals. Twin Blades' unique story, fantastic art, and haunting atmosphere are easy to love. The price is also right: information technology's a lot of game for $ii.99. Windows Phone players who missed out on it the showtime time around shouldn't hesitate to join in Sister Angelika's fight.

Twin Blades costs $2.99 and there is a complimentary trial. Zombie slayers can grab it here (Zune link) on the Marketplace.

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/twin-blades-review

Posted by: tarnowskilovetted.blogspot.com

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