Severance
I recently took my sister’s old laptop and, thanks to it’s use of Windows XP, I’m able to play a couple of games that Vista, in it’s extremely selective “wisdom”, deems as threats to my computer’s safety.
In the case of Severance: Blade of Darkness, it may have a point – the game is so nut-crushingly difficult that emotional breakdown and subsequent computer trashing is a significant possibility. It sold poorly, of course.
Taking your choice from a selection of clichés (knight, barbarian, dwarf or an amazon), you walk through a grim, decaying fantasy world full of grotesque creatures who you will use a variety of weapons to hack to pieces. The story is minimal and largely unimportant, but basically:
The forces of dark and light had a barney a few years back. Desperate to win, the dark created a force it couldn’t control, so light and dark joined together to get rid of it. They created a sword of some description and gave it to a brave warrior who laid the smackdown on this creature of chaos.
Years pass and some bright spark decides to resurrect the thing, killing a large part of the world’s population (it would seem from the lack of anyone other than you in the game) on their way to doing so. Your character is one of the survivors and sets about the enemy like an angry Glasweigen separated from his heroin.
That is all you need to know. I skip the few cut scenes there are, because it gets in the way of the rest of the fun – namely the nut-crushing difficulty.
This is a game that has no interest in making you feel empowered and no desire to hold your hand. It wants to break you. You start the early levels, usually without a weapon, horribly underpowered, fighting similarly underpowered enemies. You try and attack them and, for your efforts, are slaughtered. Your body is torn to pieces (in one of the games most disturbing features, to lose is to be totally eviscerated).
You sit back and think, do I suck that much?
Yes. Yes, you do.
You reload and, generally, follow this process a few times. Then you figure out that your opponents are as capable at fighting as you are. They are as good, or as bad, as you are. If you’re patient and wait for openings, thinking your way through each battle, you will usually win.
Where most games now talk about strategy and depth in the combat system, Severance actually just did it years before God of War. It used one button for your sword and the sort of strike you made was directed by the directional keys. This is very definition of intuitive controls – combos are fluid and simple to pull off, but there’s a lot of depth if you master the simple, rewarding mechanics. And the pay off when you catch an opponent with a special attack is incredible
You never face more than a few enemies at a time and, like a real sword fight, position is everything. A big empty room allows you to control the battle and dodge blows easily. A small space, like a stairwell, forces you to move less and block the attacks. If there are more opponents, you might get surrounded, but you can use that lack of space to make them hit each other.
Every battle is a challenge and even the easiest opponents can cause serious damage if you waltz in without a strategy.
The level design is another joy, taking in vast fantasy (cliché again) settings, full of life and environmental puzzles (a few too many “find the key” type moments though to force sword fights though).
There had to be a downside and it’s this: that slow deliberate pacing? Well, that’s it as far as pacing goes. I can’t play the game for more than 90 minutes straight without feeling tired. The fact that every single battle can turn into a war of attrition for making the smallest of miscalculations about how far you were from an enemy makes it exhausting.
There’s also a moment, maybe a third of the way into the game, where you meet an enemy who regains life every time he attacks you, whether you block or not. If you hit his shield rather than him, he takes some of your life too. To top it off, he can teleport behind you, breaking your auto lock on, and leaving you helpless for just long enough to turn you into kebab meat (he is a vampire, after all – yum yum).
Now, while I appreciate the developer’s attitude towards making you feel like a whiny little girl, this was pretty much at the stealing lunch money then eating the spoils of their theft in front of you stage. All the other battles worked because, numbers aside, you are on an even footing with your opponents. If you made a mistake, the only punishment was losing some energy. Here, it completely unbalances the battle – you really have no chance of winning if you screw up. You’re better off reloading.
I do accept that it’s cause I just didn’t have the patience to keep going, but considering it was the only time I ever got frustrated with this notoriously hard game, I think it says something.
The rest of the game is a bloody gem. Sure, seeing your character cleaved in two remains as disturbing eight years after the games release, but the giddy thrill of doing it to someone in return makes up for it.
What other game allows you to shout: “Strike me with your sword, will you? Here, try it without you arms!!!!”
That’s right, there’s none. Severance slaps the other games and makes them cry.
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