Blackwind Reviews
What is the first game to come to your mind when you think of top-down shooters? How about hack n’ slash games? What I think of is Halo: Spartan Assault for a top-down shooter and I think of Devil May Cry for a hack n slash game. With Blackwind, you get the best of both worlds, but at a cost. What’s that cost? Your sanity. I have been playing this game now for at least five and a half hours, and I have wanted to just chuck my controller at a wall. More on that later.
Sadly, as it is, I can’t really recommend this to anyone because whatever little good it may do, the bad outweighs it by quite a bit.
After great first impressions showcasing fun gameplay and interesting characters, it quickly becomes a fascinatingly bad example of mech combat, lacking feedback, foresight, and fair play. Unbelievably boring offensive capabilities, a nonsensical story, and hilarious voice acting which tries its best to stand out. Unfortunately, it isn't enough to stand out.
Failing to stack up anywhere near it’s contemporaries, Blackwind is a hollow exosuit complete with unengaging combat, mind-numbing exploration and puzzle elements, repetitious presentation, poor story and baffling design choices. There are plenty of potentially great ingredients to this package, but unlike the age-old adage, the sum is certainly no greater than the parts. A meek gust of breeze as opposed to the promise of a gale-force wind.
It’s difficult to recommend on a story basis thanks to its generic narrative, and even harder to recommend on a gameplay basis thanks to the slew of glitches, loose controls, and boring progression. With more time and refinement, Blackwind could very well have been an enjoyable experience, but alas, it didn’t seem to be written in the stars.
With every aspect of Blackwind comes a new laundry list of issues big and small that make it feel like it should have been incubated a while longer.
The issues in Blackwind aren't insurmountable and it's possible to have some fun with the combat, but it's clear that it still needs some work. An update with camera options, a proper map system, and improved jumping would be worth checking out, but the current game is still too rough to recommend.
Blackwind has the right ingredients for an engaging and challenging game, but the lack of proper difficulty balance and camera frustrations prevent it from hitting the right marks.
Blackwind presents a sci-fi platforming world that is fun to smash through and fly around its desolate landscapes. However, it sticks with its formula of killing enemies and unlocking areas so tightly that it lacks spontaneity and becomes too predictable too fast. Repetitive music, awkward dialogue and unvaried landscapes all lead to a pretty lackluster experience that even the fun combat can’t fix. Blackwind needs more time taking risks and experimenting with the very versatile genres it encompasses in order for it to stand out amongst the crowded population of action games.
Blackwind is as utilitarian as a bank statement and painfully middle-of-the-road. It's tough to recommend that you play this game because we can scarcely remember anything notable about it from our own playthrough. Yet at the same time, it doesn't actually do anything egregiously wrong to make it instantly destined for the garbage bin. If you're looking for an entirely unremarkable and unoriginal sci-fi themed hack 'n' slash, Blackwind certainly ticks those boxes. Unfortunately, if you're looking for a meaningful way to spend your limited time and hard-earned money, this ain't it. We won't go so far as to say that you should definitely give Blackwind a pass, but we'd understand entirely if you did.
Blackwind has very entertaining combat and a well thought out progression, but its platforming, camera, and certain enemies, as well as bugs and glitches, make the game clunky and undercooked.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Have you ever wondered, how playable would be a mixture of James Cameron's story from Avatar and God of War's hack & slash mechanics? Because Blackwind offers you just this experience, wrapped in a janky camera, poor voice acting and borderline boring gameplay. Oh, and there are cool mech suits too'
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Blackwind has a lot of promise, but fails to deliver on it. Smooth controls can't make up for repetitive combat and bad design choices.
There aren’t enough hack-and-slash action games with a sci-fi setting, but Blackwind stumbles pretty hard and makes enjoying it consistently a challenge. The game’s camera is the worst offender, but issues with platforming, balance and combat are also parts of the problem. I didn’t care that the story could find a consistent tone as much as the game’s mechanics made me want to step away in frustration. I enjoy difficult games, but not unfair, busted or buggy ones.
Overall, Blackwind is a regrettably forgettable game. Unable to decide if it’s a twin-stick shooter or a hack-and-slash, with repetitive (and sometimes downright boring) level design, and cringe-inducing voice-acting, there’s little to recommend here. Honestly, the best way I can describe this game is in terms of food: Blackwind would be unflavored, plain oatmeal. Sure, it’s edible, but do you really want to eat it?
Ultimately, Blackwind is very much a budget experience. If you go in knowing what to expect however, there’s a lot of fun to be had here. Its combat is competent and engaging, there’s a solid upgrade tree to work your way through, and solving puzzles to explore its environments adds a little more variety to the mix. Its environments lack any real excitement, however, and it’s missing a spark of innovation. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t provide enough entertainment for those looking for some basic action.
It isn't downright bad by any means, just like going back and playing the original God of War on PS2 isn't bad either. But that design is really only excusable in the context of its time. Blackwind will have some appeal to hardcore fans of early 2000's action games, but without those rose tinted glasses, there isn't much here to help it rise above mediocrity.
While it's packed with old-school hack and slash action, Blackwind's lack of variety and lackluster mechanics leave a lot to be desired.
All and all, it’s about what I’d expect from a game built in Unity. Blackwind feels like it was originally designed to be a mobile game and changed at the last minute when they realized there were too many commands for a touch screen. It’s not a great game, but it was kind of fun to play once I figured out how to work around the kinks. Adding some camera controls could easily bump this score up a solid point, but time will tell on any post-release support that Blackwind receives.
Blackwind stays in an entertaining and fun game. It could have been a good game, but the gameplay and fun can be turned into frustration by that camera already mentioned above. Even in this way I have to say that I enjoyed playing it and it seems to me a good idea on the part of its developers. Some small improvements such as a map or some kind of outdoor guide to try to solve the poor quality of the camera and we will be facing a notable improvement.
Review in Spanish | Read full review