Everblade

Review by Gaming Masterpieces - The greatest games of all time on Steam.
Is this game a masterpiece? No, this is a retro action platformer. Not bad, but no fancy bells and whistles, just hardcore jumping and fighting monsters, often at the same time. Jump on platforms, jump against walls to climb them, avoid touching environmental dangers, destroy blocks to find treasure and hidden rooms, kill monsters and get killed by large, hard to beat bosses. Learn new skills and magic tricks as the adventure unfolds. If this is what you are looking for, you will be very happy with this game.
A small, out of the way medieval village gets attacked by an evil sorcerer who kills most villagers and then steals the horn of a large, sleeping white cat (the town's guardian). You are the chosen villager to take revenge - and the game starts, with you and a magic knife standing at the entry of a cave full of skeletons in various sizes. Stab them with your knife, or throw the knife - you have a few shots which reload over time (it is a magic dagger after all). You have a bunch of health points, so you do survive a few hits. Stones to regenerate health points can be found during your adventure. You also start with four lifes and can find more. The game is still hard, but it comes with a continue option (at the level start) that even allows you to keep your treasure. No cloudsaves. Ultrawidescreen works, but with black borders to the sides. Gamepad is supported.
Conclusion:
Quite challenging retro platformer.

There’s been a misconception about this game given its mis-labelling as a metroidvania.
There's 9 main levels connected to a large hubworld, which contains its own secrets.
Progress through these is semi-linear, plenty of side rooms to explore for extra goods, with some obvious barriers that stop you going everywhere. There is no map for these levels.

You’ll be returning to many of these levels later in the game once you’ve gained the ability to break these barriers and pass these obstacles. The flame daggers (for destroying red thorns), a giant hammer (for breaking concrete floor/walls) and ice daggers (for freezing falling platforms). These abilities will be found in the later 5 levels of the hub that are unlocked after you finish the first 4.

These returns visits are all optional, so if backtracking isn’t your thing you can keep plowing onwards. If you want that health buff or extra upgrade token, it’s there for you. This may be a point of frustration for some as the lack of maps for these primary levels means you simple just have to recall areas you couldn’t access from your own recollection, but it’s clear from the game’s aesthetics that it’s going for an old school feel.
The level select nexus itself also uses these skills to unlock new areas for additional upgrade materials.

Once all 9 of the main levels are done you'll have access to the final GigaLevel, which finally gives you a map and asks you to trek around and break NINE SEALS to get to the final boss. It feels like 9 half levels glued together resulting in something the feels 4.5 times the size of everything before it, then climaxes with the longest boss in the game.

The level design is nice and varied between each level.
The Oasis level alone features a heatstroke mechanic that requires you to cool off in puddles to avoid taking damage, a mini-boss, returning back to the beginning using an underground passage and shortcuts opened up by your new fire daggers, proceed into a temple, run away from a wave of lava, dodge swinging axes, etc.
The Mines have their cart gimmick and track switching shenanigans.
The Mountains have the wind mechanic which switches up the platforming greatly.


There were quite a few frustrating elements to the game at release, but by browsing the patches you can see the devs appear to be open to player feedback and adjusting the game where appropriate.
Errr, is this even a review at this point? I just wanted to clarify what is on offer here.

So you've read the description and now you're down here in the comments trying to figure out what's it all about. Click the video above to see some of the gameplay, mechanic and hear my thoughts on the game.
Everblade is latest contestant in the 2D Pixel Art world by Elion Games. In a space where so my pixelated platformers exist, what makes Everblade worth you hard earned money instead of other games on the market? Let’s discuss…
Graphics/Art Style: You already know that they’re Pixel graphics. I’ve mentioned it numerous times up to this point so why beat a dead horse you ask? Close your eyes and think back to your favorite NES game. The look of the environments, characters and everything else; now convert that picture to HD and smoothness like butter and that’s what Everblade has going on for it.
Story: It may be a classic story or an overplayed trope (depending on your individual view) but a town living in peace that’s wreck by a power hungry mage gets my blood pumping. After he ransacks my town, kills my friends and steals my favorite deity’s horn…I’m ready to shove some fireballs up where the sun don’t shine.
Gameplay: It’s a Metroidvania, enough said. Wait? You want me to say more? Ok, the controls are simple (jump, attack, etc.) but there so smooth and responsive. Jumping, wall climbing, attacking and everything else is so effortless that you’ll have to catch yourself from making little mistakes. Upgrades, powers, abilities, and bosses…what more do you need?
Music: Classic Retro NES jams and bangers all day every day. Highly recommend you pick up the soundtrack because you’ll find yourself humming it and nodding your head like I have since it crawled into my brain and laid beautiful music babies.
Replayability: Two Modes (that I know of) are offered at the start Normal or Hard. This will give you a chance to go back through the game again and test your old school NES street credit. Maybe there will be a Hardcore or Insane mode once beaten, but normal was fun and challenging enough for me through my first playthrough.
Overall, this is a good maybe even great addition to the 2D Pixel Platformer Metriodvanias on steam. The Time I have spent playing/reviewing this game has been some of the most enjoyable and I am looking forward to playing more after I post this review. I cannot strongly encourage you enough to pick this gem up for yourself. Will you succeed and restore order to the world? Only one way to find out…

