Tom is an expert in all things Fortnite or the latest RPG release, but is probably spending too much time on the latest EA FC game.
Published:
When I briefly played Phantom Blade Zero at Summer Game Fest earlier this year, the team at S-Game told me that they’d only shown content from side quests up to that point, and that they wanted to keep most of the story quests a surprise for when the time was right. Once it was revealed that my six-hour hands-on with the game during a visit to Beijing would be right from the start of the game, giving me freedom to do whatever I wanted in the first chapter, I couldn’t wait to see what was in store.
Several hours later, I was blown away by the style, cinematic flair, intricate design, and deep combat. I truly think Phantom Blade Zero is shaping up to be the next huge action game hit. A title on the level of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which people will continue to speak about for the next five years and beyond.
You play as Soul, formerly one of the most feared fighters in the region, as he fights to try and save the underworld of the Wulin. However, he only has sixty-six days to live, thanks to the mysterious witch-like character called the Flesh Sculptor replacing his heart with an artificial one.
Combat is core to the game’s style. S-Game wanted to bring its vision of ‘kung-fu punk’ to reality, combining the traditional movement of the martial art with modern style. I spoke to Phantom Blade Zero’s Director, Soulframe, about how the idea of Kung-Fu Punk came to be, and it’s something he’s had in mind for a long time. “When I was in undergrad school, I studied architecture [at Yale], so I started the story with some traditional Chinese Wuxia culture mixed with some pop cultures like cyberpunk. But we didn’t have the term kung fu punk back then. We just wanted to make something cool, but I was at school at that moment, so after my graduation, I came back to China, and then tried to make something serious.”
How fluid the action is is impressive. Soul and his enemies jump, twist, and flip around during fights, creating some of the most cinematic action I’ve ever played. You can’t see the edges of the animations, with each movement flowing into the next.
S-Game has also managed to ensure that extra flair doesn’t make the game muddled, either. Even with the movement heightened, you still feel in control of Soul, attacking and blocking at the right time without the kung-fu getting in the way. Just roaming the world, taking out the fodder enemies feels immensely satisfying.
“We wanted to make everyone feel like it’s literally in a kung-fu movie. It’s a playable kung fu movie, and you are not playing a game through the gamepad. You are actually fighting the enemies,” Soulframe said to me, and you can feel that when you play. The cinematic style is at the centre of everything, without overwhelming you to the point that it doesn’t feel good.
I even visited S-Game’s motion capture studio in Shanghai to see how they actually created the action, and you almost have to see it to believe it. Kung-fu experts fly around the room, attached to wires, with replica weapons in hand. They leap and flip between attacks, meticulously creating what you’ll play in the game. How close the action you see in-game and what the motion capture team enacts is wildly similar. There’s been a real intent from S-Game to ensure that the martial arts aspect of Phantom Blade Zero is authentic, and it’s managed it. They even strapped some journalists into the rigging and had them flipping around the studio, seeing first-hand how they brought the action into the game.
The structure of Phantom Blade Zero is a little hard to explain, too. While it’s not a soulslike, and S-Game doesn’t consider it to be one, it shares a lot with the genre that FromSoftware pioneered. There are bells to ring to save your progress, a vital parrying aspect to the combat, and bosses galore, both along the main path and hidden around the world.
And those bosses are incredible for the most part. Across multiple stages, sometimes on drastically changing arenas, you need to use everything you’ve learned to beat them. Bosses tend to be significant difficulty spikes as you progress, requiring you to use weapons you’ve found and skills you’ve learned in the preceding quests.
I don’t want to ruin any of the bosses themselves, as the cinematic flair and scale are incredible, but they’re some of the most impressive things I’ve seen in an action game. The pace of the combat is intense, putting a lot of emphasis on your movement, parrying ability, and understanding of enemy movements.
Whether you’re jumping between wooden posts to avoid balls of fire, racing around a gorgeous meadow, or splashing around in the mud, the fights feel incredible, and they look stunning. I faced a boss with a weapon that caused bleed, so I needed to time my attacks carefully, while the other wielded a chain sickle that allowed them to attack from range. No two boss fights seem to be the same in Phantom Blade Zero; each of them boasts its own theme, style, and core mechanic. You can almost feel S-Game showing off how cinematic they can make a single boss fight.
