If I told you the name of a game is EchoBlade what would come to your mind in regards to what the game is about? If you guessed using echolocation while wielding a blade, you’d be right. EchoBlade comes to us via publisher eastasiasoft and developer Sunset Arctic Games and is available on all the major platforms currently. Here is my review of the PlayStation 5 version.
EchoBlade is a first-person adventure game where you play as a character trapped in a dungeon tower. Your character is blind though so you’ll have to fight your way out while using echolocation to see. The gameplay is easy to grasp as it’s really just a dungeon crawler with limited visibility. You are armed with a sword and a crossbow and can only faintly see your close surroundings. Enemies and traps are around too and are color coded to help you see them. Enemies will have a red aura about them while things like poison have a green aura. While the game is easy to play it doesn’t feel great as attacking enemies feels kind of janky. You’ll mostly be using your sword as your crossbow has limited ammo. Defeating enemies rewards you with skill points that you can spend on new perks like more health, making less noise while running, increased stamina recovery, and so on. None of them are game changing but they are helpful.
Beyond just exploring and defeating enemies there are some light puzzles to solve and traps to dodge like saws and the poison I mentioned before. The presentation also didn’t impress me as the sounds you hear get repetitive, there is a lack of music, and the same dungeon environment doesn’t change much. I did like the visual effect of the echolocation and it does make things feel a bit tense not being able to see far in front of you. Trophy hunters will find 12 easy trophies here to collect including a Platinum. It’s a very easy list that won’t take you long at all to complete.
EchoBlade is an old-school first-person dungeon crawler with a cool idea but it doesn’t do a lot with it. Using echolocation to see and explore is cool but the combat and puzzles here are very basic and nothing special. I would personally say to wait for a sale on this one if you have any interest in it.
*EchoBlade is available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. PlayStation 5 version reviewed. Review copy provided by the publisher for this review.
EchoBlade
$9.99
Pros
- Dungeon crawler using echolocation is a cool concept
- Echolocation visual effect is cool
Cons
- Combat feels clunky
- Puzzles and combat are very basic
