Naraka Bladepoint

Naraka Bladepoint is a really incredible mashup of the Battle Royale genre and old-school melee combo combat mechanics, like Street-Fighter-II, Soul Calibur, etc. The result is pure magic. It's like "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the Videogame".

For $20, you simply can't go wrong. The rest of monetization is vanity micro transactions and loot-boxes which confer no gameplay advantage. There is no pay-to-win here.

You might as well stop reading and go buy the game right now to learn for yourself... but in case you are not convinced, here is a more in-depth review.

Game Start

For the battle royale format, you select a ninja class that offers you a basic and ultimate ability (much like APEX legends or Overwatch), and whether you are playing a solo or trio match. Then 60 players are placed in spawn lobby, where they interactively decide what locations they would like to spawn at, in full knowledge of where other players are spawning. This not only creates a nice player start location distribution, but it also speeds up getting into the action, as there is no airplane/bus/parachuting time. Within the play field, you collect weapons and armor from loot spawns (and the bodies of deceased players), trying to make it to the final circle and be the last-man-standing. The looting mechanics are fast paced and more similar to Fortnite and APEX legends than PUBG.

Melee Combat System

The melee combat is incredible, with a satisfying feel, and a very high skill ceiling to separate the wheat from the chaff. At it's core, the combat is built on a rock < paper < scissors triangle of basic-attack < focus-attack < parry .. with alot of dogging, grappling, acrobatics, and the occasional special ability thrown in. This makes face-to-face combat about predicting and reacting to your opponent, blocking or dodging his attacks while dictating the cadence of the fight. For those who have not played melee combo games, it takes some getting use to, but the learning is well worth it. The melee combat and grapple acrobatics are so much more exciting and engaging than the opportunistic ranged sniping that dominates many battle royale games.

Other Elements

While the player vs player carnage is going on, there are also mini-quests to pick up and earn shop currency. This might be a bounty to kill a specific nearby player, or just an errand to smash a nearby loud bell a few times (possibly attracting attention). There are also "shops" scattered around the maps where you can buy commonly needed inventory expansions and consumables, there are high-value stashes, and there are periodically spawning epic "resupply" chests. These mechanics help cut down on some of the loot-drop RNG by providing a reliable means to get necessary gear.

It's worth noting that there is an RPG-like 'glyph and skill' progression system, where new players have to earn all their glyphs (small stat bonuses) and skills (different variations of each classes basic and ultimate abilities) that carryover from game-to-game. While this technically means the game is not purely-fair PvP from the start, new players are placed in the bottom of the ranking, and are in lobbies with practice bots to learn the game. It's doesn't take very long to unlock all of a single hero's skill variations, and only a bit longer to unlock all glyphs (which are usable across all heros). I view this progression system as an attempt to soft-land new players into the game, more than forcing them to start at a disadvantage.

For those not ready for the Battle Royale tension, or those who just want to practice the combat system in a faster format, there is also a deathmatch mode called Bloodbath, where players spawn (and respawn) with a collection of gear and weapons already in inventory. This is a fast way to get into the action and learn more about the combat and movement system in a lower-stakes game mode.

Much more Cheatproof

One of the things I'm very excited about, is that the aimbot cheats that eventually ruin most FPS games are unlikely to ruin Naraka.. This is for a few reasons.

First, there are no hitscan ranged weapons -- aka all ranged weapons have slow projectile travel and projectile drop. Second, character movement is so fast and frenetic, that hitting someone with ranged weapons is more about predicting when and where they will stop than strictly about aiming. Third, the grapple mechanics make it very easy to close range and put someone in melee combat, where the combat mechanics and combos take over and aimbots do nothing. (The game already has a built-in melee target assist).

It's also possible that wallhack cheats will not be as effective in Naraka. Placing well in Naraka is not really about hiding, but about out-playing your opponents in the fast action combat and acrobatics.

Which is not to say that there will be no cheats or cheaters.

The most prominent problem currently is people playing from high-ping (from other regions) gaining excessive peekers-advantage. The devs have announced a plan to ping-lock region servers to cut down on this problem. So far it's unclear if their implementation will also address traditional lag-switching.

At the highest levels of play, there seems to be a decent amount of teaming, because the highest-ranked lobbies are so sparsely populated it is very easy for friends to queue into them together. That said, this is not an issue in 'normal' ranks, nor is it something that is clear cut. In a battle royale, it's very hard to tell if a late game 3v1 is actually teaming, or just pre-calculated strategy on the part of the participants.

Verdict

I can't give this game enough praise. If you liked PUBG, and you liked Fortnite, and you like super-fast paced in-your-face melee combat, this is the game for you. And if you want a modern PC PVE title to brush up on this type of melee combo combat at a slower pace, go try The Surge.