You are not special for having your own opinions.
While you were preparing to offer a rebuttal to that statement, I studied the blade. Today’s game is Blade Chimera. What we have here is a Metroidvania from Team Ladybug, who previously brought us one of my favorite Metroidvanias from a few years back, Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth. Does Blade Chimera stack up against its vaunted ancestor? It does! Blade Chimera is an excellent Metroidvania with some novel additions to the formula. For instance, in a genre that often relies on complex weapon loadouts that do not effectively change gameplay, this is a Metroidvania that encourages cycling through different ranged and melee weapons for specific situations. You have an incentive to switch swords that isn’t just “this one has +2 attack”! Oh, and a number of the old standby Metroidvania traversal skills, like the double jump and air dash, are tied to experience points, and not defeating a designated boss. This simple choice leads to a lot of discoveries that are based on having just earned a new and forbidden skill, and not simply that you beat the red boss to get the red key to unlock the red doors. And, hey, Team Ladybug even found a way to integrate plot and gameplay seamlessly. That is a major step up from most Metroidvanias that only remember there is a plot at the beginning and ending, or make the story so overbearing, the weight of it threatens to overpower the joy of discovery. Looking squarely at you, Metroid Fusion.
But the downside to having a featured plot is that inevitably some nerd on the internet is going to pick it apart. And I am that nerd! Ladies and gentlemen, be aware of incoming spoilers, because this article is going to be obliquely running over the plot of the whole game. Including the bonus, extra final boss! Yes, there is a bonus, extra final boss! Spoilers!
This is Blade Chimera, so we are going to talk about our titular Blade Chimera first. Lux the Green Ghosty is introduced quickly and under enigmatic circumstances, and some of her more mysterious movements over the course of the game are deliberately meant to entice any gaming detectives looking for puzzle pieces (not those puzzle pieces, we’ll get to them later). Once Lux lets it slip that she is involved in a time loop focused on her love, Shin the Protagonist, every woman in the cast becomes a suspect. And that is permitted because the women in this cast aren’t doing much of anything, anyway! You have your operator that becomes Princess Peach for a scene or two, and the (lady) leader of the resistance, and… that’s about it. Not a lot of women in this world! Do we count the scientist that we never reunite with her dog? No matter. What is important is that Lux is revealed at the absolute zero hour to be the reincarnated (monster-incarnated?) and (literally) forgotten wife of Shin. And Lux is a double-Lux, too! One version of Lux has amnesia to match her husband, but the other managed to hop dimensions and time travel through a few loops to be, basically, old and grizzled (but still looks exactly the same) Lux. So the magical sword that helps you jump higher is also your dead wife(s). And that is… weird. It was weird when Bionic Commando did this in 2009, and it is weird sixteen years later. And what’s more, while doubling your Luxes and diving into time loops is always fun (it worked for Final Fantasy), it means that the most prominent woman in the cast has an 
extremely unclear personality. Is she a confused amnesiac who is discovering herself alongside a man she regards as a stranger? Or a determined expert in her chosen field (time-manipulating murder ghost) that would literally kill her man just to be closer to him? Is there a possible middle ground? Some media has managed to pull off the trick of a veteran version of a lead next to their inexperienced time duplicate (God help me, I cannot believe I am saying this: a great illustration is The Flash [2023]), but Lux is so poorly defined as a protagonist, she gets lost in her own characterization.
But we have plenty of characterization for her partner and your directly playable character, Shin.
Shin is a divine knight in a world of unholy monsters. When demons first started roaming this Earth (and, to be clear, this is timeline that is supposed to be “our Earth” up to the “We invented demons” split), this holy order took over the local (Japanese) government, and now brutally rules the area with an iron (, laser-gun wielding) fist. Shin skipped all those historical events, though, as he was maliciously frozen in carbonite for a few decades. After awakening with zero memories and some brand-new cybernetic upgrades, Shin is now hunting around town to protect the order and mow down demons. But! What’s this!? There are persistent rumors that demons might actually be mutated humans! Gasp! Is Shin wholesale murdering innocents in his quest for a better world? If he is a murderer, how can he keep blastin’ the virtuous for invaluable experience points? And, more importantly, is our dear protagonist an idiot for having dedicated his life to an obvious lie?
