Another, slightly punishing aspect of gameplay is the Crafting system. Each time you use a weapon, it slowly degrades in quality until it eventually breaks. So yes, you have to go buy a new weapon - unless you get it appraised first, and learn the raw ingredients inside that weapon. If you do, you can create that same weapon from scratch, provided you have those basic components. For example, to make a Gladius, we needed a short sword and a beast bone. As long as we have those items handy, we can keep making new swords. Different, but knowing that every attack hurts your weapons kinda sucks the fun out slicing a dragon's face.
Aside from the main plot, there are a considerable amount of side missions to trek through, though the first few we valiantly completed were delivering "Mama's Lunch" to hungry townspeople and finding a lost girl in the woods. But next in line? Taking down a ravenous demon wolf that's causing a ruckus in the outskirts. Aw yeah.
It's more than a little slow starting, but fans of the genre should be able to appreciate Blade Dancer's mixture of old-school execution and newfangled ideas when it arrives mid-July, ready to cheer up your rather unadventurous summer.
