cellarspider

Welcome to That One Game You Might've Heard About Years Ago. It's way weirder than you thought! And I'm going to show you!

Yes, Infinity Blade! Back in the days of mobile gaming yore, this was the first and arguably still one of the best to take the Unreal Engine onto iOS. I'm playing this on an old-as-balls iPad mini my family forgot they still had, so things might not run as well as they could or look as nice as this game can on a newer tablet.

But it looks way fucking nicer than it should, all things considered.

We're dropped in medias res to Our Hero, arriving at the top of a Dutch Angle Castle to challenge This Guy, whose throne would probably give Tumblr a heart attack.

This Guy: Welcome.

Our Hero: I am the voice of freedom - and I will end your tyranny and bring peace to this land!

This Guy: Mwa-ha-ha! [ed. yes he really does say that] A bold reply - and one of the most entertaining I've yet heard. You will do nicely.

One thing I can't get across here is the dialog. It's not actually in English, or any known language for that matter. It sounds like a Romance language of some sort. This is one of the first design choices that seems weird--throne notwithstanding--and there is an explanation for it. Some of you may already have guessed it. For those who have, you don't know the half of it.

This Guy, Who Laughs Evily: Begin.

Anyway! We're going to fight this guy. He looks friendly.

And unfortunately one of the things I can't easily show you in screenshots is the combat itself. Infinity Blade's combat relies on a combination of blocking, timed dodges, and accurate parries to break your enemy's defenses, and then you wail away on them and try to do a combo before they recover. It's got the same mesmerizing quality that a lot of rhythm games do, but with more stabbing people.

Anyway! We lose the fight. This is scripted, I swear I didn't mess up the tutorial fight or anything. I'll have way more chances to embarrass myself than that.

This Guy: You are a cunning warrior, and fight with strength and skill. We have found our catalyst.

Also we've found the title drop:

This Guy Who Just Pulled A Fucking Sword Out Of Thin Air: The Infinity Blade. The god killer. It took me a millennia to find this, to unravel its secrets. Finally, after all this time, I can begin...

Kills protagonists pretty good too.

This Guy, Now Talking To A Corpse: The Blade has tasted your blood, and now contains your essence, your prowess. Ah... a strong bloodline indeed - your progeny will serve me well.

This Guy: Continue to seed the legends. Call upon me when the bloodline has matured again, and I will return. In the coming storm, this blade is our only hope of dominion.

Well, okay then!

20 Years Later

Our Hero, Mk. 2: Father, I will avenge you.

Start Bloodline

So, that's the castle we just saw Our Hero get shanked in. In a nice bit of designwork, all the places you visit inside of it make physical sense when compared to this Scenic Viewpoint here. That architecturally inadvisiable doodad up at the top? That's the throne room. We gotta get up there.

Also now that I think about it, using Our Hero Mk 2 as a visual reference point, that castle is actually at an angle to the ground. Huh.

So! Standard motivation: Dad dead, gotta kill the evil guy, not think too hard about that "coming storm" thing or the fact that the dude with the Title Drop Infinity Blade has enough time to just wait around for twenty years for someone to go on a revenge quest. Guess that storm is taking a real long time to get here.

Let's hit this person instead.

anyone want to ask them how their nipples are presenting today

Well whatever the answer was, we just stabbed this person in the crotch.

OUR HERO, EVERYONE.

Tap treasures or health potions - Try it now!

Scattered around the map are random bags of coins and full health potions, which you can only take out of combat. This gives us something to fidget with while staring at the scenery.

Anyone getting Dark Souls flashbacks or is it just me

Our way is blocked by another enemy, you know how it goes. Walk up, stab crotch, then we immediately take a hard left and jump down a well.

Infinity Blade doesn't actually give you full freedom of movement: it's like a slightly more cinematic, significantly less puzzly Myst. You get a couple of options on where you want to go, and you tap a choice. There are transition shots of getting to where you want to go, but apart from gold and potion-hoarding, there's nothing you can do there.