Leaving a review cause it's deserted in here—game is VERY good, it knows what it's doing and has a KILLER soundtrack. The world is very unique, it's like a metroivania without a map but it's not confusing for that matter. You have an intuitive melee attack as well as 3 magical swords rotating around you that you can throw and constantly replenish. Great game with a great concept pick it up

Everblade is a fantastic hidden gem of a game. While it certainly has some rough spots, there is more than enough polish elsewhere to make up for its shortcomings.
The main factor Everblade has going for it is variety. The game is divided between a hub area and 9 levels which generally unlock in sets of 2 or 3 (plus a final level). The level themes are diverse and range anywhere from underwater ruins to a church and graveyard crawling with undead.
Beyond the aesthetics, each level has a unique feel as they all focus on different mechanics. You'll be dodging plenty of boulder and riding along on the wind in the mountains, jumping between falling tree branches and swimming around thorns and poison in the swamp, and mostly solving puzzles while trying not to drown in those underwater ruins I mentioned. Several of the levels are even broken into two distinct segments, such as the desert level which first has you platforming across the desert while periodically dipping into water to avoid heatstroke and later has you fighting your way through a trap-filled pyramid. The underwater level does go on for a bit too long, but otherwise the levels stay fresh and interesting from beginning to end.
Secrets are another aspect Everblade excels at. There are a truly *ridiculous* number of breakable walls and hidden passages in this game. If a wall looks even a little bit suspicious, chances are high that you can break it or crawl through it for a prize or a challenge. While many of these secrets result in relatively minor amounts of treasure or a 1up, there are also plenty which grant more valuable prizes in the form of skill coins, max health upgrades, lore books, or minigame portals (which in turn unlock another upgrade when you find and complete all of them). The hub area itself also has plenty of hidden paths to gradually uncover as your skillset grows. If you get a sense of satisfaction every time you find something hidden in a video game, chances are you'll love Everblade.
Level progression and backtracking is handled rather well here too. The path leading to the boss of each level tends to be straightforward, but finding every permanent upgrade hidden throughout a level is rarely going to happen on your first run through it. In fact, it's outright impossible to do so in a single run for all except the final few levels as many of them have paths you can only reach with upgrades found elsewhere. Thankfully, Everblade does several things to make backtracking fun instead of tedious. Each level entrance has a marker to let you know if you've found every important item inside it. Doors and other shortcuts remain permanently open across visits, with a path leading to the later areas of a level almost inevitably right near the start. Lastly, you can leave a completed level at any time with the only penalty being the loss of half the treasure you obtained on that run, which is likely to be next to nothing if you're focused on seeking out missed upgrades. What this all means is levels are long enough to feel like satisfying challenges on an initial clear while having enough permanent shortcuts open up along the way that you rarely need more than a minute or two to reach any part you want to investigate while backtracking.
The combat system itself is decent. You have a standard slashing sword combo alongside a set of 3 weaker, regenerating throwing daggers for ranged attacks. I found myself relying on the daggers most of the time as most enemy types can take quite a few hits and often deal plenty of close-range damage. This does mean combat can feel tedious early on if you like to play it safe, but it picks up in the back half once you get more utility between decreased cooldown on dagger regeneration and elemental daggers which let you freeze most enemy types or leave behind fiery damage areas. Enemy placement is also handled well, with enemies often positioned in locations where they can make effective use of their attack patterns rather than being haphazardly tossed around.
While combat in Everblade generally falls under "decent if unremarkable", the boss fights are more noteworthy. To begin with, every single boss and miniboss has its own combat theme. Many bosses are immune to dagger attacks, so learning how to dodge their attacks and when it's safe to get close enough for a few quick sword slashes is vital. This isn't to say that daggers are completely useless for these fights though, as many bosses summon in weaker enemies (which can drop valuable health) or shoot destructible projectiles and daggers *definitely* come in handy against the bosses who don't have immunity. Bosses also have enough health to put up a good fight without having so much that the fight drags on. Furthermore, most bosses either have a fixed pattern they change up in some way around the halfway point or pull from a large enough pool of potential attacks to ensure the fights feel satisfying and tense from start to finish. The only boss I didn't like was the one in the mountain level, which was a neat concept for a sort of 'summoner' fight, but the execution was a bit tedious.
With all that said, it's time to get around to discussing some of those rough spots I mentioned. To begin with, the visual language of Everblade has some issues. For example, the castle level has plenty of thin, grey, rectangular platforms whcih look like they should crumble beneath you and, while they do disappear upon contact, it turns out they're bounce pads. You can jump up most walls, but the walls you can't jump on have a thin line of green moss which blends in so well with the environment that it took me a moment to understand why I couldn't jump on some walls. These visual issues are rarely a problem other than the first time you encounter something, but they do mean otherwise simple mechanics can sometimes feel oddly confusing to understand.
Treasure and 1ups don't feel valuable for most of the game. The inclusion of a lives system in the first place is a strange decision, but it's made especially pointless when there's a hidden 1up you can farm in the castle (one of the earliest levels) within 30 seconds of the entrance once you open a shortcut; I spent a good chunk of the back half of the game hovering at or around the maximum of 9 lives thanks to how easy this and other 1ups were to obtain. As for treasure, it's virtually everywhere and finding hidden treasure can in and of itself be fun, but the only things you can use it for are a skill reset token, a single max health upgrade, dirt cheap consumables (you can only have 3 copies of a single type at a time), and passive items which all either go away upon death or do something upon death (you can also only have 1 passive item at a time and they are all so expensive that it makes more sense to simply save for consumables).
Lastly, Everblade does have something of a U-shaped difficulty curve. The reason for this is nearly all of the skills related to exploration are found in the first 3 levels in the back half of the game. The result is you spend the first few levels getting a tiny handful of skill coins for permanent passives and a few max health upgrades and then the number of health and skill upgrades you can find skyrockets once you get these new skills, making damage largely trivial until near the end where the game starts becoming balanced around the assumption that the player has found most of the health upgrades. It would have made sense to distribute these upgrades more evenly across the game.
When all is said and done, none of Everblade's issues are particularly severe. Ultimately, Everblade is a wonderful game full of plenty to like from start to finish and I'd say it's easily worth the asking price. And if you're still on the fence, I strongly recommend checking out the demo as it lets you play through the entirety of one of the early levels (it certainly did a good job of convincing me to take a chance on this game at least).

