Dinoblade

There are certain games that make you stop scrolling because you immediately understand what the developer is trying to sell you. Dinoblade was one of those games for me, although I don’t think anyone could have predicted that a dinosaur wielding a giant sword in its mouth would be the thing that finally got my attention. I’ve never been much of a dinosaur guy. Like most kids, I thought dinosaurs were cool as hell, but I never had the same obsession with them that some people did. I didn’t even watch Jurassic Park until I was practically an adult, and while the dinosaur movies, toys and games I encountered growing up were always entertaining, they were never something I considered particularly special. Then I saw a trailer for Dinoblade and realized that someone had taken the basic idea of dinosaurs being cool and decided the obvious next step was giving them medieval weapons and having them fight each other. I had no idea this game existed before that trailer appeared in front of me, but I immediately knew I had to see what the hell it was.

Steam Description: 
“Dinoblade is an intense action RPG set in a prehistoric world forever changed by a cataclysmic event. Step into the role of a young Spinosaurus, wielding a colossal Great Sword. Confront rival dinosaurs, some armed with weapons of their own, all in a desperate fight to prevent a looming extinction.”

That ridiculous premise is actually a pretty good introduction to what makes Dinoblade work. According to its Steam description, the game takes place in a prehistoric world that has been transformed by a cataclysmic event, where you play as a young Spinosaurus carrying a colossal Great Sword and fighting rival dinosaurs who have somehow acquired weapons of their own. It sounds like the kind of pitch that could have been written on a napkin after someone had a particularly strange idea at two in the morning, but the important thing is that Team Spino actually commits to it. Your dinosaur moves with the weight you would expect from a creature that is essentially carrying a giant piece of metal in its mouth, and the enemies around you are equally absurd variations on the concept, from tiny dinosaurs carrying little katanas to enormous creatures swinging hammers, axes, shields and even other dinosaurs as weapons.
The game caught me completely off guard because I wasn’t seeking it out. I regularly browse upcoming Steam releases and somehow Dinoblade slipped through the cracks, so seeing the trailer was my first exposure to it. That made the opening hours particularly interesting because I was discovering the game’s world and systems at almost exactly the same time that I was trying to figure out what kind of game this actually was. The opening certainly doesn’t waste time being strange. Your character begins the game after getting beaten by another blade-wielding dinosaur and falling into a hole, eventually encountering a sword stuck in the ground and a strange, almost divine dragon-like entity that greets you as if it has been waiting for you to arrive. I had no idea what any of it meant, but it immediately gave me the impression that there was a larger story hiding somewhere underneath all the dinosaurs hitting each other with swords.
That impression would become increasingly important as I continued playing, because Dinoblade is at its best when it is simply allowing me to experience this ridiculous world through its combat. The game looks somewhat like an action RPG from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 era, which isn’t necessarily a criticism because the visual style actually suits the straightforward nature of the experience. The first area is dominated by rocky terrain, muted colors and gray-brown environments that make it feel as though you’re traveling through a mountainous region, while later areas open into much more colorful grasslands with blue skies, moving clouds and distant planets or moons visible on the horizon. The contrast between those areas was surprisingly effective, particularly because the second environment felt much more expansive after spending so much time surrounded by rocks and cliffs.

The problem is that Dinoblade never gives those environments enough context to make me care about them beyond their function as places to fight dinosaurs. The game occasionally provides a cutscene or a mysterious character who offers another piece of information about restoring the world, defeating the souls standing in your way or uncovering whatever happened to this prehistoric civilization, but those moments are so brief and ambiguous that I often found myself asking more questions than the game answered. I don’t really know who my character is beyond being a dinosaur with a sword, I don’t understand why some dinosaurs have weapons while others attack with their teeth and claws, and I never developed a strong sense of what actually caused the world to become the strange place I’m exploring.
This became more frustrating because the gameplay is good enough that I genuinely wanted to know more. There is a version of Dinoblade where the developers give this world a stronger mythology and give the player a reason to become invested in restoring it, and I think that version of the game could have been considerably more memorable. Instead, the primary motivation seems to be getting stronger and defeating whatever happens to be standing in front of you. That can absolutely be enough for some players, particularly those who primarily want challenging combat and exploration, but I kept waiting for the game to give me a reason to care about the dinosaur underneath the sword.
I’m also not particularly fond of Souls-style storytelling where the player is expected to reconstruct the narrative through vague dialogue, environmental details and scattered pieces of information. Games such as Elden Ring have demonstrated how effective that approach can be for players who enjoy piecing together a world themselves, but I prefer a more direct narrative structure. That doesn’t mean Dinoblade needed a massive cinematic story with hours of dialogue; even a clearer objective and a stronger understanding of who I was playing as would have made a significant difference. Instead, I occasionally found myself wandering through the world wondering whether I was actually progressing the story or simply stumbling into another boss because I happened to walk in the right direction.

