X-Blades

 PlayStation 3
Metascore
50

Mixed or average reviews - based on 31 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 31
  2. Mixed: 18 out of 31
  3. Negative: 13 out of 31
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  1. Worth Playing
    46
    If it weren't for the M-rated content, X-Blades could have been easily recommended to kids for its accessible action and anime presentation, which is a shame because the adult crowd is going to be left disappointed with this game, despite its sex appeal.
  2. Everyeye.it
    45
    X-Blades is totally incapable of attracting experienced gamers. Even if it shows a certain variety, the level design is awful, the structure is deeply fragmented, and the gameplay is obsessively repetitious. Moreover, X-Blades is the button-mashing paradise, and it fails to convey a deep Hack’n’Slash mechanic. Technical issues regarding the dull camera system, the bad looking cell shading, the terrible character design, are there to keep players away from the game.
  3. PlayStation Universe
    45
    X-Blades has visual charm, but the grind of monotonous combat soon starts to wear thin. The longer you play it the more you'll hate it.
  5. InsideGamer.nl
    40
    X-Blades starts like a real great game. There’s a girl and she cuts everyone open with her sword. How much can you get? Not much! As a bonus, we get to see an almost naked girl, carrying way too heavy swords. But even this gets boring after a while. Fight after fight where you have to push one button isn’t fun. Even all the nakedness of the game doesn’t cover that fact up.
  6. Armchair Empire
    40
    All the splashy, light-blooming graphics in the world and a “sexy” anime-lite protagonist can’t save X-Blades.
  7. Play.tm
    40
    X-Blades is, in summary, really just one long button-mash-fest, and doesn't require much subtlety as a result. Unfortunately the story and graphics do not do enough to make up for this simplicity - the game is of a decent length but sadly just gets very samey towards the end. Nothing special, overall; one for genre fanatics only.
  8. Playstation: The Official Magazine (US)
    40
    Ixnay on the X-Blades. [Apr 2009, p.82]
    All this publication's reviews
  9. Thunderbolt
    40
    There are a couple of decent ideas here, but the game as a whole needs some serious refinement in just about every way to have any hope of standing out in what is a fairly crowded genre.
  10. GamingExcellence
    35
    In the end, X Blades is just downright terrible. It shouldn’t be played, it shouldn’t be rented and it shouldn’t even be looked at.
  11. Gamer.nl
    30
    X-Blades is pretty much a game that has no intention of doing anything right. It's repetitive and has little to offer to keep you in front of the TV. Only the soul collection system seems to be a nice feature, everything else isn't worth your while.
  12. Gaming Age
    25
    I can only recommend X-Blades to people who really, and I mean really, enjoy the endurance challenges in some of the other games and don't want anything more than that.
  13. Boomtown
    20
    Oh God, where to begin…? The utterly, mind-bogglingly dreadful character design and animation? The hugely irritating Californian-princess voice over? No, No! Even better, how about the generally sub-PS2 environments and enemies? How about the fact that the near-silent, samey, uninspiring bad guys keep floating up into the air when standing too close to the scenery? Or the sucky frame rate?
    All this publication's reviews
  14. 1UP
    16
    I can still hear the ba-thump ba-thump of the paused game behind me, begging me back for more abuse, and I'm caught in a spiral of disbelief. Nothing can be this awful, yet I find myself straining to look over my shoulder. I don't know how long I can hold out. I am lost, but you may yet save yourselves. Save yourselves from this game.

User Reviews

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User Score
5.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 23 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 23
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 23
  3. Negative: 8 out of 23
  1. YakusokuNoJi
    Jul 20, 2023
    6
    Sure not a perfect game by any means but it is pretty looking and once you start it and do not have overly exaggerated expectations theSure not a perfect game by any means but it is pretty looking and once you start it and do not have overly exaggerated expectations the gameplay is enjoyable. The problem I have with this game, apart from having almost no story and that you only run round an island twice, is that for some reason I do not understand my own feelings about it. The fact that there is not too much behind it kept me away from playing the game for a while after I bought it but when I got back to it I had fun just as I had before. Now I have no desire to play it but I just remember the moment that when I played it again I also wondered how much fun it actually was. It is a very weird mix of what keeps me away and what actually entertains me.

    I say it is not half as bad as people make it out to be but except the cel-shaded style, the Gun-Blades and Ayumi's looks Blades of Time, its spiritual successor is better on every level.    … Full Review »
  2. SuperkenGaming
    Nov 2, 2015
    6
    X Blades
    garbage
    X blades is a hack and slash game where you play a blonde girl with a nice booty. The only redeeming quality this game has    X Blades
    garbage
    X blades is a hack and slash game where you play a blonde girl with a nice booty.
    The only redeeming quality this game has is that this booty isn’t hidden.
    This tomb raider runs around in a thong.
    Im just kidding, theres more to the game than a nice butt.
    X Blades is fun to play through
    you go from section to section just killing everything in your way, the sections are pretty cool and I didn’t regret spending time with this game,
    There are some alright boss battles sprinkled in this game and enemies are varied and do force you to change up your magic spells which can be spent only when your magic bar is filled, which is filled by either doing damage or taking damage.
    magic spells are obtained by purchasing them in menu with souls acquired by killing enemies.
    You can slash with blades, shoot enemies with your gun that thankfully never runs out of ammo or with magic attacks,
    However the execution of this game just ruins what otherwise would be a sure why not, in your backlog.. Instead it turns into a please don’t.
    Enemies are varied, but they look far too similar to enemies you face later on that wont die the way you’ve been used to through the first half of the game…
    In fact the game changes the rules on you a lot, it doesn’t even warn you that the rules have changed
    Theres a sudden increase in difficulty and you cant understand why
    Why aren’t these guys you’ve sliced through dying, why are these spiders teleporting away when you get close.
    Forcing you to have to trial and error your way through the 2nd half of the game or just go to the internet.
    This is never a good sign.
    You aren’t told that enemies are different now, you aren’t given a quick heads up when they need to be killed a different way than before.
    They’ll suddenly be indestructible, and youre left feeling frustrated.
    This is the furthest from all of xblades problems though
    You can lock onto enemies to shoot or do a magic attack on, but 99 times out of 100 the game will lock onto another target as soon as you release your attack.
    The game will lock onto frozen enemies in the background a thousand times before it will lock onto the enemy right in front of you, and I wish this was an exaggeration, but it isn’t.
    This game is broken and you see all there is to see about halfway through the game.
    The 2nd half is just fighting stronger enemies in the evening version of sections you just played through minus of course the final boss sections, which are new.
    I was hoping x blades would be one of those under rated gems that critics just didn’t appreciate back in the day,
    But its level of trash holds true even 6 years later
    This game has its moments of fun, but the story sucks, the voice acting is worse than duck dynasty, and the combat is broken
    For what it is.
    Hack and Slash Action Adventure Game 6/10
    Overall:
    5.5/10    … Full Review »
  3. TheDestroyer
    Jul 8, 2015
    3
    As someone who has completed X-Blade, let me tell you about this game: It can be best described as the kid in high school you wanted to beAs someone who has completed X-Blade, let me tell you about this game: It can be best described as the kid in high school you wanted to be friends with today but can't because everything they do pisses you off! There is a reason why the critics rated this game so low...

    It loses it's perfect 10/10 the moment you start playing. Not from it's awkward intro or the fact that it gives you so little to work on as to where you are or what you're doing; that doesn't take away from the enjoyment. What first takes it away is it's terrible camera angles, spammable tool-tips with no way to turn them off, and questionably fast movement. Next, you will notice is there is only 1 attack button with no real combos or thought process. There is also no guard button or penalty on death, so for the most part you can turn your brain off while dealing with most of the monsters. And the attack animation with your swords is the exact same!!! You do get at least 2 other combos later in the game, but requires a button input that's so stupid and such a waste of time - It takes a full second or two to set up the combo that does the same damage as your default instant button mash combo (which one are you going to choose).

    - There are magic attacks you get to use, Fire, Ice, Lightning, Dark, Light, all have at least 3 moves. But guess what: they are the exact same attacks: projectile, weapon appliance, and super explosive wave.
    - Every area you enter in consists of a horde mode aka: defeat all the enemies in the area, or defeat a certain enemy in the area while the other enemies harass you. But basically it comes down to "you must kill everything in the area to proceed" for every fight. There are no optional battles unless you decide to go back and revisit an area.
    - Areas you did battle in before begin to copy/paste themselves later, so eventually there becomes no atmosphere to admire.
    -The game lacks platforming. What is there as platforming is great, but us as fans would like to see more!
    - Laggy frame rates begin to happen in areas with monster generators.
    - Enemy variety for a PS3 game is low. So low that you wind up facing the same ones over and over and over and over and over!
    - The graphics are utterly terrible in HD.
    - The soundtrack is completely disregarded by it's artists and plays random tracks almost all the time - completely taking away almost any mood music.
    - Another big sin is the game's story and voice acting. It has no direction, no enthusiasm, no entertainment, and eventually no purpose.

    The only fun to be had with this game is it's boss battles, because each of them have to be killed in a specific way, which made it interesting to try and figure out what that is. As stated before, the little platforming that is in the game was also fun. But everything else about this game is absolutely unsatisfying!!! The moment X-Blades begins to build any fun factor, something comes along and kills it. The game feels unfinished in terms of level design and character attacks, and despite the praise it gets for it's boss battles, you sometimes end up facing the same boss you just killed an hour ago. SouthPeak Games think this is okay, but it's not! And I hope someone from their development team sees this review so they know what not to put in their games should they ever make more.

    Please, do not buy this game! Do not let boobs or a bada$$ looking chick on the front cover be the reason for you taking a hammer to the disc a week later.    … Full Review »
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