| Unchained Blades | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | FuRyu |
| Publisher(s) | Xseed Games
|
| Director(s) | Toshio Akashi |
| Writer(s) | Takashi Hino |
| Composer(s) | Tsutomu Narita |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Portable |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Role-playing game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Unchained Blades, titled UnchainBlades ReXX [3] in Japan, is a 2011 dungeon crawler role-playing video game developed by FuRyu and published by Xseed Games for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Portable. [4] [5] [6]
The game is played as a dungeon crawler role-playing video game, similar to Wizardry , but with a greater emphasis on story. [7] The purpose of the game is to direct the game's party through mazes and labyrinths while defeating opposing monster parties. A party can contain up to four characters. [8] Additionally, it is possible to recruit enemy monsters into the player's party to assist them, and each character is allowed to have four monsters support them, allowing for a party size of up to twenty characters. [8]
Many veterans in Japanese video game design contributed to the original development of the game. The game's director is Toshio Akashi, who previously worked on Lunar , and the scenario designer is Takashi Hino, who previously worked on Grandia . [7] Longtime Final Fantasy musical contributor Nobuo Uematsu also contributed music for the game, although most of the game's music was done by upcoming, Tsutomu Narita, who works with Uematsu. [7] Additionally, each of the game's main thirteen characters were each drawn by different artists from different anime and manga background. [7]
The Japanese release was originally intended to be June 23, 2011, but in April, it was delayed to July 14, 2011. [9]
The Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Portable versions are almost identical, the differences being mainly visual. The 3DS version is the only one that features stereoscopic 3D graphics. [10] Additionally, the placement of the overhead map of the levels is different platforms; for the 3DS, it's on the second, bottom screen, where on the PSP, which lacks a second screen, it is merely layered over the main screen, with the option to toggle it on or off. [5]
Xseed Games originally teased the localization of the video game through a guessing game through its Twitter. [11] Three pictures were released as hints to the game's title; a Tyrannosaurus rex, a blade of grass, and a still from the movie Ghost's famous pottery wheel scene. [11] This was in reference to the three words, in reverse order, of the game's Japanese title Unchained Blade Rexx. [11] The game's localization was officially confirmed through the April 2012 issue of Nintendo Power . [12]
| Aggregator | Score | |
|---|---|---|
| 3DS | PSP | |
| Metacritic | 65/100 [13] | 61/100 [14] |
| Publication | Score | |
|---|---|---|
| 3DS | PSP | |
| Destructoid | N/A | 4/10 [15] |
| Famitsu | 31/40 [16] | 31/40 [16] |
| GameRevolution |    [17] | N/A |
| GameZone | N/A | 3.5/10 [18] |
| IGN | 8/10 [19] | N/A |
| Nintendo Life | [20] | N/A |
| Nintendo World Report | 5/10 [21] | N/A |
| Polygon | 6/10 [22] | N/A |
| PlayStation: The Official Magazine | N/A | 4/10 [23] |
The game received "mixed or average" reviews on both platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. [13] [14] In Japan, four critics from Famitsu gave the game a total score of 31 out of 40. [16]
Both versions of the game charted in their first week of release in Japan; the PlayStation Portable version charted at seventh place with 18,256 copies sold, while the Nintendo 3DS version charted at twentieth place with 5,592 copies sold. [24]
A sequel titled Unchained Blades Exiv was developed and released on November 29, 2012 in Japan for the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo 3DS. [25] Xseed Games, who localized the original into English, stated that it was "not likely" that they would pursue translating the sequel. [26]
