Blades of Time from Konami, developed by Gaijin Entertainment, is one of those button-mashing beat ’em up action games that has that distinct Japanese-ness to it and you know what, I love it! I mean normally if a game is TOO Japanese I’m a bit put off, but this one is tempered with some serious Western ideals. I’m also not a fan of mindless button mashers and yet, Blades of Time is definitely a button masher, but it’s button mashing with purpose and more importantly, with strategy. It seems that some people have missed that part.

Perhaps one might call it strategic button mashing because there’s a method to the button mashing madness, fill of that rage meter so you seriously blast holes in the waves of enemies coming at you by triggering one of your powers that you picked up along the way. The game offers an RPG-like progression in that you can pick and choose what you want each time you finish a level. It’s like power gaming (to use a pen-and-paper RPG term) but in video game form.

While the story mode was good and full of interesting stuff, it wasn’t all that engrossing. That’s saying a lot because I generally need a good story to keep me going. That’s not to say that Blades of Time doesn’t have a good story, it’s got an excellent one, but the way that it’s presented at times left me wanting in its delivery.

What’s with all the scantily clad women who are wearing seriously constricting outfits, yet are supposed to be these amazing fighters? Oh right, it’s Konami. I mean seriously, if I were Ayumi (who does not look anything like any Ayumi I’ve ever met, what with her blond hair and blue eyes) I would not be wearing basically what amounts to some leather straps and Tomb Raider shorts. You’re going into heavy melee combat and you’re wearing a bra hot pants? No wonder you get killed every once in awhile. There are some really cool outfits for the characters but you pick those up for Outbreak (which is awesome fun and I’ll get to it shortly) and those are far more practical than her standard garb.

Blades of Time sees you crashing a guild party to use a sphere to head to the Dragonland or Dragon Island, I forget, which is supposed to chocked full of treasure, only, it ain’t as it turns out. Well, nomenclature aside, it’s a pretty decent story full of almost mech-like super-powerful creatures. Hey, I told you it was very Japanese, didn’t I? Now there’s a whole lot of ground to cover in the single player, which is good, because there’s pretty much only one multiplayer mode, Outbreak (still awesome, still more later). OK that’s not really true, there’s Co-op campaign as well.