So if you watched Even Worse Streams stream this bad boy a few weeks back, you know that our dear BEAT clocked this twist inside of the first monster appearance. And he could not have been alone on this one: your first opponent is a shambling dude in a mall wearing a beanie. And, yes, this yokai has no face, but that is normal in a Metroidvania. Soma didn’t have facial features outside of a character portrait for two whole adventures! So when it is exposed that all the “demons” you have been fighting are just humans that have been infected with the world’s most variable disease, it is not exactly Soylent Green. And, to the credit of the writers of Blade Chimera, the overall tone seems to assume that the player has indeed figured this out already. Shin is shocked but-not-that-shocked at this revelation, and his general shift in allegiances at that point in the tale is barely a blip on the radar. You are still going to hunt demons (because, human or no, the majority of them are still murderous), and you are still going to keep exploring the city for bigger and badder beasts, because taking out a crocodile eating subway cars is categorically for the greater good. Some of the defeated titans go out of their way to thank you! Shin discovers his life is a lie, takes it in stride, and effectively becomes a double agent against the organization that has done his laundry for his entire (recallable) existence.
And it is very easy to accept this turn of events, because Shin makes it clear that he is a special lil’ dude that is beholden to nobody but himself (and maybe his sword wife).
Like many games nowadays, Blade Chimera includes both main quests and side quests. Unlike many games today (and particularly AAA titles), this protagonist is consistent across mandatory and elective content. Shin is a big damn hero in a holy order that has a shoot-first, ask questions later policy. But Shin is different. Shin is thoughtful, and has distinctive beliefs that influence his reactions to events. Even before the revelations, he does not automatically believe every demon (or person who looks like a demon) needs to be eliminated. When he is dealing with (confirmed) humans, he carefully judges their crimes, and often chooses punishments that are less than lethal. In fact, this is manifest in a sidequest where Shin chooses to “spare” a nosy journalist, but another member of the order shoots the poor reporter on sight. Don’t worry, player! You will eventually get your revenge when that executioner goes rogue, and you must put him down for crimes against your dear protagonist. In fact, if you absorb the whole of Shin’s philosophy through secret flashbacks and data logs, you will find that Shin has always been this way. He is a free thinker! He is not just a holy guardsman or rebel or demon: he is his own man. He is a perfectly unique snowflake!
So when Shin decides he has to kill the Purple Pope, the man that has been leading Japan for (apparently) years, Shin does not hesitate, and blasts Baal back to the Golden Age. And then when sympathetic members of his order ask “What will happen now?” Shin’s response is…
“I dunno. Have a bake sale? I just kill guys around here. I don’t lead anybody.”
And, while this response is true to Shin’s character, this essay exists exclusively so I can say one thing in response: Fuck Shin.
Blade Chimera creates a world where there are two factions: the people that kill demons on sight, and the people that believe demons should be treated like humans (though executed if they, ya know, try to eat people). It is important to note that these two factions account for literally every human you encounter (that lives) through this adventure. There are a few people that are hanging out in the margins, but if a single one appears on screen, it is because they will eventually be revealed to be malicious in some way, and will be either jailed (once) or executed (a whole bunch). And speaking to the normal, segregated inhabitants, you learn they are not remotely compatible with their opposite factions. Two of these people are literally siblings! Yet they do not interact onscreen, and remain firmly on opposing sides by the time the credits roll (twice). It is only special ol’ Shin (and, whether willingly or not, his emotional support sword) that tows the line and survives to tell everybody else how cool he is. And he absolutely will tell everybody how cool he is, because he makes a point of noting his unique beliefs at the end of every third sidequest. See, normal Venators wear their hats like this, but Shin wears his hat like this. I could show you a picture… but you wouldn’t understand, normy.
