Phantom Blade Zero, a hack and slash game that takes on the theme of ancient China with a dark feel will soon be available exclusively for PlayStation 5. The game, which was first introduced in 2023, promises a different gaming experience with a focus on physical combat with agile movements like in kung-fu movies.
The PlayEatSleep team had the opportunity to try out the game at Tokyo Game Show 2024. For about 20 minutes we were given the opportunity to fight three boss characters and try out the six types of weapons that will appear in this game.
Yes, Phantom Blade Zero will feature a variety of weapons that you can use and each weapon has a different attack profile and moves. For us, this is a plus.
Although it is said to appear as a hack and slash game, but for us Phantom Blade Zero still has soulslike DNA in it. Why? Because this game is quite challenging and we died 9 times when fighting the three boss characters.
It's not as "bad" as other soulslike games, but its DNA is still very much there. Especially the combat mechanics that rely on reflexes and timing through dodge and parry moves. What makes this game more interesting are the different attack and parry moves depending on the weapon used.
Challenging
One of the things that keeps some gamers from enjoying souls-like games is their high difficulty. It's common knowledge that you'll die hundreds of times when playing games like Elden Ring, Dark Souls, or Black Myth Wukong.
But Phantom Blade Zero is different. Although we think it has soulslike DNA, it's essentially a hack and slash game so the combat feels more exciting and still challenging. This will certainly pave the way for gamers with poor reflexes like us who can still finish the demo version of this game at TGS 2024.
After getting through the not-so-complicated tutorial, our demo session began by fighting Tie Sha the Frenzy, the first boss character. Tie Sha mostly attacked with standard moves and seemed to teach us how to master the basic controls to fight the next boss.
Our favorite weapon to use against Tie Sha is the dual blade. The agile movement of the dual blades allowed us little guys the opportunity to attack Tie Sha mercilessly.
Next we fought Commander Cleave, a boss figure carrying a large sword with a stronger attack than Tie Sha. In this stage we were given the opportunity to use weapons that seemed to be a long sword and cleaver sword.
Both seem to be designed to withstand Cleave's powerful attacks. Unfortunately, our reflexes were so poor that we were quite overwhelmed when facing this boss. Nevertheless, we were able to defeat it in the end.
The final boss is Huangxing, the Sunken Pillar of Kunlun, a figure that reminds us of the Pyramid Head in Silent Hill but comes with more terrifying weapons. His main weapon is a sword, but in his left hand he holds a weapon similar to a flail.
The flail weapon turned out to be very deadly and could make us die instantly at the beginning. But after dying a few times and learning the attack pattern, we were able to defeat him using the chackram weapon which has super agile movements. In total, we died nine times while playing this game at TGS 2024.
You can watch the full gameplay here:
Intriguing
Although we were only given the opportunity to try out the gameplay of Phantom Blade Zero, all of them did not explain the story and conflict that this game will carry. In addition, we also haven't seen all the characters, features, and stories offered.
Of course we are very curious about what this game can offer later because the gameplay offered is very promising. Of course we can only wait until Phantom Blade Zero is released which according to the latest news will happen in the near future.
Click the image below to read more TGS 2024 articles:
