[Retro-Gaming] Blade of Darkness | A precursor of the Dark Souls Genre | Destroying Elite Orcs & Solving Puzzles.
Hi fellows gamers, I hope that you're doing very well in your lives. Today it is time for a souls like post. I mean, I bring back the great Blade of Darkness to this Hive Gaming community. Let's get started...
Introduction.
Blade of Darkness or as it was originally known in its days of release to the public, Severance: Blade of Darkness, is an action video game (Hack and Slash) and some elements of role (RPG) in third person, which was developed by the now defunct Spanish video game company Rebel Act Studios, based in the city of Madrid Spain, and was composed mostly by staff of Spanish nationality, so we can say with full confidence that Blade of Darkness is a Spanish video game.
The year of release of Blade of Darkness was February 26, 2001, reaching a good amount of sales in Spain and Europe in general, but it would suffer from a great wave of piracy that caused the economic collapse of the company Rebel Act, in addition to a bad marketing campaign throughout America by its distribution company, the very famous Codemasters.
The video game has a very innovative graphics engine (for its time of release) that produces lighting effects and texture quality that for its time of release caused a very important impact among gamers of the early 2000s, because this graphic engine of Blade of Darkness allowed a combat and displacement in real time, which produced effects of movement and attack very fluid and added to the use of combos that gave the gamer a unique experience for the time, for the latter reason among others, today it is considered one of the forerunners of the Souls genre.
Tukaram's Main Stats (at level 6)
- Attack: 17 points
- Defense: 20 points
- Life: 780 points
- Specialty: Swords and two-handed axes
- Current attack combo: Speed Kill.
- Age: 25
- Height: 2.25m
- Weight: 130 Kg.
Mini-Guide #5
With an incredible parry performed on an orc soldier we continue our way through the dwarven mines in Kelbegen. It turns out that when we got the red gem needed to complete the main puzzle of this level, which consists of getting three coloured gems: red, blue and green, this gem was guarded by three high level orc soldiers, which we decided to face under the classic strategy of ‘divide and conquer’, which is why we did our best to separate the trio and face them one by one.
We discovered a secret passage behind a false wall, which housed a number of very high level weapons inside, and these weapons were a Scythe (Ideal for the Tukaram class), and a Sablazo. But we couldn't take the Scythe, which is required by Tukaram at level 9 if you want to perform the special combo called ‘Grim Reaper’, because we can't take with us any more weapons of that type (two-handed weapons) :/
Behold the majesty of the Kelbegen mines, it's really impressive how big this map is, it really feels like we're talking about how big game maps are nowadays, but keep in mind that this game is from 2001.
On the other hand, in the mines of Kelbegen we can see how the dwarves who inhabited these mines had a fairly advanced mastery of mining technology, being able to observe everywhere technological applications for the extraction of minerals such as transporting loads of stones and large elevators.
After using the elevators to return to the upper levels to take the red gem to its corresponding activator and in order to solve the puzzle left to us by the former dwarven inhabitants of the Kelbegen mines, we encountered strong opposition from an orc soldier accompanying his elite orc chieftain.
When it was our turn to face the elite Orc, we had already applied the classic 'divide and conquer' strategy, so it was much easier to go one-on-one against him, as he was without the help of his pesky henchman. Also, for this match-up, our use and refinement of the Speed Kill special attack combo made it relatively easy to take down the elite orc with almost no damage.
And so we completed the first part of the puzzle, activating an old rocky activator using the red gem, which gave off an intense light, which is held up waiting for us to activate the other two missing grottoes using the blue and green gems.
Here we can see again how colossal this map is, which invites us to explore it with great freedom, as you can really choose in which order to go for each gem needed to complete the puzzle.
Note: It's great how in other decades, the game devs gave you all the necessary tools to make a free and enjoyable exploration of each map they developed, without excessive on-screen ‘how to do things’ prompts and instructions.
Unforeseen Events! It turns out that if we were to enter a Kelbegen mine just as we discovered the blue gem, it would be swallowed and hidden by an evil and vicious scavenger lurking in the area, so we set out in search of the little monster.
After some time searching through the collapsing tunnels of the mines, I found the little thief, whom I took down with some difficulty as he was accompanied by an Elite Orc carrying a key needed to gain access to the innermost levels of the mine. When I destroyed the scavenger the shiny blue gem came out from inside the scavenger.
Note: I really think it was a very nice and curious thing for the devs to include this event in the game's plot : )
After a long time eliminating the enemies that dwelled around the place, and after using the bow and Tukaram's stealth ability to shoot down an orc soldier from the distance, the result was that we reached Tukaram's level 6, thus recovering most of our health points, as well as getting better attack and defence stats for our hero,
Although Tukaram is a hero who specialises in melee combat with the use of two-handed weapons, the use of the bow and arrow can be very useful, especially if combined with the ability to move in stealth mode in order to take down unguarded enemies from a safe distance.
Note: It is very important to allways have in count the number of arrows that we have in our inventory. We can always recover some of them from the bodies, walls or floor.
It's not all about special attack combos like the Speed kill, it turns out that you can also gain new combat abilities that come in the form of defensive or attack combos, for example, in the image above we can see in the table that at level 6 we unlocked the ability: Thunder Smash, which although it doesn't do as much damage as the Speed kill, it is very useful as it allows us to attack enemies from new angles.
For example, Thunder Smash's new ability is very useful for taking down small enemies such as scavengers, which are usually difficult to hit when fighting them, since they have a very small hitbox, in addition to dodging very well.
The variety of situations and types of combats that can be presented in this video game are impressive, for example we had to face an elite orc on top of a very narrow bridge where it was very difficult to make wide movements or combos without falling off it, which is why here I had to use the "Load Game" option several times because we ended up falling into the void after performing a combo ha ha ha :D
Finally, we reach the rock activator and introduce the blue gem, which causes a large flash of blue light. However, nothing happens, since we still have to get the green gem to finish solving the puzzle.
Thus, we returned to the lower levels of the Kelbegen mine in search of the remaining green gem, but first we had to face strong opposition from the evil forces. But for the moment, We will continue the adventure and the search for the green gem in an upcoming post :)
Note: By the way, at this point we no longer had any arrows left, so, when we wanted to attack that orc soldier from a distance, we had to use the ability to throw our sword at him :D
Hey first of all, thank you very much for reading me, mate. I'm very glad that you took the time to stop by my post and enjoy this fifth mini-guide of this classic video game and precursor of the Souls genre as it is Blade of Darkness.
Greetings!
All the images & Gif's showed on this post are taken from my pc Screen.
Credits to the extinct Spanish Company Rebel Act and all his former workers that work hard to bring us this Piece of art like it's Blade of Darkness.
Sending you an Ecency curation vote!
Hi Miss Melinda, thank you so much for the support, I'm really thankful : )
Cheers & Blessings.
It's my pleasure!
!WINE
¡Blade of Darkness! ⚔️ Me encanta ver juegos clásicos Souls-like explorados en Hive Gaming. ¡Éxitos destruyendo esos orcos! 😉 #HiveGaming
Hey mate, thank you so much for the support, you're very kind.
And yeah, this classics souls-like are true gems in the genre : )
Cheers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gamer/comments/1k1tgfg/retrogaming_blade_of_darkness_a_precursor_of_the/
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