The creators of Bleak Sword DX call it a Lo-Fi version of Elden Ring. It’s the same gritty, dystopian fantasy, only it doesn’t look as beautiful as the FromSoftware project. The main character is a bunch of white pixels armed with the same “pixel” sword, and the opponents here are not much better detailed. However, minimalism does not harm the game – in combination with a solid gameplay you get an exciting and moderately complex action.
Pixels vs. tyranny
The plot is about as sketchy as the graphics: the king is killed by his youngest son, whose mind was clouded by the sword, popularly called Pale. After this, all sorts of evil spirits flooded the land, including those summoned by dark magicians, and all this went on for over 200 years while the Pale King continued to occupy the throne. Suddenly word gets out that there are magic stones capable of putting an end to the tyranny, and the main character sees a prophecy in a dream from which the location of both these stones and the Pale King becomes known.
The story does not develop further in any significant way. The protagonist visits various regions one after another – from snow-covered mountains to forests and swamps – meets a strong opponent at the end of each chapter, they exchange a few words, fight, and we move on. A bit of a pity that the narrative is given so little attention – you can skip the clips with the bosses without losing anything. And in the local bestiary descriptions of the enemies do not contain anything interesting.
The emphasis is on gameplay. All chapters consist of about a dozen levels each and represent tiny arenas in which you must defeat all the enemies. They appear one after another and always in the same places – when you die and restart the level, nothing changes.
The main character is able to perform normal sword strikes, as well as charging them to do more damage. The difficulty is that each swing takes away stamina – after the fourth strike the protagonist is exhausted and must take a short pause.
The key skill in the hero’s arsenal is parry. Weak attacks of the opponents can be repelled by timely pressing the block button, in which case the opponent briefly becomes defenseless. Parrying is accompanied by a bright special effect and corresponding sound, so it is pleasant to perform it – it is a kind of reward for the correct use of the mechanics.
The blade shines in a special way after the parry
The mechanics are hackneyed, but it is implemented perfectly – not once I had a moment when parrying could not be done because of a bug or awkward control. And the types of enemies are enough that several times during the chapter there are completely new individuals with unique tricks. Some fly and can only take damage when they fall to the ground, some scatter and try to knock the hero off his feet. Spiders spit cobwebs, tentacles come out of the water in different places, strange evil sunflowers shoot in your direction…