Here’s a creative little fantasy puzzle game by MagicCubeGames in South Korea. Merge & Blade is a hybrid of genres in which you get a squad to do battle against monsters.
There’s a, kind of, Tetris style puzzle thrown into the mix. It’s all fast-paced and entertaining—if you want a pick-up-and-play type of game, this is the one.
Merge & Blade (to the tune of banging 8-bit music beats)
On this one, it just launched in February 2023 and is available on Steam and Xbox.
Indie games often experiment around merging genres (and other game mechanics) all into one creative experience.
We think of something like Yoku’s Island Express (2018), which is a Metroidvania… WITH PINBALL!
Merge & Blade doesn’t have pinball, but it’s got a lot of Vampire Survivors’ frantic appeal. That minimalistic style is there and you have the option to rapidly upgrade your squad to take out the wave of enemies.
You get cash, you spend that on unit updates, new recruits, and you can build up your base back home. The whole point is to retake castles on the main map screen.
It gets super addictive fast. Merge & Blade chucks you straight into the action and you’re off. Now messing about on this one, just get to grips with the game mechanics and you’ll be away. Behold!
We found it wonderfully addictive. Much like Vampire Survivors, that instant appeal to keep playing is right there. The game just blew us away. At least to begin with.
However, it does start to get a little repetitive after a while.
An inevitability with a game like this, we suppose, as it’s essentially the same process every time—upgrade, wipe out, new castle, same all over again.
As a short-term gaming fix that’s fantastic. Nothing wrong with that, we guess, as some games are brilliant for short bursts of play. But it does mean there’s little long-term appeal with Merge & Blade.
It depends what you’re after as a gamer. If you just want a quick whirl, think little else of it, occupy a few hours one evening, then Merge & Blade is perfect.
But with its £8 asking price that’s pushing it a little.
Despite that, as the game is free on Xbox Games Pass right now, we can highly recommend giving it a whirl. It looks great, offers a lot of short-term highs, and there’s a truly epic 8-bit soundtrack to accompany proceedings.
