Looking at the trailers for Phantom Blade Zero, it’s easy to think the game looks good, but it seems doubtful that the intense action will actually translate just as well to gameplay. But you’d be wrong, and after playing an hour of the game it’s made maybe one of the best impressions I’ve ever had demoing a game. Phantom Blade Zero is a riveting action game that feels every bit as fluid and responsive as the cult classics from Platinum Games, with an extremely evocative sense of style. But perhaps what’s even more exciting is how passionate the team behind the game feels — how they want to “rediscover” the feeling of action games from yesteryear, reimagined with modern technology. It already feels like it could be the next surprise hit, in the vein of Black Myth Wukong.
Phantom Blade Zero comes from the Chinese studio S-Game, responsible for making a mobile game series of the same name — with three games releasing on mobile devices in China. But before that Soulframe Liang, the CEO of S-Game, created an indie game called Rain Blood entirely on his own in RPG Maker. While Phantom Blade Zero carries on ideas from the mobile games, its story is actually based on the original narrative of Rain Blood.
