Drawing from the well of Arthurian legends is a tried and true practice, but arguably one that hasn’t been seen in a while. In spite of things like the incredible Sam Neill Merlin series or the kickass Knights of Justice cartoon, people have been pretty quiet on the classic tale of the Once and Future King and all that permeates throughout. The tale of a boy who is chosen to rule Camelot, assemble an incredible team and is ultimately betrayed and laid low by his friend, his wife and his own bastard son is an incredible one, and doesn’t get enough attention in modern media.

QUbyte Interactive saw this gap and decided to fill it with a chunky, solid beat-em-up that doesn’t make a lick of sense, feels borderline crazy, but gets the job done with the most on the nose name ever. Thus we begin Blades and Battles.

You know, that famous scene where King Arthur fights Varang from Avatar!

Arthur and Lancelot are hanging out around a campfire, Arthur shirtless, and both of them just chatting about how awesome it is there’s no conflict in the kingdom. I mean, they might need to assemble a group of knights in the future to sit at a table that isn’t square, but, for now, it’s just Art and Lance, two buddies who aren’t troubled by anything. When suddenly they’re troubled by EVERYTHING, and demons, skeletons and devilish nightmares flood across the land, murdering, pillaging and making things super uncool.

What on earth are Beefcut HardTack and TinCan Man supposed to do? Why, grab their swords and commence slashing! That’s right, we can’t wait around forever for things to get better: we need to slaughter our way to peace! Let’s Revenge! That’s not a grammatical typo, that’s what Arthur yells during his quest. Not sure if it was intentional.

Blades and Battles unabashedly leans into the inspiration from Golden Axe with a co-op brawler in which you air and ground slash the crap out of anything that moves that isn’t you or your buddy. Quick button work allows you to build up combos, though the 3D environment and field of depth does make it more challenging to keep the party going, as enemies move into the fore and background. Arthur wails the ever loving bejeezus out of everything with a broadsword the size of an eighth grader, jumping around and smashing open treasure chests, flaming stumps and dragon skulls (common storage locations for items). Lancelot has some kind of elemental control over things and can summon lightning and move the earth during his stronger attacks, including a wave strike that looks like he’s doing a Sonic Boom. 

Lancelot decapitates a zombie using Water Breathing: First Form.

You’ve also got room-clearing one button attacks that need magic potions or sap your health, plus a limited pushback forcefield that requires mana. These two ZR and ZL button attacks are essential to making the game move forward, since you can’t really block. You’ve got a sort of dodge move that can let you do a quick dash in one direction, but it’s not often enough to completely avoid enemies when they’re besetting you from all sides. Plus there’s a few achievements that can only be obtained using these powers, so be liberal but smart with your expenditure. Having a localized achievement system built into Blades and Battles already endears this game to me a lot, even if there are some shortcomings that crop up over the course of the game.

Combat is a ton of fun, even if you’re going solo. It’s easy to get combos going, and the tutorial stage helps you really set up what it means to transition from aerial to ground attacks and back again, creating devastating finishers and juggling for an almost grotesque amount of time. It’s purposely over the top, so, when Arthur catches an enemy just right, the enemy can fly the length of the screen, bounce off the opposite wall, and still have enough volley for him to keep hitting them more. A lot of modern brawlers sometimes ask players to be more adept with button timing and hitboxes, but Blades and Battles is generous enough that you can be mostly in the right vicinity and get your punishment on successfully.

Yes, the twin bosses of Robin and Hood. Look, no one here is applauding the writing.

This can swing the other way, though. Getting ganged up on is no fun, and the AI, even on easy mode, can have an incredible degree of vindictive nature. Once, Arthur died during a particularly heinous onslaught, so I changed to Lancelot just to mix things up. As soon as my spawn invulnerability passed, two massive skeletons proceeded to play volleyball with my body, and I watched, aghast, as my health went from 100% to 10% in a matter of seconds with nothing I could do about it. The game doesn’t go out of its way to be unfair, but, when opportunity presents itself, the CPU will beat the tar out of you to remind you that you’re one dude (or two) against the whole damn evil of the world. There’s nothing easy about it.

The visuals on Blades and Battles have both successes and failures. On the one hand, there’s a good variety of areas to visit, moving from the ruinous remains of a village into the deep forest and beyond to places like Bone Castle. You fight goblins, imps, demons, floating heads, different forms of skeletons and super annoying birdmen who use bows. The world is exceptionally well flushed out, allowing you to explore an entire tale’s worth of places and characters. Even the bosses all feel different and special enough, letting this brief foray into alternate Arthur be an exciting and enjoyable one.

However, the devs have chosen to really lean into the chunky pixel aspect, with the only graphical toggle being “pixelated” and “very pixelated.” This is a stylistic choice that I would normally love, but it feels like it goes a bit too far. On the Switch 2, at least, the distortion of how the characters look drifts away from the yesteryear brawler and comes down on the side of surrealist interpretation. It’s a rougher version of how The Darkside Detective came across, but you’re trying to focus on active fighting, not gradual clicking and talking. It can make the game feel muddy, particularly if you toggle on very pixelated. The portraits and cutscenes look great, and the map is pretty spiffy as well, but the main gameplay just gets lost in its own artistic direction, which can be frustrating when trying to keep track of the game.

I mean, you can barely tell there’s an apple inside that dragon skull.

What makes a beat-em-up work is the feeling that you’re either coursing through a power fantasy or viewing a fantastic story, and Blades and Battles hits both marks. The shirtless Arthur, while a bit silly, gives this barbarian approach that makes you think of Arthur as a young, berserk man who’ll do anything to save Camelot. Lancelot controlling elements fills in the hole that Merlin will later inhabit, and also lets you disconnect (comfortably) even further. Sure, why not?

We’re already dealing with minotaurs and rolling bone wheels, might as well tear open the heavens in the process. It’s a bit dumb, but it’s such an enjoyable dumb that you can get drawn in fairly quickly. With a decent fantasy soundtrack that doesn’t feel cookie cutter and an inarguably unique art direction, Blades and Battles stands proudly to represent what I can only classify as Arthurian fanfiction.

Blades and Battles is available now on Steam, Epic Game Store, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch/2.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2.

A copy of Blades and Battles was provided by the publisher.