Purchased ‘Blade II: The Return of Evil’ after waiting 3 years for another sale that never came. Here are my impressions.

**3 years ago**: I noticed a game on the store that appeared to be a Diablo-style action game and visually it looked pretty good. I looked into it and it turned out to be a port of a Korean mobile ARPG. Now I must admit, at the time I was quite a sucker for these games. Today this is a dead genre in the mobile space, the last major title of which that closed down being ‘Darkness Rises’ which shut down globaly a few months ago. These games were F2P, auto-play, totally P2W, Multiple classes to level up, Diablo style combat with short linear levels and loads of grind. They were totally a guilty pleasure but like all such games I play a month or two and move on.

**So what is Blade II?** Watching videos and comparing to the original mobile game (which I never had a chance to play, didn’t release in the West from what I could find), it had a high level production for such a game, they stripped out all the gear upgrading grind (you just get a gear drop after each level), basically all of the “currencies” you typically find in F2P mobile RPGs stripped out. So I found this Blade II game on Switch to be quite an interesting and unique discovery… a dead mobile game that was ported to console as a retail title without the ‘mobile trappings’. I would have loved to see more of this over the years. Many of these games have high production values, but die if they fail to establish a fanbase (usually do to the ‘mobile trappings’ side of things). So these visually appealing games become forgotten and impossible to experience.

**Let’s see it in action.** Not my gameplay: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8L8Ot8DQXs&t=316s&pp=ygUnYmxhZGUgaWkgcmV0dXJuIG9mIGV2aWwgc3dpdGNoIGdhbWVwbGF5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8L8Ot8DQXs&t=316s&pp=ygUnYmxhZGUgaWkgcmV0dXJuIG9mIGV2aWwgc3dpdGNoIGdhbWVwbGF5)

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https://preview.redd.it/fcn5oo9069ua1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=73ee51b9322b115df22d51752e00560f89c3048a

**A sale! (that I missed…)** I wasn’t sure I wanted it at the time, but then noticed I had just missed a sale (again, this was back in 2019). Surely there would be another one soon! Yah… about that…

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[woops…](https://preview.redd.it/wiygmmpd69ua1.png?width=553&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=956e359c66bbc422e511facfb6847f7c3bb69479)

Yup, I kept checking Dekudeals for *3 years* waiting for another sale… it was obvious after 6 months one would never come. The company who published this obviously closed shop, otherwise they would have kept dropping it or dropped it perminantly. With the little attention and not great reviews the game received, not surprising. Every 6 months or so I would check again, and talk myself out of buying the game all over again… until this past week.

**Finally, so was it worth it?** For me, absolutely YES. This gameplay formula has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. Short 2-3 minute missions, great drops, gear providing new looks for the characters, multiple classes to experiment with and level up, new skills to unlock to keep gameplay interesting. A constant sense of power gain as each level becomes easier to tackle. And while this is a dead genre on mobile which is now replaced with action MMOs such as Diablo Immortal and Black Desert Mobile which are more open worlds to explore, I miss the short burst linear levels progression these older games provided (RIP Darkness Rises…). But here is an honest retail version of such a game, no more P2W, just play, gain power, and advance. For ME, this was absolutely worth the full price, I can’t believe I waited so long to hopefully save $14. Zero regrets.

**Here are some impressions.** As seen in the video above, the game opens with an intro level where you control each character for a few moments, then you get to choose one to stick with. (Yes, you can have multiple character files in progress.) The game is broken up into Seven Acts, each having 10 Levels that last 2-4 minutes each on average. Each level has a 3-star goal system, but in this game they are just for completion, I don’t detect any direct rewards from it which I’m quite happy with, I don’t want to need them to progress/advance. Every level you get one gear piece drop, sometimes two if there are two bosses. Gear changes your appearance, often come with a large power boost, but also offer interesting perks that make choices matter such as extra boss damage or life steal. I’m only early into Act 3 so this is not a ‘Review’, as I don’t know how the rest of the game will go.

*Performance* was worst in the first Act. One boss battle had terrible freezes which seems to always happen but hasn’t anywhere else (yet), and Act 2 has much better general performance and framerates. Act 3 is holding up OK so far. It’s an Unreal Engine game fyi. And often 3-4 levels will share the exact same linear environment, and the exact same boss. So out of 10 levels in each act, they often feel like the exact same thing over and over.

*Combat* in this game is its saving-grace for me. It feels impactful and challenging. You have a basic attack with some variation if you time attacks (I just hold the button and spam usually with the Wizard), other skills on cooldown which can be large AOEs, direct blasts, or defensive in nature. A key part of the gameplay is timed blocking which will trigger a counterattack which will provide some healing. Combat can be challenging and rewarding while you grind and eventually get through a tough boss battle that feels quite rewarding. Act 1 was VERY difficult to complete, while Act 2 was a complete cake walk. The difficulty is spiking in Act 3 again. Levels are completely linear and a series of combat arenas basically. With a OG God-of-War feel to the combat at times IMO. Very satisfying stuff.

*Story* is nothing to write home about and is entertaining fluff at most. Each act has its own stand-alone story and characters. It’s only dubbed in Korean and some lines are not translated but mostly the level start/end blurbs by your character, the plot and NPC dialogues are fine. The cutscenes are decent quality and can be entertaining to watch the first time but not the repeat times that you often can’t skip… they are not really impressive by today’s standards, don’t get me wrong. And the story beats are completely forgettable. I do find the new characters that appear each Act are unique and entertaining.

*Progression* is very satisfying. The aforementioned gear but also every few levels you unlock a new skill option or an upgraded version of your favorite skill that takes it to a new level. Playing the Wizard class for now I’m having a blast watching my skills grow in power and presentation, in very meaningful ways that help me progress. You must spend gold to unlock them but so far I have enough for what I want to do. You can sell unwanted gear for small amounts of gold to help, but gear also has durability and require low-cost repairs if you stick with the same piece for too long. I’m sure that will become more of a late-game concern though. Gear has the traditional 5-6 tier system, including gear sets which I won’t see for quite some time I’m sure. So I’m always excited for what the future will bring.

The game’s tooltips talk about a “tower” you can use to level up which I have not unlocked yet… I really hope that isn’t a forgotten line of text for a mode they removed from the game… but Act 2 also had random bonus bosses spawn that were easy but the only way to gain accessory gear so far. I hope these return in every act but none in Act 3 just yet… but I need to grind a bit right now so they may show up.

While I am absolutely having a blast with the game, here is a **0.5/5** written review as another take: [https://www.digitallydownloaded.net/2019/06/review-blade-ii-return-of-evil-nintendo.html](https://www.digitallydownloaded.net/2019/06/review-blade-ii-return-of-evil-nintendo.html)

Edit: here is a very good video review as well https://youtu.be/vXNE00zP8Qk

**Why did I post this?** Because even though I’ve only had the game a few days, it has always been part of my Switch experience the past 3 years… waiting and doubting if I should buy it… dwelling over the game, rewatching the same 3-4 youtube videos I could find. I had to share this story.



by Z3M0G