Tiger Blade gives a big middle finger to any hand holding and accessibility options and ruthlessly tests your skills without mercy and I don't know how to feel about that
This game plays like an on-rails light gun game. You don't have any locomotion options, instead the game moves you around when you kill the last enemy, slash an obstacle in front of you or use your grappling hook to grab a specific point in the environment. Dropping into the neon-drenched streets of Sewoon as a mysterious ninja assassin, the gameplay wastes no time throwing enemies at you from all sides. Armed with only a katana and pistol, eliminating foes is made challenging by the frantic speed required to deflect bullets and land devastating combos.
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Death is always lurking just around the corner as health does not regenerate between encounters. Considering some areas are veritable gauntlets filled with relentless mob attacks, simply surviving long enough to progress feels like an accomplishment. Death comes really quickly as you only could sustain just a couple of hits and well, I don't know if I like that.
Now I want to be challenged when playing games, especially VR games, but Tiger Blade often feels like it was designed to just punish you in a really unfair and unsatisfaying way. The combat requires you to juggle between using your gun to shoot ranged enemies, move around to avoid, but ultimately fail, the barrage of bullets they shoot at you and your katana to parry incoming melee attacks, slash enemies and try, but again ultimately fail, to deflect all of the bullets that fly towards you. All of this happens fast, like way too fast for you to even have time to react most of the time. There are no difficulty options either, so you just keep going back to the latest checkpoint again and again until you hopefully learn where the enemies will spawn and try to shoot or slash them before they do the same to you.
Don't get me wrong, there are some moments of brilliance amidst all of this chaos where you get into this badass flow and just mow everything that appears in front of your eyes, but for the most part, you will just be frustrated as you'll fail to deflect bullets with your katana. The bullets fly towards you way too fast and you don't get any clear indication, be that in audio or visual form, that a bullet is flying towards you. That gives you no time to react and you'll ultimately die again and again.
A more gentler difficulty curve would have been more than appreciated or different difficulty settings would mitigate this altogether. It would also help with the replayability of the game as right now, if you beat the game there's nothing to bring you back to play it apart from the whole score/leaderboard system. There are no real incentives, like unlocking alternative skins for your gun and katana, so really there's no point in going back to replay it.
Where Tiger Blade truly shines is its enthralling neon-drenched presentation and hellraisng original soundtrack. Each gritty level captures the essence of a cyberpunk Blade Runneresque Korean city. Alleyways burst with pulsating colors and atmospheric locals add lively ambiance between fights. But it's the pounding mix of hip hop, EDM, and rock infused tracks that set the perfect tone for the high octane action. From ominous choppy beats in quiet moments to an exhilarating score during boss encounters, the music perfectly complements the frantic energy. It might just be the game's biggest and only strength for keeping you engaged through repetitive deaths.
Despite some janky visuals and occasional input lag, Tiger Blade oozes a style and sense of place that pulls you into its gritty neon underworld. However, its unforgiving nature makes it a poor fit for casual pick up and play sessions. Experimenting and failure is not rewarded and the restrictive stage design and absence of save points holds it back from greatness. A game this brutal needs more flexibility or it risks staying a niche experience. The difficulty ultimately outweighs fun for most players.
In the end, Tiger Blade fails to strike a balance as both a challenge and entertainment. It delivers a presentation and atmosphere worth appreciating, especially the kick ass soundtrack, but it ultimately buries it under stressful, unfair challenges that curb mass appeal. Only the most devoted completionists will find worth in mastering its punishing gameplay loop. Thanks for reading!
The game was reviewed on a Quest 3 using a review copy provided by the publisher.Tiger Blade is available now on Meta Quest and PSVR2.
