Infinity Blade always handled its character skill aspect (part of it, anyway) through a level-up system. On the other hand, battles like that would take hours, so character skill is needed to keep each battle in a reasonable time frame. On one hand, any battle can be beaten regardless of how strong your enemy is, because as long as you dodge and parry everything you will never die, so player skill is an important factor. The Infinity Blade series has always had a strange relationship between player skill and character skill. But what would MMO-style crafting even do for Infinity Blade? Maybe I’m just being too cynical, but I honestly have no idea why they added potions. Maybe they wanted to get in on MMO-style crafting (potions are either found, or crafted with materials you find). I can’t think of a positive reason why they introduced potions into the game. Chair designed the game around the assumption that players would be using potions, but if that was their core assumption, why even give players the option to not use potions in the first place?

Potions in IB3 aren’t fun to use in any way, but they’re necessary to keep up with the game’s balance levels. When I wrote the original mana system paradox essay, I was focusing on gameplay and engagement, but potions in IB3 aren’t even at that level. However the game gets balanced, it needs to accomodate for potions somehow, and balancing around a consumable resource brings the mana system paradox back into question. They could either make combat engaging without potions and ridiculously easy with potions, or they could make combat impossible without potions and doable with potions (or any point along that scale). Previous Infinity Blade games balanced combat around the character’s level and equipment, but IB3‘s combat has to be balanced around potions as well. However, they’re only temporary, so they’re more like a one-time burst of strength that you’ll want to save for a boss battle or other tough fight. Some of them will give you additional elemental damage, some of them will heal you every time you successfully block, and so on and so forth. These potions have a variety of effects, usually boosting your combat ability in the next battle. IB3 introduced a new element to the series: potions. But when I say “mana system paradox,” I mean “mana” as in consumable resources in general. That’s cool, and I have no problems with it. To cast magic, you have to draw a little shape on the screen: a zig-zag will shock your enemy with lightning, or a wave pattern will invoke water magic. It’s strange for me to say “mana system paradox” because honestly, I’ve always liked Infinity Blade‘s magic system.

Infinity blade 2 hidden items