And, God help me, Shin and people like him are the least helpful people in the universe. So you do not 100% morally align with one particular political party? Well, fun fact, as of early 2024, more Americans surveyed identified as “independent” than either of the dominant political parties. And, it is easy to see how this could be less of a “both sides are bad” situation, and more that “both sides” are now supposed to represent beliefs related to literally hundreds of different issues. So it is perfectly reasonable that a political party or individual politician does not perfectly align with your viewpoints. It would be kind of weird if they did! But does that mean you give up on the whole process, and do your own thing? All the while stating confidently that you are above the norms of your disconnected peers? No! Don’t just say “maybe the next [leader] will lead the people down a better path”! Do something! You can acknowledge that you are different, but there is still great strength in collective action. Join the crowd! Make the world better! Don’t just run around with your sword-wife telling everyone you are solving problems when you are just creating different problems. You are not unique for having unique opinions! Simply stating “oh, I’m not like those guys” is not a solution to anything!
It is not enough to say, “Yeah, that leader sucks.” It is not enough to assassinate a demon pope. You have to put in the work that comes after that, too.
And then you can really make the world less monstrous.
FGC #696 Blade Chimera
- System: Looks like this one is on PC and Nintendo Switch. Didn’t want to do the full circuit, Team Ladybug?
- Number of Players: If Shin had a second player, maybe I wouldn’t have to write all this nonsense.
- Watch it, buddy: As mentioned earlier, I played Blade Chimera for the first time with the Even Worse Streams crew back in January. It is not the whole game, but we did make it up through the third big boss.
January 21, 2025
Please enjoy a stream with BEAT, fanboymaster, Ample Vigour, Chromes, and (eventually) Caliscrub. Ample Vigour enjoys extremely cold walks!
- Favorite Boss: Leviathan showcases everything good about when Blade Chimera’s various systems work in tandem, and it is the most thrilling a subway ride has ever been. Perfect set piece. No notes.
- Favorite Surprise: What looked like a pretty generic fast travel skill had some unexpected and novel uses across finding all the jiggies. Also added bonus: you never get a space jump, bat transformation, or other flight skill. You have to work to get to the top of those towers!
Say something mean: Lambasting the main character for an article didn’t count? Well, I overall thought Blade Chimera was amazing, but my number one gameplay complaint is that Shin was often too fragile. I appreciate the high damage rate encouraging sword-health restoration, but there were a few too many bits that included instant kills. Some were obvious, like the threat of drowning in maze-y watery areas or misidentifying violet radiation routes, but there were also a couple of spots where I could be combo’ed by a bad hit into vaguely instant death. One of the later areas had some tough platforming and trap dodging, and then I got nailed by one goddamned fire imp that juggled me into lava, bounced me out into another fireball, and by about that time ping ponging back into the lava had taken off my last flake of health. I’m not certain exactly what could have been done to avoid these situations, but I’m not a fan of having to be perfect all the time where exploration is the focus.- Say something mean, again: Give me another button for my sword wife to possess things, or make it easier to select what I want the green ghosty to do. There were a few too many times I got wrecked because a ghost snake was flying into my face, and sword-mode uselessly flew forward instead of reversing the encroaching projectile.
- Demonic Variety: I was surprised that Majin Mode only existed for one chunk of the game, and did not become an eventual “powerup” in any form. Even if it would have broken the plot in some way, I was expecting that to make a return with some manner of hand wave. I want to mow down spike pits with kunai fulltime!
- What’s in a name? If you are thinking about changing your name to lead an upstart religion that will subsume the government, and you do not want to become a final boss, please do not choose to change your name to “Baal”. Wearing a lot of purple is also not recommended.
- An End: Team Ladybug, you can have a final-final boss that has three different phases with wildly different attack patterns, or you can have a final-final boss that eats off between 40-70% of your health with every hit, but you cannot have both. Or, if you are going to do that, at least make it easier to organize consumable health restoratives.
Did you know? If you consider that every “demon” is a biological mutation caused by a virus, you start having to wonder how there are dog-sized, sentient fireball yokai. And don’t tell me those are actually mutated dogs! Dogs are immune for some reason!- Would I play again: This is my favorite Metroidvania of the year. I understand there is still a lot of year to go, but I am very happy with nearly everything happening in Blade Chimera. I will play it again, even if I have to hold my nose every time Shin opens his mouth.
What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Guns of Fury! More recent releases with metroidvania elements and guns! But slightly different! Please look forward to it!