Slayblade Review

Beyblade was a fun cartoon show, and playing with the Beyblade toys and battling friends supplied me with the same few hours of joy that Slayblade has given me. Which is to say, this was a short burst of enjoyment, and maybe others will get more out of it, but I still heartily enjoy the experience. 

The premise here is simple: there’s a Bey-sorry, a Slayblade tournament in a few days, and in the lead-up, you need to battle some others to get money, save enough to enter the tournament and also upgrade your blade so you can do well in the competition. There are roguelike elements, so if you lose all your money, you’ll have to start your run again; though there aren’t any systems for improving your chances of succeeding between runs. Instead, you’ll unlock ‘episodes,’ which more or less just add different modifiers to make things more interesting. 

Battles are simple, but thanks to the sound design, 90s-inspired hip-hop beats and the graffiti-like art style, you’ll enjoy each of them. You move your blade around the battle circle and/or area and need to dodge your opponent while building up speed and hitting them to deplete their RPM to 0, destroy them, and win. Some elements are thrown in to make things harder, like bombs that can spawn, spider webs that slow you down, or fire igniting in random areas. 

You start with a basic blade and can replace several of its parts to get higher RPM, greater durability, or ways to trigger abilities, as I mentioned above. But ultimately, there’s a short, somewhat addictive quality to each run that will have you wanting to restart and go again if you run out of money and have to start all over. 

Slayblade oozes with style, and that’s another element that’ll keep you playing, either through the art direction or the music. The little area of the city you can look around in between battles also allows you to do things like visit a shop, partake in a mowing mini-game using your blade to earn money, or look out for some “floor money.” 

I’d love it if there were a way to play multiplayer in Slayblade. Throwing down even in a local player area would add a lot more to the game. But once you either reach the end of the tournament or burn out trying to do so and want something a little different outside the repetitive nature of a roguelike, you’ll run out of things to do.

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