Phantom Blade Zero Preview - A Blast of Fast-Paced Action

Phantom Blade Zero first appeared last year during PlayStation's State of Play with a super flashy trailer. That continued again this year, with another trailer to end the Summer Game Fest stream. After playing some of the game myself, the trailers were accurate.

When I first saw Phantom Blade Zero, I thought that it was another soulslike. This is something that the developer told me they've heard a lot of, and I imagine a large part of that has to do with the dark fantasy artstyle.

However, Phantom Blade Zero is an action game more in the vein of the Devil May Cry series than anything else.

You have your standard light attack, heavy attack, dodge, block, and parry. One thing the developers mentioned is that they made blocking easy, just hold down a button, to make the game have a lower barrier to entry. That doesn't mean you can just block your way to victory, however.

Dodging and attacking use stamina, but you can keep your combo going if you switch to your second set of weapons mid-combo. That will refresh the stamina meter, letting you continue to wail on your opponent.

I was equipped with a sword and another seat of weapons in two short swords/daggers. I also had access to a bow and two special abilities, one of which was a cannon I could charge up to three levels and devastate enemies.

Having played about 20 minutes or so of the game, i was just starting to get into a flow with the combat before my time was up. It is quick, twitchy, and greatly rewards those with good reflexes.

Parrying at the right moment will let you hit enemies with a pretty good attack, but they also have some attacks that are not blockable or parryable, so you'll need to dodge them. Those flash with the now industry standard red, while moves you can parry flash blue.

I should note that the general attacks were not something I could parry. Parrying was set up for specific attacks, otherwise you have to dodge out of the way or block your enemy's attacks.

The enemy design was fairly basic, but I imagine that's just due to showing off the game for the first time to folks. I did fight the one boss featured in the second trailer they put out, and he was a bit tougher.

He had a large flail-like weapon that he would flash out an attack with every so often, which would break up his pattern some. Learning the little ticks and tells of what he was going to do was satisfying, and it just made me want to keep going.

Phantom Blade Zero Preview | Final Thoughts

All I can say is that this felt like a fairly polished action game that will satisfy everyone that likes fast-paced gameplay. 

The bad news is we all have to wait a while, as we won't see Phantom Blade Zero for at least a couple of more years. The fact that it already feels this great from a core mechanic view is really encouraging, however.

Let's all hope for some more insane trailers over the next couple of years.

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Phantom Blade Zero was previewed at Summer Game Fest for about 20 minutes.