Phantom Blade ZeroThe sword is quick, the story limps

S-GAME Studio has claimed the last days of the month for itself. The studio's kung-fu and sword game Phantom Blade Zero hits the shelves on 28 October on Steam and 29 October on PlayStation. October was a pretty busy month for the games market. Still, at the end of the month all eyes were on this game. Really, both dates point to the same moment. It's not the same time everywhere in the world, so it only looks split in two. A few sites say the lock opens at 05:00 Turkish time on the morning of 29 October. I couldn't find that time on any official page, so don't take it as gospel. If you're ready, let's begin.

First, a warning. Nobody played this game for this magazine. The verdict below rests on the game's own systems, the store information and a summary of what the critics wrote. Normally the first place we'd look is the Steam user reviews, but as I write these lines the game is still in pre-order and the page doesn't have a single player review. So we don't know what the players say. We only know what the press that reviewed it says.

Now let's explain what the game is. Phantom Blade Zero is a single-player action RPG. The tags on Steam are wuxia (Chinese martial arts tales), martial arts, hack and slash, dark fantasy and souls-like. Souls-like means a game of hard enemies, boss patterns you have to memorise, and a player who gets a little wiser with every death. So friends whose hands aren't used to a joystick, know this up front: this game can make you pretty miserable in the first few hours. There's also Remnant Dust, which works like the game's currency. Enemies drop it.

Nearly all the critics land on the same point: the combat. They talk about a fast, fluid combat system that flows like a real kung-fu film. The weapon variety and the boss fights get the most praise. On Metacritic, 41 of 42 reviews are positive, one is mixed, none are negative. The average is 88. On OpenCritic the top critics average 89, with a 96 percent recommend rate. Most scores are 9 out of 10 or higher. You don't see a picture this unanimous very often, friends.

So there isn't a critic who dislikes the combat, but there are critics who dislike the game around the combat.

But there's another side to it. Even inside the glowing reviews, the same complaints come up again and again. The story is disjointed, events don't connect to each other. The pacing sags in places. Finding your way on the map is hard. After a while the encounters start repeating themselves. There are balance problems, and performance at launch is shaky too. The lowest score came from Eurogamer, 3 out of 5 (60 out of 100), and Gamekult stopped at 80. So there isn't a critic who dislikes the combat, but there are critics who dislike the game around the combat.

This reminds me of games in the Sekiro, Ninja Gaiden line. If the sound of the sword and the pace are flawless, the player forgives almost anything. The one thing they don't forgive is monotony. That's the real test for Phantom Blade Zero. How long will a player who's lost on the map and fighting the same group of enemies for the fifth time find the beauty of the combat enough? Only the player reviews can tell us that. Playtime is reported as 30 to 40 hours, but that isn't verified information either.

Now on to the part for the PC crowd. The minimum spec asks for Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit), an i7-8700K or Ryzen 5 3600, 16 GB RAM, and a GTX 1660 6GB or RX 5500 XT 8GB. With these settings and upscaling on (drawing the image at a low resolution and blowing it up), you get 30 frames at 1080p. The recommended spec, an i5-10600K or Ryzen 5 5600X with an RTX 3060 Ti 8GB or RX 6700 XT 12GB, promises 60 frames at 1440p, again with upscaling on. An SSD is required in both cases. If you ask me, the fact that no numbers are given without upscaling is rather telling. Put the critics' launch performance complaints right next to that. It's also said that it doesn't run on the Steam Deck. Note that one down as a single site's report too.

Then there's Denuvo, friends. Denuvo is protection software put inside a game to stop copying. The Steam page says so openly, and on top of that you have to accept a third-party licence agreement. Protection like this gets criticised for hurting performance in some games. We don't know yet whether it does in this one.

Let's get to the price. On the PlayStation store the US price is $59.99 for the standard edition and $69.99 for the Digital Deluxe. The Deluxe edition comes with the Wulin Legend and Blood-Steel Form outfits, a digital artbook and the soundtrack. On the Steam page I got yen prices (8,580 and 9,980 yen). You'll see something different depending on your region. The pre-order bonus is the Treasure Basin accessory (it raises the Remnant Dust drop rate by 10 percent) and the Legacy outfit. Don't go panicking with "what if I miss it?" Both can be earned in the game. I don't think it's worth paying 10 dollars more for outfits. The standard edition is enough. On Steam there are achievements, cloud saves and family sharing, and the game supports 15 languages.

Where do I put the score? Combat is the heart of an action game, and 41 positive reviews say that heart is beating strong. So going below 80 would be unfair. But from the story to the map design, from the repeating encounters to the balance, the same flaws keep coming back even in the glowing reviews. On top of that, the launch performance is shaky, the copy protection is heavy, and there isn't a single player report on PC. That's why I'm not going up to the critic average of 88. If the player reviews come in and the performance gets fixed, this score could go up.

If you ask me, friends who don't get discouraged by dying in souls-likes and who can give up the story for a good sword fight shouldn't miss this one. Those who want story and exploration should wait for the first patches and the first Steam reviews on PC before deciding. Once the player reviews pile up, I'll pass on what they say. And those of you who play it, don't forget to write to me with your impressions. Wishing you days full of swords.