Deception IV Blood Ties is a tricks and traps game for the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita.  In the game you play Laegrinna, daughter of The Devil. Along with your three Daemons (demonesses) you’re attempting to bring about the return of your father to the world. As Laegrinna, you must defeat a long list of opponents, from locals forced to attack you to the land’s greatest warriors and heroes (self-proclaimed). As you progress through the 12 stages, you must defeat a final boss to collect his or her piece of the ancient Holy Verses, which were created by 12 saints to lock The Devil away. With the 12 pieces put back together, you can release your father upon an unsuspecting world.

Gameplay is fun, but gets repetitive quickly. The first few hours of a the pretty short game (in story mode, there are additional challenges in Mission mode) you’re learning your trade and kicking some serious ass. Between crushing, slicing, dicing and general bloodletting, the game is a bit of a hoot. I found myself cackling quite contentedly at some of the deaths I brought down.

There are three weapon classes you’ll need to master – Elaborate, Sadistic and Humiliation. You can switch between the three types at will, but you score bigger combo bonuses for using chains of any of the three at a time. There aren’t too many games I know of where you can hit an enemy with a pie to the face, drop them in an iron maiden, pelt them with fireballs and finish them with a bear trap.  If you’re like me, you’ll take great joy in utterly destroying your opponents.

PROS:

  • It’s fun. I had a great time mercilessly crushing and burning many a victim. I don’t know how many times I laughed as my victims cried in anguish while roasting in a molten lava pit or being shot out of a clown’s nose into a waiting capture box.
  • While the game’s Story mode is short (about 10-12 hours), there are additional play options to extend your demented torture streaks with Missions, Cross-Quests and Free  Battle. Missions tasks you to meet specific goals in your battling. Cross-Quests are downloadable missions created by other players. Free Battle allows you to test and practice you crafts on characters of your choosing in whatever environment best suits you.

CONS:

  • The traps don’t seem to work perfectly. Different traps have various options, such as directional information (i.e. where your victim will end up after being kicked across the stage by the Devil’s Foot), but the information is often wrong, but not always. If you hit your victim with the Wall Crusher, they’re supposed to fly five squares away. Much of the time they do, but too often, they’ll fall 4 or 6 instead. You depend on the indicators to know where to place your next trap in sequence, otherwise your combos don’t work and you lose bonuses.
  • Too few character designs. There are 12 levels with somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 ‘different’ opponents, but there are only about 8 character designs. Everyone is a clone of one of those 8 with a different color hat or armor and a different name.  It’s not a huge deal as you’re generally concentrating on maiming the endless stream of faces, but it’s noticeable quickly.
  • Cheating. As far as I could tell, the game cheats on a regular basis. Opponents all have an info sheet with their Resistances and In-vulnerabilities. Most knights, for instance, are immune to projectiles and clamping weapons. But far too often you’ll find your opponents unaffected by traps that are not on their list. I also found quite a few characters magically appearing at the wrong door when I had traps set at the door the map shows they’re approaching.

Deception IV Blood Ties Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55E6kYbOb_0