Bladestorm: Nightmare (PS4)

Bladestorm: Nightmare is perhaps at a first glance cut from the same cloth as Dynasty Warriors, it is after all made by Tecmo Koei, but after playing a few hours you notice how the similarities begin to melt away. Bladestorm is set during the Hundred Years War between England and France and as you would expect from Tecmo Koei features dozens of historical characters. The protagonist however is a fully customisable character created by the player. The protagonist acts as a mercenary that can choose to carry out contracts for either the English or French to help accelerate their progress in the war. This character can be chosen to lead a squad of almost endless varieties of units, from historical longbowmen and Knights, to Mongolian horsemen and even mythical creatures such as dragons and gryphons in the Nightmare campaign.The combat follows a complex version of rock, paper scissors. Each unit has a significant advantage over some units and severe disadvantages over others, meaning that the player cannot rely on the skills of just one unit type but must learn to adapt to different situations. This helps keep the combat fresh and interesting as a tactic that worked in one battle may lead to disaster in another. Combat revolves around the various towns and castles on the battle map that represent objectives and defensive points in order for the player to achieve success on the battlefield, each province of France represents a possible battlefield and each province possesses around thirty or forty settlements that can belong to either side, resulting in massive battles that require large levels of strategy in order to both defend your settlements and occupy the enemies.In terms of story the game is split into the Hundred Years War Scenario which follows (albeit with a few alterations) the historical course of the hundred years war. The scenario will present random contracts that the player can use to rank up their squads or story contracts that represent the battles of the period (including Poitiers, Orleans and Crecy). For each contract the player will side with either England or France and help the historical figures of that nation achieve victory, characters such as Joan of Arc and The Black Prince are featured and their individual struggles throughout the campaign will influence the players ultimate choice of loyalty to either England or France late in the game. The Nightmare Scenario of the campaign is the pseudo-history of the Hundred Years War that involves a mysterious invasion by mythical creatures that must be beaten back by the ragged survivors of both the English and French armies, which gives a fantasy-tinge to the historical setting which is extremely enjoyable and challenging to play.Graphically the game does not quite live up to the standard of other Next-Generation games in terms of breath-taking scenery as Samurai Warriors 4 (Another of Tecmo Koei's creations for PS4) does. However that is not to say that the maps aren't well designed and the areas to explore are detailed and really make the player feel immersed in the gameplay. Perhaps this is an unfair criticism as the game was not originally designed for the PS4 as many of the others are, while it still delivers all the exciting gameplay you would expect of a Next-Gen game.Overall Bladestorm: Nightmare is extremely enjoyable, there are endless battles and units to explore and utilise as player sees fit. The customisability of the characters is a nice touch and makes every play through unique. The maps are enormous and detailed with flowing rivers and dense forests to traverse. Bladestorm is simply what we have come to expect from Tecmo Koei: a kickass lesson in historical battles.

I enjoyed Bladestorm: The Hundred Years War when it was on the PS3 platform. Indeed, it was one of the titles I felt I would most miss when upgrading to the PS4, so I was very pleasantly surprised to log on and see this advertised when looking at Dynasty Warriors!It's a fun game, with a good deal of freedom and customisation options. In this respect, it has been upgraded from the original with a more advanced character creation suite and the ability to edit the appearance of the current story mode character (save for name and gender). A further advancement is the squad mechanic, allowing up to three created characters to be commanded alongside the 'main' character. A new 'Nightmare' mode has been added, which is an original mode featuring a new storyline, this time infused with fantasy elements as opposed to the slightly-somewhat-nearly historical setting of the main story.This was one of my favourite non-AAA games, and it's still great fun. It is, however, fundamentally a remake so is perhaps a wee bit overpriced. It's also prone to giving the impression of freezing on main screens, though that might be to do with internet connection falling off a little. Often simply leaving it allows it to overcome whatever problem.

The gameplay is rather repetitive which is expected from Koei Techmo, though I expected this as a dynasty warriors fan. It is very different from DW it is more about tactical gameplay than button bashing, but not by much. You can create and your own mercenaries (Merthenaries), taking up to 4 into a battle. Giving them orders, switching between them even grouping them together to make a massive force. The game is enjoyable if you can look past its dull characters, murky graphics and repetitive gameplay. Just avoid using the overpowered cavalry charges all the time and switch it up with other troops you wouldn't usually use, it makes it more interesting and more challenging.

Amazing game, they have taken the original which was already good and added more to it. The whole game plays better and the ability to have multiple mercenaries at once is much needed. There is also a whole new game mode, further adding to the play time. This is well worth the money and will keep you busy for hours.

Order this game due to the fond memory of playing the original bladestorm on ps3 years ago. Upon playing the game I was very happy that it played in the same was a the original game. The way you can control units and fight a prat of the unit was a very enjoyable experience.

good game

Strangely fun little game. Found myself able to pour hours of my life into it without regret. Also, Little Kuribo, popular abridge maker and international man of mystery, voices a character in it. Neat.

good gaming