REVIEW
Review: Infinity Blade II Still Goes to Infinity -- But Only a Bit Beyond
(iPad, IPHONE)
iOS gaming's "killer app" returns with enough new bells & whistles to merit another purchase.
Upon finishing my first battle in Infinity Blade II, I was gravely concerned that developer Chair Entertainment had inadvertently created a parody of the original game's conceit, and that I was trapped in another endless loop of the same gameplay I'd so fully exhausted a year ago. I was dead wrong. It doesn't take long for this follow-up to the poster child for iPhone gaming to show its stuff and set it apart from its predecessor as a worthy sequel.The first Infinity Blade was often rightly summed up as "Punch-Out!! with swords," though I could be heard to argue that the fighting system offered more depth than that description implied. That depth was easy to miss, however, as you could easily charge through the game never even using mechanics like the parry system. Infinity Blade II fixes that from the very beginning; by augmenting said parry system, better explaining it, and offering substantial incentive for using it in battles.
Enhancements like that are peppered throughout the revamped fighting system. In addition to taking on foes using a sword and shield as you did in the first game, you'll now have the option of selecting dual wield weapons or heavy weapons. Dual wielding turns you into a whirling dervish of death -- with no concern for blocking attacks, you instead dodge, duck, and deal damage with great speed. Heavy weapons transform the combat into a satisfying, bone-crunching slugfest that I keep coming back to as my default set -- just for the thud of it. Add in the fact that you can modify all your gear by slotting in ability gems, and the ways you can tailor your equipment to suit your needs becomes functionally endless.
All these new systems and enhancements make the fighting feel fresh and exciting. Every time you begin to tire of a certain style, you can switch your weapon loadout, vary your tactics, and have a different experience altogether. In fact, the game encourages this via a series of optional challenges for each fight. In one bout, you may receive an XP bonus for not blocking at all, or performing a certain number of parries or scratches. By the time I had gone through a few "rebirths," Infinity Blade II had taken on a complex, comprehensive feel that the first never achieved.
The fighting is not without its frustrations, though they are few. Certain weapons -- especially heavy weapons -- can obscure the camera in some fights to the point that you can't see where your opponent attacks from. This only happens when the game chooses a specific angle for the fight, but there's no way to know that until it begins -- at which point it's too late. You may also find, as I did early in the game, a certain weapon and gem combo that's incredibly overpowered. For an extended portion of the game, I was taking out normal enemies in a single combo. Those gem/weapon drops may happen by pure luck, but their occurrence can make the game a bit boring for stretches. Conversely, there are a few points in the game where the difficulty unpredictably spikes -- making for some infuriating moments.
As was the case in the first title, the meta game of leveling up individual pieces of equipment, and then purchasing and leveling up new ones provides the main source of my Infinity Blade II addiction. In any other RPG (if we're going to compare Infinity Blade II to an RPG, which is debatable at best), I'd find a weapon I love and stick with it until it proved ineffective in comparison to a new one. The leveling system in Infinity Blade has the opposite effect on me: As soon as I've maxed out a weapon, I can't wait to swap it out for a new model -- lest I waste precious XP.
Click the image above to check out all Infinity Blade II screens.
Chair has also made an effort to expand on the story elements of the game -- with a bit less success than they did in the fighting system. The game still retains its impressive sense of place, atmosphere, and persistent feeling of dread & fear (I get a really strong Demon's/Dark Souls vibe from the game; especially when wearing headphones). But the switch from the original game's invented language to English makes each interaction between characters feel much less mysterious and scary -- and the voice acting of the player's character would be more at home in an '80s action movie than a sword-and-sorcery tale. There's also a vaguely Assassin's-Creed-like element to the story that I'm not entirely sold on.
You'll have a bit more choice in the direction that story takes, thanks to some branching paths in the castle. It's a nice change of pace from the first Infinity Blade, though if you stuck with the original long enough to receive the massive content update Chair delivered for that game, you'll have seen the beginnings of those branching paths already.
That history of providing new content and support for their last game, along with the promise of more to come for this one (such as the recent update which fixed the initial version's audio bugs among other things; and a multiplayer content pack), make it easy to recommend picking up Infinity Blade II. If only to show your cynical, nay-saying, 3DS-and-PSP-hugging friends that, yes, "big-boy" games do indeed belong on mobile devices.
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