The first title of the day is Gameloft’s Blades of Fury, a game quite obviously inspired by Soul Calibur. Like most Gameloft games, while the concept isn’t original, the gameplay is solid.
Blades of Fury has on-screen controls with a virtual D-Pad and array of buttons that cover two different kinds of attacks, blocking, and a special move usable when your power bar fills up. In my brief time with the game, I found the controls to be adequate to beat the first few opponents, although I could definitely see the lack of tactile feedback that comes from a real gamepad or arcade stick becoming an issue as the difficulty in the game ramps up.
The single player story mode is just as silly as most fighting games, told through a few sentences between matches. Since no one that I know plays fighting games for intense plot and character development, I wouldn’t think this would be an issue for too many people. Also included is a standard arcade mode where you quickly just fight another opponent along with a survival and practice mode.
The graphics of the game are absolutely amazing. The test unit shown in the following gameplay video is a 2nd generation iPod Touch. As you can see, the framerate is great, the visuals are top notch, and Blades of Fury will easily join the ranks of games you will find yourself saying “This is running on my phone?" while playing.
[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]
I didn’t have enough time with Blades of Fury to form much of an opinion on the game, but what I’ve seen so far has been fun to play and impressive to watch. I can’t wait to see how it runs on my iPhone 3GS.
Blades of Fury is due to be released sometime this month.
