Merge & Blade Evaluate | TheXboxHub

Have you ever ever puzzled what would occur if somebody had been to fuse Tetris with an auto battling sport? No? Me neither, however now there’s such a factor from the builders over at Magic Dice. Merge & Blade does precisely what it says on the tin – it helps you to merge troopers, after which get them to make use of their blades to win battles. Assume it seems like an odd mixture? You don’t have any thought!

Wanting “there are some monsters, make them not alive any extra” there isn’t any narrative kicking round in Merge & Blade, however that does imply we will get straight on to how issues are introduced. In that respect, the visuals are most positively sitting on the retro facet, with cute pixel artwork representations of the assorted models that you may make, in addition to these of the enemies that they need to face. The remainder of the graphics are fairly bland, with a display screen the place you make your models, a display screen the place you struggle enemies, after which a map display screen which helps you to dictate the place you wish to go subsequent. It’s all practical and clearly reveals you what is going on, so a superb mark there. 

Sonically, Merge & Blade is equally low key, with distressing squeaks as your models perish accompanied by nicer sounding ones because the enemies die. That’s just about it, to be sincere, and whereas it really works nicely, a little bit of music would have been appreciated. 

The precise sport itself is break up into three sections: Story mode, a Problem mode, and a Versus possibility. All three modes play out the identical means, however Story sees you progressing throughout the land, releasing cities one after the other; it’s only by making progress on this mode that you may truly unlock Problem Mode. Problem mode then focuses on you attempting to finish totally different situations, however they’re very a lot a one hit and performed – it’s important to end every problem in a single sitting, and in the event you stop or die, then it’s important to begin once more from the start. Included in right here is an countless possibility, the place it’s important to survive for so long as you possibly can. Lastly, Versus mode is just for native sofa primarily based gamers, as there isn’t any Xbox community play enabled. Weirdly, you possibly can play versus mode with just one controller connected, permitting for some simple victories. 

However how does Merge & Blade truly play? Nicely, the primary part of the sport is a match three, Tetris-styled puzzler. In case you match three of the identical unit, they’ll merge into one of many subsequent rank up. So three Farmers will merge to kind one Footman, three Footmen will merge to make one Soldier, three Troopers will merge to make one Rogue, and so forth and so forth. You additionally must be conscious that merging greater than three models will nonetheless solely make one new unit, so watch out. Now, it is a nice thought, however you could watch that you just don’t simply find yourself with one unit left on the finish of the merging section – it’s typically higher to maintain the models away from one another to be able to have a little bit of depth in your defence. 

You additionally want to contemplate which models you make – for example, Bishops are nice at therapeutic models round them, however don’t truly assault, so a staff of solely Bishops will wrestle. Every unit has its personal strengths – Troopers can assault in entrance and diagonally, whereas Rogues can assault twice, and Spearmen can hearth out at two rows of monsters, and so forth. 

The problem I’ve with this a part of Merge & Blade is that regardless of how fastidiously you organize your models, retaining Archers behind different models, for instance, after they run to the battle display screen, all bets are off. The models appear to reorganise themselves nonetheless they need, and whilst you can swap the models round, there’s solely a restricted variety of swaps doable. And simply to make it even worse, the models you select to swap can solely transfer one house at a time; you probably have three rows of fighters, and wish to transfer somebody from the entrance to the again, they’ll want two swaps. The opposite factor to remember is that whenever you do win a battle, and the models run to the merging display screen, any which are adjoining will merge right away. 

As you struggle, you’ll earn gold, and this may be spent within the improve part to make sure that your staff is all the time tip prime. Placing gold into the Academy will get you new models, for instance, and these can then even be upgraded extra to make them stronger. Different choices embrace the flexibility to spend gold on getting extra swaps, or extra turns within the merging section, and so forth. Feeding the spoils of struggle again in will make your military stronger. 

Merge & Blade performs fairly equally throughout all of the modes on provide and it’s that which is each its energy and its weak point. Enjoyable to play for brief bursts, there isn’t any doubt that incomes new models is nice, nevertheless it isn’t lengthy earlier than issues begin to really feel like a drag. As a brief time period proposition then, Merge & Blade works, however I’m unsure the long-term hook is there. 

Merge & Blade is on the Xbox Retailer