X-Blades (Xbox 360)

At the beginning of time, two divine entities ruled over the universe peacefully and harmoniously. But one day the seeds of conflict rained from the sky and the entity known as The Dark, tried to take all the power for himself. The Light and The Dark battle fiercely but The Light couldn’t defeat The Dark and stop the chaos. They were both inseparably connected to one another and so The Light realized that the only way to stop The Dark was to banish him and himself into two cursed artifacts. Each one is now guarding the artifact containing the powers of the other and all seems well. At least until one day a egocentric treasure hunter named Ayumi finds the map to the hidden temple where the artifacts are guarded.

In her greed she ignores the warnings of The Light, touches the artifact and by doing so unleashes The Curse upon herself. It enters her body and condemns her to pain and suffering. But not all is lost. The Curse hasn’t full control over her yet. Withstanding it, Ayumi continues to search her search for the second artifact. But now not because of greed but to battle The Dark, confine it’s powers again and relieve herself of The Curse by doing so.

The journey is not an easy one as the player takes over the control of Ayumi, looking over her shoulder and guiding her through the levels. The return of The Dark spawned many enemies on the island. But as an experienced treasure hunter, Ayumi isn’t defenseless. With her gunblades in her hands, she mows through the enemies like Dante does in the Devil May Cry series until the entrance to the next level unlocks. Each defeated enemy then drops one or more souls which Ayumi needs to buy additional skills, spells and items allowing her to cast fireballs upon her enemies or buy more powerful bullets for the gunblades. This is especially important as all the enemies and bosses have different weaknesses. The phantoms e.g. are immune to physical damage but hitting them with a fireball or fire-induced blades will destroy them in no time.

Scattered around the temple are also artifacts which were broken into three pieces. If Ayumi finds all three, she reunites them and gains either a melee, pistol or airstrike upgrade increasing her respective damage and granting her access to more powerful combos.