A week or two ago, a good friend informed me of the existence of a little game called Slayblade. Developed by an indie studio called Henry’s House, it promised to deliver on the Beyblade nostalgia we all have. I was dead certain I would buy it, in large part for the name, so I tried out the demo. That was a mistake.

As it stands now, there is a 15% introductory discount, bringing the price down to £3.90, which is not a lot. And it is not like I’m frugal. I make dumb purchases all the time. The Xbox 25th Anniversary Series X price leaked for around £700, and I still want it, despite staring at my beloved current Series X. I say this to set up how easy a target I am to make buy things, especially this cheap. And yet.

Slayblade’s story is simple yet suitably funny

After booting up the demo and spending a minute changing the language because pressing the big “English” button somehow turns the game French, I dove in. The story, such as it is, gets summed up in three slides. Your dad pulled a Pokémon and disappeared five years ago, after inventing a Slayblade with infinite spin that would solve the energy crisis. Which is frankly hilarious. So, you set off to win the World Championship, which will of course lead you to him.

I will say, this humour stays throughout the game, mostly in the form of “Breaking News” scrolling at the bottom of the screen. A possible link found between autism and Slayblade made me chuckle in particular. Or “Pop says Jesus died for our spins”. Also, the game name itself is funny. I so wanted to name my blade “Queen” so I could sign off every win with “Yas Queen”. Would that it were.

The gameplay is quite a let down

Unfortunately, this is where things go downhill. And by things, I mean the game. Combat takes place in a round arena, in true Beyblade fashion. After launching, your blade will follow your mouse, and it is a simple task of hammering your opponents until it explodes or stops moving. Fairly standard.

It can get a little more interesting when obstacles or bombs start appearing in the stadium, but they don’t add that much to proceedings. What does impact gameplay, however, is how you build your blade. You get three components: the head, body, and tip. There are over 60 parts to mix and match, and each will affect how your blade performs.

To start, each part has its own passives. Things such as modifying how much spin you lose over time, increasing or decreasing your max RPM, and how heavy the blade is. A lighter one moves and reacts more quickly, but a heavy blade will have increased damage and resistances. Perhaps even more importantly, however, is the part’s ability.

The opportunity for tactics but not the need

Periodically in a battle, power-ups will appear. Grab it, and your blade’s abilities will set off in order: Top, Bod, Tip. Things such as spawning an Aura that decreases an opponent’s spin over 5 seconds, or setting all blade spins to 50% if you are feeling dangerous. It is a way to keep the roguelike nature of runs randomised, but it does a good job adding a bit of tactical depth. Especially the order. You can’t just load up on powerful abilities. It’s no good having a Top that gives you a god Aura if your Bod neutralises all Auras on the field.

Unfortunately, battles never feel like you need to go for the big plays. Even battling enemies way out of my level league, I just spun around the arena gathering speed before nutting my foe. Seemed to work every time. Which all but sums up my problem with the game; it gets dull too fast.

A rather small and empty city

You are confined to a small diorama of a city and have limited choices to make through the day. There are three time periods a day, and during them you can shop, fight, or mow grass. Mowing gets you a shocking amount of money and experience, but you have to let the grass regrow so you can’t spam it. That leaves shopping for parts and then fighting.

Again, unfortunately, there isn’t much difference in fights. There are also two people on the street in vaguely the same level range, an “illegal battle” with random levels in the alley, and sometimes a criminal hanging around out back with a huge level and huge reward. Who I walloped with zero effect with a basic blade. I didn’t even move much. We just hammered each other in the middle, and I won.

I would also like to add, the developers made moving around this tiny city a pain. You have to put your mouse on the edge of the screen to rotate the map. So as it spins, your guy is just on a skateboard, smacking into buildings and fences. It is really small, but it irritated me to no end.

I really wanted to like this game. I was convinced I would. The original Beyblade game on the PS1 was incredible, and Slayblade looked like a worthy successor. However, I walked away from this demo thinking the full game isn’t even worth £4.00. Looking at the Steam reviews, it doesn’t even add much content.

And I know the purpose of a roguelike is to just keep doing runs. But Slayblade just is not fun or compelling enough for that. Even with the modifiers you can add for each run. If a giant dog occasionally stepping on the field won’t pull me in, I don’t know what will.