Bladestorm: Nightmare

Believe it or not, there is an entertaining action strategy game underneath all this, it’s just that with the crushing weight of issues that sit atop it, we tragically rarely see it. More than anything else, from a technical standpoint Bladestorm: Nightmare is a disappointingly subpar port of what is effectively a last-gen console game. With the tremendous amount of grunt available to them, the developer should have produced the definitive version of the game, instead of the poorest which r...

While sometimes stale, there's plenty of fun to be had here for strategy game fans.

Bladestorm: Nightmare isn’t a Dynasty Warriors game, but it doesn’t aim to be, and still ends up being good time when taken on its own merits. In fact, it’s a little ironic that its unusual qualities doomed the original release commercially, but help this new release feel much more fresh and engaging than even the latest “core” franchise entries.

Originally released during the PlayStation 3's earlier years, Bladestorm remains a bit of an outlier as far as Koei games are concerned. Unlike Dynasty Warriors, the series that the publisher is perhaps best known for, Bladestorm is about conquering historical battlefields with brains rather than brawn. Taking on the guise of a real-time strategy title, it's a methodically paced game that plops you into the shoes of a mercenary during the Hundred Years' War, in which England and France, among other nations and clans, clashed in a series of battles that dragged on for over a century. If you mis...

As a remaster for new consoles, there was only so much Omega Force could do in trying to make Bladestorm relevant once more without having to rebuild the game from scratch. What new feature Nightmare has to offer are intuitive and gel perfectly with Bladestorm’s existing mechanics. The demonic campaign is admittedly underwhelming in parts yet gives Bladestorm fans another series of unique battles to play through. If undecided, try the demo – it even extends the option to carry your progress into the main game.

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It's hard to call Bladestorm: Nightmare a good game, but it is an oddly satisfying one. The main campaign is riddled with pacing issues, and the combat isn't nearly as deep or tactical as Omega Force would like players to think it is. Still, leading a flock of powerful, sometimes supernatural soldiers is undeniably exhilarating. Ultimately, Bladestorm: Nightmare isn't a strategy game or an action title: it's a straight-up power fantasy, and there's nothing wrong with that.

When all is said and done, the Xbox 360 version of Bladestorm deserved a full sequel, or at least a proper remaster. Bladestorm: Nightmare is neither of those things. It's a half-hearted attempt at bringing the series into the current generation, and is only barely recommended for the absolute die-hard fans of the original. This is a real shame and even if you can get past the bare-bones approach to remastering that Omega Force have taken, you probably won't get past all the bugs.

Bladestorm Nightmare is neither interesting to play nor good looking in any way, shape, or form. There are books that offer more visceral medieval combat than this. Seek those out and do anything else with your PS4.