Blade of Mercy: The Devil is in the Details

Apr. 29, 2015

Blade of Mercy: The Devil is in the Details

The Devil From has captured, is truly in the details. I can craft my own magic rings? That’s pretty sweet. Hey, my robot’s leaning when I try to jump. What gives? Needs more ballast of course. I won’t even get started on Souls customization.

I’ve been gaming since the mid-eighties. I’ve come across more games than I can recall that have had solid gameplay, story, graphics, etc.Bloodbornehas all of that, but as is usual with many From games, it’s the details that have me running for a monocular (or wall to exploit the camera) over and over and playing long after I’d be done with most titles.

Let’s examine this particular Devil closer with an icon of the latest/greatest From venture:The Blade of Mercy

First off, you need to know something. I don’t even use this weapon in game. Maybe I will at some point, but my starting gear ofThreaded CaneandHunter Pistolhave been too close to my heart to change up much (Tonitrusand theCannonare certainly good friends of mine too however). It was by a chance accident that I decided to examine this more closely, with fascinating* results.

I stumbled upon a reference that the Blade of Mercy and theBurial Bladewere the only two weapons made of some fantastic and mysterious substance known as “siderite.” Neat.

Wait.

What the **** is siderite?

Blah blah blah, science science science yadda yadda…it’s a real thing. Some sort of ore with iron in it. Neat? Yes.

Siderite, as it turns out, can be made to have magnetic properties. Blah blah blah, science science science yadda yadda…but probably not anything like the game shows. I’ll spare any more comparisons to the real world with this material as I am sure that the magnetized siderite probably can’t do what the Blade of Mercy asks of it. But since the game shows us that religious figures turn into 50 foot tall wolves after too much sacramental wine and mushroom aliens seek to aggressively hug the bejesus out of you, let’s assume that a few laws of science can be “bent” shall we?

This new knowledge led me on a fact finding mission that resulted in this article gracing your peepers. So go siderite! Add this article to your résumé.

My first point of exploration was to examine the transformations with both the abovementioned weapons. Note the joining of the Burial Blade’s sword to staff. Is there sufficient mechanical means to hold it in place like that without magnetism? Yeah, probably. There’s even a thumb lock like the Saw Cleaver has. Magnetism doesn’t seem like it’s a “thing” with this weapon. So much for that great siderite idea I had…

Sad face

Just to make sure though, I transformed the Blade of Mercy a few times. Press L1: he grabbed the handles and pulled the blades apart. Nothing to see here folks, move along. Press L1 again:

What…the…crap…? What was that?

After watching it again a dozen times or so: “Did he just toss the left hand one behind his back?” 10 more tries to confirm… “He DOES** throw the left hand dagger behind his back. But how did it come back together?” 10 more tries later… “The left hand dagger tip connects to the right hand dagger tip and SPINS into the right hand?” 10 more tries to confirm the entire animation… “So then Skare Ol’ Pal do we have this right, he throws the left hand dagger behind his back, which connects to the right hand dagger via their blade tips, and the left hand dagger spins (still joined by the tips) into the right hand to form the short sword form. How in the hell is that possible?”

I checked the blade shape for hooks (since this is similar to a hook sword trick in real life). Nope. That ain’t gonna do it. The left hand dagger…maaaaaybe. But both would need hooks and the right hand one sure don’t. Then I got close to a wall and inspected the blades closely for a pin or other mechanical method of joining. Nothing. Just smooth and deadly blades. I tried to find another explanation. Really I did. As awesome as the idea sounded (and still does), it was difficult to believe that my first nerdy exclamation of “MAGNETISM” held any weight. But I can’t find another explanation with this weapon. During transformations, they’re razor sharp nunchakus because of…magnets.

…

Being an obsessive fool that I am, I wanted to explore the depth of detail with this weapon. Transformation attacks show the same phenomena. The blades can spin around on each other by connecting at their tips. My first thought (other than “AWESOME”) was that the entire weapon must magnetized. After all, I posited, the handle should come together firmly as well so as not to cause problems there.

But then something else caught my eye. The first transformation animation that at first seemed unremarkable. The one which looks like nothing more than him grabbing the left hand dagger and getting ready to cut some fools. A shower of sparks now stood out, thanks to my new perspective. When pulling the handles apart there’s no resistance. The hunter does indeed simply grab the other handle (or half handle, we’ll come back to that). The tips of the blades though, now that’s a different story. There’s a brief pause where the hunter still has the tips touching. Then a quick jerking motion to separate with a grand flourish of sparks. What at first struck me as showing off, now looked to me like the blades resisted separation (animation in video above). But my mind crept back to the handle. If it comes apart with no effort (it does) that’s surely a mistake. Either magnetism is at play or some other trickery must be at work to prevent the handles from separating while fighting.

