Bladesong Review Summary

Detailed sword crafting: The game features advanced and intuitive sword crafting mechanics. Players appreciate the ability to create intricate and complex swords with a wide range of materials and parts.

Engaging and immersive story: The story mode is highly praised for being well-written, engaging, and immersive. Players find it fun, fulfilling, and beautifully illustrated, with a good mix of narrative and world-building.

Fun and enjoyable gameplay: The gameplay is described as fun, easy to understand, and engaging. It offers a mix of story-driven experiences and creative freedom, making it enjoyable and worth the money.

Well-crafted characters and world-building: The game features well-crafted characters and compelling world-building. Players find the characters authentic and the world-building engaging and immersive.

Not a realistic forging simulator: The game is criticized for not being realistic enough as a forging simulator, with simplified and unrealistic sword forging mechanics.

Story is too short and simple: The story is perceived as too short, simple, and aimed at a younger audience. It is also seen as incomplete and rushed.

Story mode is unfinished: The story mode is seen as incomplete and not fully implemented, with content being too little and scattered.

Repetitive gameplay: The gameplay is described as repetitive and monotonous, lacking variety in activities and descriptions.

Lack of voice acting: The game lacks voice acting, a narrator, and verbal dialogue, which detracts from the storytelling experience.

Story mode with RPG elements: The story mode integrates role-playing elements, allowing players to make decisions that affect the narrative and character development. This includes branching decisions, multiple endings, and consequences for player actions.

Comprehensive blacksmithing mechanics: The game features an extensive blacksmithing system that allows players to craft and design weapons creatively. This includes various aspects of smithing, such as forging, hammering, and creating custom sword designs.

Creative sword crafting and design: Players can engage in creative sword crafting, which involves puzzle-like mechanics and allows for a high degree of customization and creativity in sword design. This feature is central to the gameplay and character progression.

Text-based narrative and storytelling: The game employs a text-based narrative structure, presenting the story through well-written text and illustrations. This choice-driven gameplay enhances the role-playing elements and immerses players in the game's dark fantasy setting.

Dark fantasy setting: The game is set in a dark fantasy world, which includes elements of medieval and post-apocalyptic themes. This setting is integral to the story and visual style of the game.

High hardware resource usage: The game uses an excessive amount of hardware resources, leading to performance issues. This includes high PC specifications and overheating problems.

Game crashes frequently: The game has significant stability issues, causing frequent crashes on various devices. This includes multiple reports of the game crashing PCs and devices repeatedly.

Performance issues: There are various performance issues reported, including stuttering and grainy graphics after extended play sessions. General optimization issues have also been noted.

Buggy gameplay experience: Players have reported encountering bugs during gameplay. These bugs affect the overall gaming experience and can be quite frequent.

Graphics and display performance: The game has mixed reviews regarding graphics performance. Some players report it looks good on low settings, while others mention issues with FOV and camera during forging.

Highly recommended game: Many players fully recommend this game, describing it as well worth the price and a must-play for those interested in swords and related themes.

Suggestions for gameplay improvements: Several suggestions have been made to enhance gameplay, including adding a quenching system, improving camera operation, and introducing new game modes and customization options.

Desire for additional features: Players have expressed a desire for various additional features such as a museum to review past works, an exhibition hall, training dummies, and more weapon types beyond swords.

Anticipation for future updates: Players are eagerly looking forward to future updates, story releases, and additional content, indicating a strong interest in the game's ongoing development.

Recommendations for specific audiences: The game is particularly recommended for fans of specific series like The Witcher, Fallen London, Sunless Sea, and Sunless Skies, as well as for those interested in forging games and creative storytelling.

Community fair range: $15.00 - $25.00.

Game completion: 17.0h.

Story completion: 9.0h.

Session length: 3.5h.

The game becomes fun and engaging primarily due to its compelling story and progression system, despite a slow and somewhat repetitive start.

Reported time to anchor: 1h.

Friction: Slow start; Unclear tutorial; Repetitive gameplay; Energy system limitations.

Sword Enthusiast Crafter: Focused on crafting and customizing swords, often spending a lot of time in creative mode. Motivation: Creative freedom and detailed crafting mechanics. Stance: buy.

Story-Driven Roleplayer: Focused on progressing through the story and making narrative choices. Motivation: Engaging story and role-playing elements. Stance: buy.

Casual Relaxation Seeker: Casual and relaxed, often playing the game in the background while doing other activities. Motivation: Relaxing and casual gameplay experience. Stance: sale.

Steam Deck: The game performs well on Steam Deck with minimal configuration required, providing a seamless experience. Users have also reported a positive experience with the game's controls, graphics, and story, indicating a high level of satisfaction.

Monetization: Reviews explicitly mention no microtransactions.

Workshop Support Needed: Players have expressed a desire for workshop support, which would allow for community-created content and mods.

Early Access Status: The game is currently in Early Access, which may affect the overall gaming experience and stability.

Russian Language Support: The game includes an AI localizer for the Russian language, which can enhance the gaming experience for Russian-speaking players.