Blades released on iOS and Android in March of 2019 and was a pretty good Elder Scrolls game considering the free price. The game looks stunning on my iPhone XS Max and when Bethesda mentioned it would eventually come to consoles and PC I was excited. I played it starting at the beta and stopped a month or so after I started. Blades is a good phone RPG but it didn't have a lot to do and I felt the missions were all very similar.

Since I left Bethesda has been continuing work on Blades and recently they released it on the Nintendo Switch. Since Blades is an online game it seamlessly loads your account from the phone version to the Switch. Your progress, inventory and anything you may have purchased is available to play on the Switch in handheld mode or docked to your TV. Blades was made for mobile but it feels like a great match on the Switch. Blades looks good on the Switch hardware in handheld mode and on the TV but it does feel a bit "last gen." It's a good balance between low download size and graphical fidelity and considering the Switch isn't as powerful as modern consoles or PC's it's fine.

The best part about Blades on Switch is the controls. The touch controls of Blades on mobile works well it's just not how I enjoy playing Elder Scrolls games. Now that the game is fully playable on the Switch joycons and Switch Pro controller Blades feels better. You still can only engage with one enemy at a time as with the mobile game but hitting buttons feels more at home with the other Scrolls games I've played.

Hopefully Blades comes to PS4, XBox One and PC because i'd love to see if Bethesda includes increased visuals to match. Even if it doesn't there is a lot of fun here to play even though Blades contains some annoying free to play trappings.

Travis   Admin wrote on 05/16/2020 at 04:44am

I just removed Blades from my phone yesterday. It has some decent playability, but at a certain point those free-to-play trappings become way too much. I got faaaaaairly far I think. I got pretty deep into the neverending dungeon mode. But eventually everything just became samey and I felt like progress halted. The game was designed around making you feel like you *almost* had what it takes to get to your next goal............... just 99 cents and you can get there.

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 05/17/2020 at 10:19pm

You do need a fair amount of that for and endless phone RPG but like you say, you can see the seams too much. I thought Fallout Shelter did this better but you almost never needed lunchboxes and the ones you got normally were just fine.

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 05/17/2020 at 10:20pm

I wonder if Elder Scrolls 6 will take a nod from Blades or be more of a directed story line? I hope for the latter.

Travis   Admin wrote on 05/19/2020 at 08:43pm

Me too!

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