Blind Fate: Edo no Yami

Review

The game takes place in the aftermath of the apocalypse in Japan. Your name is Yami, a Demon Hunter, part of the Shogunate. Now a blind cyber-Samurai equipped with a sharp sword in one hand and an arm that can shoot projectiles, you are sent by your master to retrieve information from the Tengun AI. This is Blind Fate: Edo no Yami!

Blind Fate: Edo no Yami is a cyberpunk, hack-and-slash platformer game developed by Troglobytes Games and published by 101XP on the 15^th of September 2022 on the Steam platform. The game is also available on PS4/PS5, Xbox One, Xbox One Series X|S and Nintendo switch.

What an interesting game with interesting ideas and mechanisms, but I don’t think they gel correctly together. In this game, there are 11 locations to visit, including the Dojo, where you can train, receive upgrades for melee and distance weapons, health, stamina and, of course, unlock new skills. To unlock a skill, you’ll need experience points which you gather by eliminating enemies during a level. There are 6 skills in total, and you can upgrade them 4 times. All the other upgrades will be found as data through the levels and can be implemented at the Dojo through Tengo the AI.

As you start the game, you will play the first level until a certain point, and from there, you’ll be able to access the Dojo. From that point, you’ll be able to select any of the available levels that are currently unlocked. You can go back to all unlock levels at any time to try to complete them 100% if you wish. But when you unlock the Palace, you must finish and beat the last boss before returning to the Dojo.

The gameplay is interesting in itself, but the combat mechanisms are my biggest complaint! Yes, the game is a bit challenging at first as you get used to the three senses that Yami has, but as you unlock more skills, the challenging aspect of the game diminishes rapidly. So, what are Yami’s senses? Well, as he is blind, he can’t see the world he is in at first, and he will need to rely on his hearing to locate data, upgrades, lore, medick, and bullet kits which all make noises. As he finds data, the world will appear and also change as he moves further into the level. He also uses his hearing to detect enemies. The heat senses will allow him to find new areas with the levels as long as there is heat. And the last sense can detect lives around the levels. But let’s be really fair here, you will probably use the hearing sense at least 95% of your playthrough. The other aspect of the senses is that they activate the super moves, which I found really fun at first but draining after a while as it slows down the combat dramatically. What do I mean by that? Well, all the ground enemies need to be hit several times, and then a sense symbol will appear next to their life bar. You activate the super move by switching to the correct senses for a few seconds. During these few seconds, the image will be static, except for a beam of white light that shoots onto the image at an angle and becomes narrower as you look at it. In the middle of this light, an orange arrow will appear, and you need to move Yami’s arrow onto the orange arrow and press the attack button to activate the kill. It just slows down the combat fluidity far too much. Not only can you stunt enemies and activate another powerful attack, but this time, you have to press the gamepad buttons in sequences shown during the move to execute it. That said, once you unlock the second, third and fourth stomping skills, not the challenging aspect of the game is gone, and you’ll probably use this move instead of the repetitive slow moves.

The bosses’ fights are fun, but within the first couple of attempts, you’ll definitely figure out how to defeat them (including the last boss), which is a bit of a shame.

In terms of enemies, they are mostly ground robots of different sizes and a couple of aerial robots too. So again, the start of the game is a bit more challenging than after you’ve unlocked some skills.

The story is average, but I did enjoy the artistic cutscenes, which refreshed the game. Graphically, the game is sound, and the apocalyptic atmosphere is well portrayed. The fact that there are too many slow-motion attacks, even if you decide not to follow through with them, negatively impacts the gameplay.

This title has been translated into 10 languages and has full controller support and Steam cloud.

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com

Blind Fate: Edo no Yami Steam Store Page