Remember I said they’re half handles. The first time I noticed this I passed it off as mostly trivial. With that cursory examination, what I thought I had discovered was that the two daggers each used a simple half circle for a handle (to make one complete circle together). Well, half cylinder if you wanna be technical. The cross section would look something like this terrible diagram I made.

While crappily made, that diagram is MOSTLY right.

I saw the anomaly on the left hand dagger first. The way the blade is held by the character makes this one easier. In fact I had to actively seek out its counterpart on the right dagger, but I can assure you it’s there. The left dagger handle you see, has a small groove right down the center. It is not a mere half circle. It doesn’t look like much, and unless you’re the kind of person who routinely hangs out by walls to get a better look at things, it might never be noticed in the first place. If you’re familiar with flooring, you’ll know the concept of “tongue and groove***” (let’s stick to flooring usage). You’ll probably anticipate at this point what the right dagger has going down it’s center line. It’s most easily seen while walking (this takes patience, camera fun times and a quick eye), but it’s there.

Warning! Impending crotch cam! And it’s very tough to get a good picture of that right hand..

I won’t go into more engineering and construction discussion now, instead letting these facts sink in. Also, that second and obviously amazing diagram I made should have cleared up everything. I’ve seen expertly designed weaponry and more over and over again in video games. I’ve even come across several designs I’d call masterpieces. But the simple perfection created from an obscure mineral reference in concert with a small shower of sparks and a groove; come together to form an explanation for physics defying moves that is simply sublime and a recipe for a run on sentence.

And lest we forget this blade’s monstrous purpose amid all this beauty of design, try out the backstep R2 in short sword mode. The placement and small twist of the knife tell you everything you need to know…

…

*Actual fascination level will vary

**Actually he doesn’t. FextraLife forum membersAlaraandLich180insisted it was passed off in front of the player and I had it wrong. And they were right.

***The safe money is that you clicked on that link hoping it had nothing to do with flooring

Take your insight to 99 with theFextraLife wiki

TheBeckoning Bellcalls you to theforums

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Slowing down the video(Youtube’s best additional feature ever) I’ve noticed the right blade is brought across the body and touches the left blade at the tips. The hunter swings this half transformed state blade like a pendulum , causing the left blade to swing around the right with the magnetic point of the tips as an axis until it snaps in to the grooves in the handle. In the front facing shot the left blade is already gone from its hand before the hand makes any motion towards the back, disappearing at the same time the right blade is brought down in front of the body over it.

And a further note on that incredible attention to detail From has put in, you actually see the hunter raise his thumb out of the way just before the blades snap together, they don’t magically connect through a closed hand grip.

Like the detail that it’s a PILEBUNKER.

Also the detail that EXPLODES, doing BIG DAMAGE.

And the detail that it is the most manliest of all weapons, comparative only to a DRILL.

There are some neat details on the pilebun- I mean stake driver too.

Behind the back would have been so much cooler!!!

Nice article Skare! I myself wondered about the transformation of the BoM. I knew it was magnetic but I had nooooo idea that Siderite was an actual real-world mineral with magnetic properties!

Welp…I took another look last night and…

Penitence for those who DARED QUESTION ME….RAAAAAAAGE!

Nah, good eyes from Alara and Lich180. I revisited this last nigh as I said trying different angles and in a different location (no video though because it’s not any more conclusive than the other one, thanks to compression, etc.).

For anyone wanting the best view of this, overhead seems to be pretty good.

But the left hand blade is tossed in front before moving to grab the pistol. The magnetism part still holds up (thank God, who needs a complete rewrite) but I got the pass wrong.

Time to go add a sentence or two into the article.

Last but not least, thanks everyone for the feedback and keeping fun conversations like these alive. And as Fallenangel700 pointed out, all of the weapons have crazy good design details. I thought about doing a series, still can I suppose, but I don’t know if there’s any discovery that’ll be as neat as the siderite/sidero (thanks keropi)

Guess they don’t call it a trick weapon for fun huh , Good Job man

I’ll try to take another look at the animation ASAP. I’m open to being wrong. For now I stand by the behind the back statement because of the glint (White Glint? Huh?) behind the pistol but I’ll get back to everyone after looking at it in better lighting

And as for Verdict Day I’m not a big PvP fan and they removed a lot of the nerdy mechanics that I liked messing with. Without playing earlier versions it’d be great but after the few before it I was like “Awww…dang”

I was watching the blade of mercy transformation earlier after reading this thread. What it looks like to me is the left hand half is attached in front of the character, sticks to the right hand side and is flung out to the right side, then flicked into position.

not exactly a discovery but “Siderate” is iron in Greek (well almost, the word is Sidero)

Great work figuring out the science behind that.If you pick apart the other weapons, they are all possible too.Ludwig’s and the Kirkhammer have slits for the sword to go into.The saws have that clasp you mentioned.The Rapier (Ralshapaiar), and Riflespear have already been talked about.Stake Driver is just a spring loaded piston.Logarius’s Wheel is, uh, a wheel.And so on and so forth. Can’t wait to see what weapons we get in the dlcs!

