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Blades, beasts, and beauty - A look back at Infinity Blade and Infinity Blade II

A tale forever told

Blades, beasts, and beauty - A look back at Infinity Blade and Infinity Blade II
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iOS
| Infinity Blade
It doesn't take long. It never does. The God King lifts his sword, and in a few swings I'm done for. My frantic swipes and taps are useless against the heavy barrage of blows. Of course, I'm not supposed to survive. That sword is destined to pierce my armour, and I'm destined to start all over again. I am a son avenging the crumpled form of a father who failed to slay a beast.

Infinity Blade is a fairy tale, a cycle of wandering into the seemingly empty castle to defeat the slumbering dragon at its core.

And every time you face down the God King, you get a little bit closer, and his powers become that little bit less impressive.

The original Infinity Blade was a jolt to the chest of iOS gaming. It looked stunning - its crumbling walls, grotesque foes, and seemingly infinite skyboxes mouthwatering reminders of the sheer power of the phone in your pocket.

But it felt fresh, too.

Here was a real game custom-built for Apple's phones and tablets. The precise slashes and swipes, the considered dodges and blocks gave a weight to proceedings. Your enemies towered over you, brutish feral things with spiked clubs and venom in their blood.

They roared and postured, the camera swirling between the two of you like the epic final battle in some fantasy film you haven't seen yet.

The sun catches my armour, and I throw myself aside, dodging the swing of the troll. He animates again, and I read the signs. My father killed him, and his father before him. Genetic memory flares and I stab with all my force. He's stunned, and my poisoned blade senses a kill.

The castle itself is far from huge, and its secrets are all revealed in a few playthroughs.

What's left is mastery. A knowledge of the twitches of each foe. When he feigns left, you know a dodge will leave him vulnerable to a strike.

For all the brute force, all the grunting swings of barbed axes, Infinity Blade is a game of fencing.

It's all about the subtleties of movement, the tells of each gargantuan beast or long-limbed harlequin. In accordance with the sway of a sword or the curve of a spine, you choose your riposte. And if you're right, you live to guess again.

All the trappings of a fantasy dungeon-crawler are firmly in place here, though. From the ornate chests to the hidden gold. From the rafts of customisable equipment to the recharging magical attacks.

However, it's all dressed up in the garb of the smartphone era.

I ascend again, with a new blade and a new helm. These are my rewards for the most recent push through the dungeons. The dark knight steps forward and I dispatch him with ease. He's slow, a far-from-worthy challenge now. I plunge my blade into his chest and step forward to meet destiny once more. In three minutes, I'm dead. In three and a half, I'm walking up to the castle gates.

Where Infinity Blade was a tightly closed loop of rinse and repeat violence, Infinity Blade II is a tangle. An explosion of threads, an outpouring of freedom and narrative. Some of the purity of the original is lost, however, in a desperate grasp for scope and scale.

Some of it worked. Some of it didn't. It was unequivocally a more beautiful creature: the Japanese opening - all falling petals, pagodas, and greenery - represented a welcome change from the collapsing grandeur of the first game.

Too soon, though, you're back among sandstone and portcullis, in dark nooks and dank corridors where feral beasts and cunning warriors wait to test the pace of your fingers once again. The edges are smoother; the foes, more interesting.

I clamber into a well, grabbing bags of gold as I descend out of the morning light. A beast awaits that barely fits into the cramped space, its heavy club almost scraping gouges into the ceiling as it rains its blows down on me.

Infinity Blade II's real 'trick' was its range of combat styles. Do you weave and parry with two blades? Do you smash enemies into submission with a two-handed monstrosity? Or do you keep things the same and rely on the shield-and-sword combo that proved so successful in the first game?

The bigger space offered more choice. Chair had done away with the genetic tragedy of the original, too. You are you, every time and every step.

Here, the world changes. Paths open up, masonry decays. The passage of time and the effects of your actions leave physical scars on the world in which you inhabit.

And it is a world now, with a growing history and a cast of characters. Where once you were just privy to a few screens and the vague suggestion of an elsewhere, the universe is now a palpable burden for the game maker to carry... and some of the illusion starts to break.

The lift slides down like it has so many times before. A bulbous thing steps off, its scarred and pitted flesh pink and angry against the greys of the rest of the world. He lifts his club, I bash my shield on the ground, and we clash in a fury of sparks.

There's a direct progression, a change in size from Infinity Blade, through Infinity Blade II, and culminating with Infinity Blade III. In each game, sure, the scope is broader, the possibilities are greater. But the action doesn't 'keep up'.

You were once a lone knight, a son of a murdered man a thousand times over. This was vengeance in its purest form, an honesty of sword blows.

And then you were immortal. Now, you fight great dragons. Each step forward represents another break from the ideas with which Chair knitted the first game together so perfectly.

The Infinity Blade series is a prime example of how more isn't always necessarily better. The self-contained nature of the original still shines brightest when compared to the expanded universe of the second and third games.

There's a modesty and humbleness to the first game. A sense of infinity and repetition and drive sorely missing from its sequels.

I stand before the God King for a final time. My steed blade rushes through the air. He is old and flustered. I am young again. I evade, I block. I know how his thin limbs twist before each attack. I have moved on. Learnt. And he has not. Infinity is ending.
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.