It’s one of those rare games where even when everything about it should work against it, and repel you, you continue to play, because it’s engaging enough for you to want to play. It’s not as if you’re playing it for the story: while the general idea of having your JRPG hero not be the typical do goody type (or worse, the brooding, angsty teenager) is great, and the game carries it off well, the story itself isn’t anything to write home about. The quality of the dialog, along with the voice work, is brilliant, but again, the actual writing is jarring, because it’s just so modern teenager in a medieval fantasy game.

So no, you don’t play Unchained Blades for its story. You don’t play it for the graphics, which are average at best (this was a PSP game, and it shows, it really does) either. And don’t even get me started on the controls which are broken (like I said, the B button is the main action button, and using the analog stick to traverse a 2D grid is annoying).

Why do you continue playing it then? Because Unchained Blades is one of the most uncompromising and hardcore RPGs in recent years. The game makes no concessions whatsoever, and oftentimes, a simple random encounter could take your entire party down. Boss battles can be unbelievably intense, and throwing a wrench in all your plans is just how many things there are to keep track of. Mechanically speaking, Unchained Blades is an intricate, deep game, and you need to have a handle on all of the said mechanics if you want to survive. The game gets brutal sometimes, and it won’t wait for you, no matter what.

So that all sounds good, but there will probably be many, who, when they go to the eShop, will gawk at the price. At a hefty $30, Unchained Blades is the single most expensive eShop exclusive game on the 3DS right now. Given that the eShop has no dearth of quality content- and certainly no shortage of great RPGs– the question of whether Unchained Blades is worth it is bound to come up. And it is, this isn’t a made for digital only release like other eShop games. While digital games have been coming into their own lately, they are almost always constrained by differing budgets and development sensibilities than retail games. No, Unchained Blades was developed as a full priced retail release in Japan, and only in the west was it made exclusively digital, in order to minimize localization risks. But as a full priced, full length RPG, Unchained Blades currently doesn’t have much competition on the eShop. Don’t let the price scare you.

It’ll start slow, of course. The game does try and make an effort to initiate you, to try and show you how everything works, but once it does that, you’re on your own. Traveling through labyrinth dungeons, battling your way through hordes of enemies, and finding your sense of adequacy constantly challenged as Unchained Blades humiliates you repeatedly, you find yourself playing it, because damn it, you won’t let a handheld digital only game put you down that way.

But you will. Again and again. And you’ll like it, and you’ll go back to it. That’s Unchained Blades’ biggest accomplishment.

This game was reviewed on the Nintendo 3DS.

The localisation duties were carried by XSEED and it was released in North America on June 26, 2012 for the PSP, also published by XSEED.

The game is a tactical turn-based dungeon crawler and is something that can be termed as a pure JRPG.

The 3DS version was released on June 3, 2013 and is the same game without any changes. The game is supposed to have a greater emphasis on story and features a lot of characters.

The game features massive Titans and the world is inhabited by mythical beings. Unchained Blades Exiv is the sequel to the game and has been released for the PSP and 3DS on November 29, 2012 in Japan.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

The game contains character designs from 14 celebrated artists, including Pako (Shining series), Toshiyuki Kubooka (Lunar series), Kumichi Yoshizuki (Someday’s Dreamers), Shinichiro Otsuka (Summon Night), Sunaho Tobe (Hexyz Force) and Kazushi Hagiwara (Bastard!!), Unchained Blades has a diverse set of character designs unlike any other game.

Core Team of Experienced Game CreatorsWith Takashi Hino (Grandia) as the scenario designer, Toshio Akashi (Lunar) as the director, and a soundtrack composed by acclaimed game music arranger Tsutomu Narita (Xenoblade Chronicles) with Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) contributing the theme song, development was entrusted to the hands of industry veterans.

The 3DS version features stereoscopic 3D and it’s the only version which has that. The PSP and 3DS versions are virutally identical except the 3D part but that has more to do with system features.

On PSP you can toggle a map overlay to show up on the center of the screen or as a mini-map. The Nintendo 3DS version has the map on the bottom screen. [reference]

The game was localized by XSEED and was released for the PSP on June 26, 2012 in Japan.

Story

In a world inhabited by mythical beings, where colossal labyrinths called Titans tower over the land, there’s a legend that any being who can approach the sky shall have a single wish granted. A powerful and self-absorbed dragon named Fang aims for those heights and learn the name of the strongest monster in the world.

His drive to find and kill this ultimate opponent and firmly establish himself as the dominant monster of the land is mighty enough its enemies, but his boldness is also his undoing.

Bereft of the power he once wielded as the Dragon Emperor, Fang must now adjust to surviving in a far weaker body as he navigates the dangerous mazes of halls in his quest for revenge upon the creator herself.

Gameplay

You can journeying through grid-based dungeons in first-person view while fighting over 180 varieties of monsters in classic turn-based battle. The game is said to have over 60 hours of gameplay.

The game features all new voice-overs. A tale of exacting revenge by an arrogant dragon on its enemies that stole his power is brought to life with all-new English voice-overs.

Supporting characters such as a golem, medusa, and phoenix each have their own default attributes, but additional skills are customizable by allocating growth points to their individual Skill Maps to determine which growth path and abilities to pursue. [reference]

Characters