You also aren’t able to go back and redo stages, the game autosaves and moves on automatically.
#WITHIN THE BLADE SWITCH FULL#
At the end of each stage, you’ll get a score and some experience points to spend on a web-like skill tree, full of move enhancements. It is not a metroidvania its almost completely linear and stage-based. Within The Blade is all about stages, done fast and injury-free, and with particular care taken to complete objectives, which are a constant pressure, I mean presence, in the top right of the screen. The gameplay follows a left-to-right side-scrolling platformer format, split into individual levels and sections, and then a quick return to Sensei after each section to buy some skills. The lead character Hideaki is paper-thin, existing in a state of limbo with no past, no back story, and no personality, just dogged adherence to his Sensei’s orders. But at the same time, I was bored by the third demon, and there was no real character development. Seek out the nine demons, slay ’em, and save your village. Turns out a diabolical warlord daimyo has been meddling with demonic forces, and now the whole of Japan is in danger.īeyond a few missions that have a little basic dialogue, and some prisoners to save, there’s not much more I could call a plot, but there’s a premise.
Judging by the game’s previous title and the bosses that appear every few stages, I’d hazard a guess it’s the Nine Demons of Mamoru, but there’s little in the way of exposition, just your Sensei sending you on your way really. The game starts like the Messenger – your hidden Shinobi village, where the clan of the Black Lotus reside, is under attack, and a few of your brothers-in-arms have been captured by some kind of demon army.
It bravely throws its shurikens of ambition but ends up barely hitting anything. Within the Blade constantly reminds me of many other better games. However these comparisons are always to its detriment. It’s a modern retro experience, full of coin collecting and platforming stages, and maybe the best comparison I can make is to Sabotage Studio’s The Messenger. It feels a little like a fast and ultra-violent Shinobi, or maybe even closer to the recent Katana Zero with a little dash of stealth in the mix. Within The Blade is a 2D side-scrolling ninja slash-em-up with ambitions of stealth. Real Ninja mind, not Fruit Ninja, or Corporate Ninja. Logo and naming gripes aside, if there’s one thing that has me coming back to viddy games time and time again, it’s Ninja. It’s almost impossible to read the word Blade, and the game ends up looking like it’s now called ‘Within The’. A title and logo change hasn’t helped much because that new logo (see above) really does not do what the designers probably wanted.
#WITHIN THE BLADE SWITCH SERIES#
I assume it was changed due to it being cumbersome and too close to that other series called something like, I don’t know, SHINOBI, which has been around since the late eighties, and was also pretty heavily pixelated. That name is still all over its Steam page.
Let’s start with some fun trivia: Within the Blade was previously titled Pixel Shinobi: Nine Demons of Mamoru – bet you didn’t know that. Within The Blade is a 2D ninja slash-em-up for fans of Katana Zero or The Messenger, but it struggles under the weight of comparison.
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