Every once in a while you find that gem of a game. I
recently found Third Blade and it is just that. Developed by COM2US Third Blade
is a 2d (with some 3d depth, Street Fighter style) side scroller hack and
slash. The game places you in control of a young man on a journey to save his
friend who was captured by monsters. At the start of the game there is a fairly
well drawn comic book style story being told that I actually enjoyed despite
the fact that I downloaded the game for the single purpose of destroying
monsters.
The man you control is proficient in three different weapon
types; dual-wielding daggers, a single one-handed sword, and a large two handed
sword. Each weapon has a very different play style, the daggers providing a
very fast movement fast attack but somewhat low damage per hit style. The
single one handed sword (no shield) is the defensive set with fast attacks
medium damage output and considerable knockback, and the two handed sword has
slow attacks, slow character movements, but huge damage and knockback.
Outside of just mashing the attack button to generate combo
points that increase stats on the current level (things like +attack, +crit,
-cooldown) each type of weapon gets its own skills that play to that weapons
style. The big sword gets a very slow over the top attack that looks awesome
and does a ton of damage while the daggers get this flip into a roll that
damages everyone in the area several times a second. As far as I can tell (I
haven’t finished the game yet) there are 6 skills per weapon type. The skills
are unlocked as you level up and improved with runes, the games premium
currency.
Fortunately for us the developers made it so that the
premium currency could be gained without having to spend real dollars (you can
transfer gold into runes, gold is earned in combat and from missions). This
means that everything within the game is available to any player if they
dedicate enough time. This also means that the developers of Third Blade put a
small advertisement at the top of screen (mainly between missions, usually
doesn’t come up when fighting) so that they could get some sort of return on
their product.
The game itself is wonderfully developed, everything runs as
smooth as could imagine, on my phone…. I did try the game on our tablet and it
crashed it making us force restart it. Maybe because it is so new the updates
just haven’t come out yet to support the tablets, I’m not entirely sure but I
imagine this game would be great fun on it. The only other issue I had was the
difficulty, at the start it was easy but within 10 stages it became immensely
difficult requiring me to grind a lot to improve stats enough to be able to
handle stages. It went from a hack and slash to a tactical fighter requiring
strategy very fast. I still enjoyed the game and as it stands it is the best of
its kind on my phone but the challenge of the game is certainly worth noting.
With the ability to play to whatever style you like,
offensive, defensive, and speed and the option of customizing skills within the
weapon types Third Blade offers a truly unique experience for any player. I
couldn’t find a cookie cutter build that guaranteed a win, in fact I found
myself having to switch between weapons based on the mob or boss. Melee
enemies, ranged enemies, slippery looking zombie fish things and slugs, Third
Blade has it all. On my HTC Thunderbolt the game ran flawlessly but it seems as
though it was some problems on tablets. Third Blade is free; it has a premium
currency (that can be avoided) and advertisements that have for the most part
been placed out of the way so that the experience isn’t ruined. This is a game
everyone should get if their Android device can handle it.
Third Blade’s Rating: 88/100
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