While playing an app game (Republique) that I will review later, I found an easter egg in the game from one of the designers that spoke of a magical game that made him feel like app games could be more than candy frantic puzzles with subpar art. This game had it all – something made for serious adults.  Professions, martial fighting, constant teeth-grinding action, and best of all the female character is FULLY armored in steel, no cleavage – just compounded plate.

About Isa, the Female Protagonist

Isa, the female assassin of sorts, does not seduce her foes via her feminine wiles and leg crush to death like a specific James Bond villain, but actually employs an almost excessive amount of neck snapping and throat cutting. She does this all while barely showing any skin. She fights anything from mammothly large creatures to 10 foot tall robotic entities all the while showing a “I will F you up attitude” that is ingrained in the game itself.

Her introductory movie before every fight features Isa shooting a quick round of crossbow bolts into whatever it is you’re about to fight and, like a BAMF, taking out a melee weapon that you are using to fight with so she is the aggressor in EVERY  fight you see in the game.

Isa is that D&D character that uses a ranged weapon at ranged and then when her target gets close she melees, except she is the one walking forward. Imagine Legolas morphing into a Wolverine type of a badass.

Unfortunately she is also the male’s love interest and in any scene they share she makes me feel like she is constantly worried about the male going off and dying on her… “You know nothing Jon Snow!” without the arrows in the back. To be honest it made me feel like the character that fights and the character in the small fast-forward-enabled movies are actually two different women.

After playing through the game and thinking about every in-game cut scene I’ve seen, I believe she was used as a classic story piece as the love interest – but in order to capture the feel of the game while fighting she became this other persona. My feeling of her being two people has a sense of truth about it. One version of her tells a pre-feminist  “I-need-you-cause-I’m-a-victim” love story and the other sells the Assassin’s Creed heroine you were hoping for.

Did I mention the movies are fast forwardable? Cause they are – and are so infrequent when it comes to the fighting that I just ignored it.

About the Game Itself

Infinity Blade 3 is an action packed game where your avatar is seen in the third-person view fighting nothing smaller than a 9 foot titan armed with traditional weaponry to giant Roman columns. It is your job, depending on what kind of weapon you are fighting with, to block, parry, and or dodge the coming melee attacks to land your own as well as make the assailing titan vulnerable for an easy combo time for your character.

The giant titan basically sells what direction he is going to attack be it obvious or in a spinning side attack that may catch you off guard; regardless, it is your job to swipe the screen when the titan swings their weapon (you dodge or block shield and leg attacks) to parry. It might sound dumb, but the high speed and quality animations result in an immersive game play experience. Titan fights are always 1 on 1 and have a hulk-brawler feel to them until you are playing Isa and get to see what Black Widow would be like with super human strength.

You walk around and interact with chests through guiding click points that appear as pulsating circles. You don’t want free movement on this app game as it would just take up more valuable time from other more important developing aspects.

Your characters Siris and/or Isa have equippable, gemmable, and upgradeable armor and weaponry and there is also a small system for creating and using potions with an interesting variety of effects. The most interesting one that I have seen was one where if you used your weapon’s break combo your character will change weaponry in combat to a specific category and use the highest grade weapon, changing the way you now deal and defend damage.

Min-Maxing and End Game

While the story ends the game doesn’t as the titans just keep scaling up in level.

There are specific min-max themed encounters designed for people who want immense risk versus reward. However, the true depth of min-maxing is felt on the player’s end to be responsive to the moving and attacking foe and gemming your equipment to benefit your character’s damage. This can be moderately tricky or you can just throw shit into the socket and survive based on that responsiveness, but honestly, you can only dodge for so long.

The Collector is a randomly spawned titan whose level is multiplied by probably 100% every time you beat him. Every time you do, you get the weapon he is fighting you with, which is very end game. However if he wins he is taking your weapon; now don’t worry, you HAVE to agree to fight him but this bastard has like two of my weapons because I am just unlucky. The weapon is not removed from your inventory it just gets a “You can’t use this” label until you find him again and win.

The Deathless Levels are like chasing the white rabbit down a hole except chasing is fighting and the rabbit is a super saiyan with an endless supply of senzu beans. You just chain fight titans in this mode that are significantly higher level than you and if you reach number 20 and die, number 20 will have your gear until you fight your way back and kill him. Once again the items aren’t removed just labeled, which I feel is important. The payoff is lots of money and rare items as well as a balls hard challenge.

Typical end game: you completed a level and can keep replaying it, every time you win, the level will keep upscaling until you die and quit. The difference here is that you keep everything you’ve taken up until that fight. Mathematically I think the game can support a character level of 1,000 and honestly the highest I’ve seen was a level 145 titan that promptly kicked me dead in one shot.

Story

I will say that the story, as a story, has a minor adult feel and is very much not Super Mario Land. It is presented in a serious RPG tone.

Data Usage

The game can actually be played OFFLINE! However, customer support can’t help you until you click the ‘enable cloud’ function. Offline gaming now a days means the publisher really loves their fans, imo.

Cost

$3.99 US

Bottom Line

If you want a lot of action, moments of min-max risks, a game that won’t badger you for real life currency, and a constant stream of challenge, then do it – because the graphics are awesome and the brutality is constant.

Download Infinity Blade 3 here.

 

I am a freelance reviewer that downloaded the app as a consumer. I did not receive a review copy of this app, nor do I have any material connection to IB3 or its designers.