Really? I honestly liked ACVD the best out of all of them, all the way from AC2AA where I started. It probably has to do with the 4on4 team play (I play both series mainly for the PvP) and the way that each viable build is only capable of one or specific role for the team, making teamwork even more important.

That’s why I added the video because it’s so fast and so much is going on. In the video you can see a shadow cross the left leg and the right blade is brought forward before down and back and it definitely looks like a pass in front. However that shadow, best I can tell, is the right blade sweeping down and back to catch the blade.

The best evidence I have of a behind the back pass is around 5 seconds in with the rear camera angle. If you can frame by frame it, there’s a left hand motion and most convincingly in my mind a glint that flashes behind the pistol and left cheek (butt cheek that is). I was actually wearing the Executioner’s top when I first started investigating. If my memory serves me correctly (not always the case) I think there was some behind the back clipping visible in the cape as well.

I don’t want to rule out I could be wrong. But that’s what I see. Perhaps I’ll revisit it in better lighting

The article isn’t exactly right though.

When the transformation from double to single blade happens, it isn’t done by handing the left one behind his back to the right one. The character clearly attaches his left blade to his right one in front of him.

I knew I wasn’t the only one Gasarocky.

JY4answer, hopefully the Armored Core series redeems itself, I was not a fan of Verdict Day to say the least.

Yeah I regularly walk against walls and the like to look at details, and take screenshots of motions in action. And yes that backstep R2 is absolutely beautiful. That wrist action is just so RIGHT. That’s an attack meant to kill something in one blow.

It’s amazing how much design detail they were able to pack into even such a small weapon with what seems like very little detail to even examine.

And the exact same generic sounds from various actions. Love it!!!!!!!

All of FROM’s games have 2 common fundamental principles.

Freedom. You can choose what to use, equip what you like, play how you want, act how you feel like, and interpret the story how you want to. Not everyone agrees with each other, and evidence is all circumstantial. This kind of fundamental freedom is surprisingly rare in games. Nothing is explained to you, go figure the mechanics, the story, the evidence and everything else too.
Realism and balance. While a lot of fantasy and sci-fi concepts are present, all of FROM’s games are grounded and are governed by rules. You do not make a “best build” without sacrifices. You cannot spam your attacks and expect to survive a single mob enemy. You cannot equip a grenade launcher and expect to be able to whiz around the dessert. You want to swing a Moonlight? Deal with the energy drain.

After delving into FROM games, its very hard to play any other games anymore. The stories are always too plainly laid out for you, or the world isn’t real enough, or there isn’t enough customisation. Am I looking forward to AC6? You can bet all your credits, souls and blood echoes I am.

Thanks to both of you for reading this rant on minutiae

I should add here (since the article was long enough already) that the siderite I have in the article is maybe not what was intended but it is what kicked off my research so it gets the credit.

If we’re going sciencey, the game mentions that the siderite in the BoM is “rare” and of the “heavens.” The Burial Blade also says it’s from the “heavens.” I of course interpreted this as “meteorite” and did a later search for “siderite meteor.”

Anyway, long story short, the siderite in the article is actually quite common and in large quantities can be used to extract iron and any magnetism is just due to iron I believe. So while it kicked off what appears to be a correct mechanic, earthly siderite might not be the true story.

The meteor search turned up “mesosiderite” which can be a meteorite rich in iron and nickel. These are rare AND nickel can be used to make stronger magnets than iron.

As you can tell, I love to geek out over this crap

Thanks for the effort skare!

Oh good lord that’s awesome. Reminds me of when I spent 30 minutes staring at the Reiterpallasch trying to figure out how it worked. At first I was like “no, you don’t put the sword handle in the pistol’s barrel what are you doing” but then I remembered that’s how the original bayonets worked. Not exactly the most practical method since you’d have to remove the bayonet before firing… which is what the weapon transformation does, where it shifts the blade to a more practical (and modern) under-the-barrel placement to allow for gun use, which of course alters the way you’d use the blade. The rifle spear does the same thing, which struck me as awfully appropriate for the pseudo-Victorian setting the game takes place in.