Blade Symphony

I bought this game when it was at it's peak, and honestly get nostalgic every time I look at it in my library, but don't bother downloading it. It's dead. I got to top 500, which was impressive considering my hours played tbh. I'll give you a brief mental image of what it was like playing then, and even describe some of the tech I used.

Imagine a FFA lobby, full with 32 players. You go around either fighting FFA, or you could challenge people to ranked duels by pressing F on them. It would keep track of your wins and losses in the scoreboard, and there were custom maps with separate duel areas. When you were in a duel, it would no-clip all people not involved, but they could still watch you fight.
It was basically a more chill version of a Mordhau FFA server, without the voiceline spam and MIDI lute bots. The rank system being baked into those lobbies was amazing. The atmosphere was like a dojo, where people came together to spar, learn techniques, and hone their skills. People almost always bowed before and after a duel once they had more than a couple hours in the game.

As for my favourite tech, the game operated on a stance based system, light, balanced, heavy, and also jump was its own stance. Parries worked on a rock paper scissors style, where if you countered their stance, you would cut through their attack. I used Katanas, which did double damage for parries, and also allowed feint cancels.

You could sheathe your sword by pressing 4, which would hide your stance. The hip based katanas had a really nice twirl before the sheathe animation, and not only was this fighting style effective, it looked stylish. The animations for attacking would kinda bug when you would attack while sheathed, but there was no delay added. As a result, I'd use the moves that still looked nice despite the animation mismatch bug. I played Judgement and Pure for a while, but when Vanguard released, that became my main due to the nice tracers for intersecting enemy attacks. Vanguard also had a very nice lunge, which could be feint cancelled into a dash (or the other way around, I can't remember), and you could basically double dash forward and catch people off guard.

Was Vanguard OP? maybe, but there was'nt really one main meta back then. The Master ranks I remember kicking my ass the most used Phalanx Rapier, Judge Katana/Longsword, and Ryoku Jian/katana/rapier. Phalanx players would melt you with damage, Judge players would sit there and block all your attacks, or one -shot you with a katana, and Ryoku players were just infuriating to fight, they would either barrage you with attacks, controlling range perfectly, or would intercept all of your attacks then poke you a bit. Pure was easily the weakest character, despite the mobility. not that there weren't good Pure players, but when you lost to them, it definitely felt like they worked for it.

The F2P update killed the game for good, though it was already kinda falling off before then, with only the most dedicated players still active. I wish the devs just made a second game rather than trying to switch to microtransactions and removing the steam workshop content. I guess they brought the workshop back, but nobody has really added any of the old content that was on there, since all the players are gone.

Thanks for the good times, it's kinda sad I'll never be able to re-live them.
o7

crazy this game died, i don't know if it was because of the removal of the steam workshop items, but it was incredibly fun on release and also frustating to lose at.

its free so no harm in playing it right now, and still no one does.

I paid for this game and now it's free. Literally what even.

2014...Welp, it's now or never!
I got this game since day one release and was immediately intrigued... but now, with a more ''experienced'' view I can say: great Idea, a little too mediocre execution.
Still, it's free! and I would still recommend trying it out just for the rudimentary-and-yet-complex game system behind it!

Had some potential but in the end...

i played this like 500 years ago and all i can remember is that i sucked ass but its fuckin sick and cool as hell

Boring.

Please add sex with Big Tiddy Goth Chicks

i paid for this and now its free to play???

Slippery Bastards.

game is absolutely dead with 0 participants
and the really sad thing is that developer could at least made the game singleplayer duel/training like modes
but they instead removed all the helmets of the characters and made them bald chickens so that players can buy these "accessories" so you can't really play in a single player mode either because of the scam and stuff

and the combat mechanic isn't really good it's pretty 4/10
map and character design are neat but there are nobody to play literally 0 who is playing the game and there isn't any form of singleplayer of this game either
basically an unnecessary unusuable visual software at this point

and btw i bought the game and when it went free i thought people who bought the game would get perks just like in cs go >> cs 2 kinda stuff but it literally downgraded the game instead lmfao what a joke XDD

Played this almost a decade ago. I remember the combat system deep and rewarding, allowing for a variety of moves and combos. The graphics are stylish, and the gameplay is smooth, making each fight thrilling. Though it has a steep learning curve, mastering the combat feels very satisfying. It's a great choice for players who enjoy competitive and skill-based games. Have not touched it recently. Might give it another go when I have some free time.

I initially liked the concept for this game where you can choose between different fighting stances.
But the tutorial already felt very clunky. The animations are very short and the lighting and graphics put me off. The gameplay doesn't feel fluid, as well as the bad performance. The tutorial texts are way too short and automatically disappear which was frustrating. (It also said "Fast Stance has an advantage over Air Stance" or something like that, but there is no Air Stance?! Or they didn't explain how to switch to that stance since it only shows 1 (fast), 2 (balanced) and 3 (heavy).
I logged in again to see if I can try this game out but it immediately closes the search for Matchmaking since there are literally no players playing.
I paid 10€ and now it's for free? I didn't even get my 10 exclusive items, like they said for "premium" users. They even have the audacity to put purchasable items to buy for money. Talking about money, I feel like I want mine back for this one.