There was only one instance where I found that the balance between aesthetics felt a little bit off. One boss was so much faster than me, disappearing and reappearing around a massive stage so regularly that I couldn’t keep up. For the most part, Phantom Blade Zero ensures you feel in control of a fight, and it’s down to you how it goes. With the fight in question, though, it felt like I was being dragged around by the game, scrambling for a foothold.
The soundtrack only serves to elevate the majesty, scale, and tone of each boss fight. For example, one instance, which you’ve seen in trailers and State of Play showcases, is across three stages, each with its own entirely different score. I spoke to the game’s composer, Cashieng Bo, about that, and how he ensured the music both stood out and worked in the individual fight. “At first I told myself, okay, so the melody needs to stay the same, but the style, the music genre has to be completely different. So, piano solo, classical quartet, but with the Chinese flute on top of it so it still feels like a Chinese game, and heavy metal.”. Facing a boss with heavy metal or elegant piano music playing, with a consistent melody, is a unique and incredible experience. I can’t wait to see how the fights develop after the game’s first chapter. I can only imagine how spectacular they’ll be.
Phantom Blade Zero also does a great job of keeping the action feeling fresh. Boasting 30 different weapons, most of which are picked up from the bosses you defeat, there’s a lot to learn and experiment with. The weapons are fascinatingly unique, too; they’re not just bigger or smaller versions of the same sword. In one fight, I used The Fanatic’s Broken Blade, which has a special ability called Tipsy. If you activate it, you become drunk, which gives you stronger flying sword attacks and automatic evasion, but restricts your movement and doesn’t let you block normally.
It didn’t fit with my playstyle; the lack of blocking saw my health deplete too quickly, but it’s great to see weapons that are interesting yet still make sense in the fantasy world. A lot of them have similarly unique traits too, giving you pros and cons that you need to consider on a fight-by-fight basis. Some will make sense and some won’t in every encounter, which forces you to experiment.
It was interesting to hear Soulframe talk about the process of designing those weapons and making sure they fit in the world. I visited his office in S-Game’s Beijing base, where tens of sword prototypes were scattered on the floor. Swords with a secret second blade, massive scythes, wobbly swords, and more were among the ideas that did and didn’t make it into the final game.
After “creating an experience and visual for kung fu punk,” S told me, ” I had a short meeting with our kung fu masters and stunt actors to ask how you can play with this weapon. What will be your original way and traditional way to play with it? So they will give us some images and movements, and then starting from there, we have pretty much integrated images in our minds. In my mind, this thing can be expressed this way in a traditional way, and then I start to think, okay, what fantasy can I add to this weapon?” That balance of traditional kung-fu style with whatever fantasy the team at S-Game can imagine is great. It’s authentic but original in a way few games are.
None of that originality would be effective if Phantom Blade Zero wasn’t polished and cinematic. From the first few moments, the game is spectacular. The level of detail, care, and intention that’s put into every cutscene, location, and movement is clear. Engrossing the player in everything that’s happening is obviously the aim here, and no aspect has been forgotten. S-Game has also ensured they aren’t overwhelming everyone with lore, requiring knowledge of Chinese stories from hundreds of years ago. “We just want to make it cool and understandable to everyone,” Soulframe said, which will be music to a lot of players’ ears.
While there is a pretty obvious central path, exploration is a big part of what you’ll be doing. You’ll backtrack to use skills and weapons you’ve found, fight bosses hidden in caves off the beaten path, and discover entire areas you may never have found otherwise. Looking around a bit is wonderful for the world-building, and an aspect of the game I didn’t expect exploration to be so central to the experience.
Having only played the early hours of the game, something Soulframe said to me stood out. “Our world is original and crazy. As you unfold the game, you will see more and more crazy stuff and strange stuff happening, until you suddenly see these huge steam towers in front of you.” The first five hours are spectacular, deep, and a lot of fun, so I can only imagine what will happen later in the game. Creating an authentic yet original work is clearly important to Soulframe and everyone else at S-Game, and it seems like they’ve made something special. Phantom Blade Zero is shaping up to be a phenomenal action game – one we’ll be talking about for a long time to come.
Keep scrolling for next article