So far so good! It's quite challenging but even on hard mode the first boss can definitely be beat without taking damage. It seems to reward skill and practice. I'll come back and update my review after more hours. As for the price, I think it's fair. There are endless hours put into making a game like this.

This is a real hidden gem, I can't believe it's only got as few reviews as it has. A wonderful pixel adventure, you play as a mage on a quest for revenge.
The bosses and minibosses all have interesting designs, if fairly simple patterns to remember. But this is not a game focused on challenging bosses, the focus is on the bright and wonderfully detailed environments. The levels are always bigger than you think, full of secrets and treasure ala Shovel Knight, but with a focus on shortcuts and puzzles. You'll unlock new abilities that will open the path to even more secrets and treasures. If you like exploration focused games, this is def one to check out.
You start off with simple sword slashes and some magic daggers for ranged combat, but you will gradually unlock spells and new attacks to mix things up. Enemies can sometimes be challenging, but are often placed in ways to make you consider your platforming. Most enemies also don't respawn, so it's easy to backtrack if you think you've missed something. A death will restart you very close to where you died, but after you lose all lives you must restart. Shortcuts and items found remain in your possession though.
There are also fun minigames to find and unlock for even more treasure. In between levels you find yourself in a hubworld which is just as full of secrets of its own. Everblade is overall a really great action adventure game, if you like metroidvania games consider giving this one a try, even if it isn't a true metroidvania. It's such a polished and fun adventure, with a unique feel of it's own that it really deserves a bigger audience.
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