The combat is the reason I kept going.
At first, Dinoblade gave me the impression that it was going to be a Souls-like. I reached my first save point, was given the option to rest, turned around and discovered that enemies I’d already defeated had returned. That is about as familiar as a Souls checkpoint can get. The difference became apparent when I realized that the game isn’t nearly as interested in punishing me for dying. I never found myself worrying about losing a huge collection of experience every time I made a mistake, and the game eventually gives you enough freedom to save from the menu and return to your latest checkpoint. You can also fast travel between discovered save points, which makes the experience feel considerably more forgiving than a traditional Souls game.
The controls are straightforward enough that I was comfortable with them almost immediately. Quick attacks, heavy attacks, dodging, jumping and healing give you the basic tools, while parrying becomes increasingly important as the game introduces stronger enemies and more complicated boss patterns. I initially struggled when several enemies attacked me at once, but once I started understanding the timing of the parry system, combat became much more manageable. There are also unblockable attacks that are telegraphed with a red effect, forcing you to dodge rather than simply relying on your defensive options. Learning when to stand your ground and when to get the hell out of the way becomes one of the game’s central skills.
That weight is what makes the combat so satisfying. When you’re playing a dinosaur carrying an enormous sword in its mouth, the attacks shouldn’t feel light or delicate, and Dinoblade understands that. The sword swings have a satisfying amount of force behind them, enemies react to getting hit in ways that make the attacks feel substantial, and taking damage also feels appropriately impactful. There is something almost reminiscent of watching Godzilla fight King Kong in the way the larger enemies collide with each other; you can almost feel the force behind the attacks. It makes the simple act of swinging a sword considerably more satisfying than it has any right to be.
The boss fights are where that combat system really comes together. There are an absurd number of bosses scattered throughout the game, and I frequently found myself going from one encounter to another without much downtime. Bosses are easy to identify because their names appear alongside a massive health bar as soon as the encounter begins, and each one tends to have a distinct weapon, moveset and rhythm that you have to learn. The game doesn’t tell you whether you’re properly prepared for a particular encounter, either, so you can walk into a fight, get absolutely destroyed and then decide whether you want to improve your character, explore somewhere else or simply keep trying until you figure it out.
Kira the Exile was one of my early reminders that the game was going to make me earn some of these victories. He’s a gray, heavily armored dinosaur with hardened bones around his face and a moveset that immediately overwhelmed me when I first encountered him. I eventually realized that I could probably make the fight easier by investing some of the SP I’d collected into my attributes, but I was stubborn and wanted to see how far I could get without upgrading my character. Even after dying several times, I didn’t feel like the game was forcing me into an RPG progression system just to remain competitive. Instead, I could approach the fight almost like a boxer studying an opponent, taking a step back when my stamina was low and waiting for another opportunity to engage.
Mosui the Titan was a completely different story. He is a massive long-necked dinosaur carrying what looks like an enormous log in his mouth, and almost everything he does feels capable of ending the fight if you make the wrong decision. One tail attack dropped my health from 1,464 to roughly 700, while his stomps could send spikes erupting from the ground and force me to constantly reposition myself. The game even gives him his own brief loading transition and introductory cinematic before the fight begins, which immediately made me suspicious that I was dealing with something much more dangerous than the bosses I’d encountered up to that point. After getting destroyed four times without even bringing his health below half, I decided I had seen enough and moved on. It was the first time I genuinely felt underqualified for a boss rather than simply challenged by one, and I appreciated that Dinoblade allowed me to walk away instead of forcing me to beat him before continuing.
Other bosses are more manageable but just as interesting because of how differently they approach combat. Haku, for example, is a medium-sized Tyrannosaurus-looking dinosaur carrying a spiked hammer in his mouth, and his attacks involve a series of spinning jumps where he throws his entire body into each swing. The fight becomes a matter of recognizing the pattern and waiting for the opening after his sequence of attacks, while his red, unblockable moves force you to rely on dodging rather than parrying. During the encounter he can also charge up an attack that surrounds him with an icy mist before jumping into the air and bringing the hammer down, sending a freezing area-of-effect attack across the ground. I still have no idea why this particular dinosaur has ice powers, but by that point I had accepted that Dinoblade was not particularly interested in explaining itself.
Kasei the Tyrant is another example of the game’s willingness to make its bosses progressively more ridiculous. He initially uses the body of a dead, four-legged dinosaur as a makeshift weapon, swinging it around like a giant mace while mixing in unblockable attacks. As you learn his patterns and build up his parry meter, successful counters create opportunities for much larger attacks, but the fight doesn’t simply end once you’ve figured out the first phase. At around half health, Kasei discards his original weapon and pulls a massive, jagged double-sided blade from the sky, effectively giving himself an entirely new moveset. Encounters like this are what kept me interested in the combat even when I was frustrated with everything surrounding it.
Defeating those bosses also feeds into the game’s progression systems in some interesting ways. You can unlock boss abilities and eventually summon defeated bosses as special attacks, while bosses can also provide passive abilities that improve things like damage, stamina generation or energy recovery during blocks and parries. You can find blue-green SP orbs throughout the world, which allow you to improve health, strength, resonance and stamina, while experience gained from defeating enemies contributes to your overall progression. The game also gives you new weapons that can alter the attacks available to you, such as the Astreron Meteorrend sword, whose heavy attacks can cause spikes to erupt from the ground.
The exploration systems are where my enthusiasm becomes more complicated. I like that enemies can fight each other, because stumbling across groups of dinosaurs battling among themselves makes the world feel less static. I also enjoyed finding different types of dinosaurs with different weapons, from tiny creatures carrying little katanas to larger enemies using scythes, hammers and shields. There are also cinematic finishers that trigger after you stagger an enemy, and these can range from jumping attacks to brutal executions where your dinosaur uses its jaws to finish the opponent. The system reminded me of the old God of War games, where the act of finishing an enemy became a spectacle in itself.
The problem is that I frequently didn’t know where I was going. Dinoblade doesn’t provide the kind of map or navigation system I would have preferred, and once the game opens up beyond its more linear opening sections, I sometimes found myself wandering around without any idea whether I was actually progressing toward something important. I understand the appeal of discovery-driven games, but I’m personally more interested in having a clear destination and being allowed to figure out how to reach it than being dropped into a large environment and told to find my own purpose. Dinoblade embraces that freedom, and I think some players will love it, but for me it occasionally made exploration feel aimless rather than adventurous.