Blackwind is a throwback to the classic isometric action-RPGs of the PlayStation 2-era. It has eye-popping visuals, a high-octane soundtrack, and an intriguing world design. This effort from Drakker Dev is exciting for sure, and a pretty good romp, but it is also lacking in many key areas that truly hold it back from being a must-play indie title. Monotonous battles, lackluster skill tree, obnoxious lead character, and simplistic level design leave much to be desired.
Feeling Familiar…
Blackwind starts with a beautifully drawn narrative cinematic. The world being built here by Drakker Dev is well thought out and instantly feels interesting, yet familiar. A father and son are preparing to deliver a cool mech to what is supposed to be a mining planet when disaster strikes leaving the young son to don the prototype mech suit for survival. Your mission is to find your father while investigating an alien threat to this supposed mining colony.
When you jump into the mech suit and begin defending yourself with the help of the suit’s AI companion, you instantly feel powerful. You will be reminded of the first time you jumped into X-Men Legends on PlayStation 2 as well. The camera positioning and enemy hoards give you that nostalgic feeling. Unfortunately, the moment to moment gameplay seems to also be stuck in that era. You will move around an isometric map, shooting aliens with your arm cannon, picking up health and experience, while solving relatively simple ‘open this door to get to that door’ puzzles. Luckily as you move through the levels and kill enemies, you get XP fast enough to open up more and more combat options. In the end, however, you will still be using your trusty laser swords and arm cannon to clear out the baddies.
Slice, blast, (don’t) repeat…
The monotony isn’t just in your arsenal but also the one liner’s and banter from the protagonist, James. When you perform a killing blow you will hear the same 5 or 6 one liners over and over again. “NEVER MESS WITH A HAWKINS!” can only be heard so many times before you start to eyeroll. You’ll find yourself wishing they spent a little bit more time in the recording booth getting some more of these lines in there to break up the frequency you’ll hear repeated lines. At some point it all becomes just noise.
If simple action RPG combat is your thing, then Blackwind will definitely service that. But if you are looking for deeper combat, more complex level design, or interested skill tree decisions, you might want to look elsewhere. With a $19.99 price tag, you can do much much worse.
Reviewed on PS5. Copy was provided for review.
