Phantom Blade 0 (TGS 2024)


Phantom Blade 0 (TGS 2024)

by
Thomas Froehlicher
, posted 6 hours ago / 453 Views

Tokyo Game Show has felt like it’s gotten increasingly bigger over the years, so any means of saving time while at the event is more than welcome. Thanks to S-Game’s invitation, I had the chance to play Phantom Blade 0 on PS5 after little-to-no wait, which was a bit unexpected for a title that made headlines in a State of Play.

The demo was composed of a brief but effective tutorial and a series of boss fights. The first thing I noticed after playing the tutorial was how intuitive the gameplay is. Within a few minutes I was perfectly at ease with the controls and enjoying the combat straight away. This aspect struck me partly because I struggled much more than I expected with certain other games at the show, in particular Monster Hunter Wilds (which left me with the impression that I’d need hours of training before even thinking about completing the TGS 2024 demo). 

Phantom Blade 0 may be extremely user-friendly and the controls quick to learn, but that doesn’t mean the gameplay is simplistic – far from it. Phantom Blade 0 is at its core an action game, so you fight opponents in real time and dexterity is the main focus. The base combos look rich at first sight; there are different combinations of light and heavy attack buttons, which is generally a good system for combo variations (and that indeed seems to be the case here). I could witness and use several weapons already, including short swords, long swords, and chakrams. Each set of weapons implies different combat strategies, which adds to gameplay variety.

Dodging and guarding are key aspects in order to counter your opponents and then ultimately win. There’s a color code system for triggering your reflexes, which is ironically very similar to the one I described in my previous article for Ys X. As in Falcom’s game, enemies in Phantom Blade 0 from time to time use blue and red types of attacks. The blue attack can be countered by guarding just in time, whereas the red attack is unblockable and invites you to sidestep. A successful sidestep at the right moment leaves quite a big opening to deal damage. I think this mechanism is part of the reason why Phantom Blade 0 felt so enjoyable to play.

Visually, Phantom Blade 0 is also very pleasant, although not particularly original. The dark fantasy setting & design is convincing enough for you to feel fully immersed, but the monster designs aren’t particularly innovative. The level of detail and 3D modeling is very rich, which places it among the better-looking PS5 games. That said, the environment felt a bit cramped, although that may well be for demo purposes only. The animations are strong, boasting battle moves that are very detailed and a flawless frame rate.

Given the dark atmosphere, Phantom Blade 0 could easily end up being compared to FromSoftware’s title, but that wouldn’t really be a correct comparison to make in my opinion. I don’t think S-Game is taking inspiration from others; rather, I see Phantom Blade 0 having its own distinct style as an action game. For example, battles are a much faster-paced affair than in From Software’s creations. The speed of combat is very impressive, with lots of blows given on each side in rapid succession. It’s so ferocious that when both you and the boss hit each other, the crossing blades generate a flurry of sparks in a very cinematic fashion. The pace of boss battles is simply thrilling. There are long range weapons in your arsenal, including a bow and a strange portable canon, but I don’t think they fit well because they’re very slow to use and break the pace of the gameplay.

I had enough time to fight through the three boss fights. The stages weren’t easy, but the challenge was definitely fair on normal mode. The third boss was especially cunning and did take a couple of retries before it went down. In this particular battle, if you don’t avoid the first attack, you get a game over screen on the spot, so Phantom Blade 0 is certainly a game that will make you bite the dust and test your skills, but without necessarily being discouraging like other similar action titles (like Stellar Blade). There’s obviously been care in crafting the game for non-hardcore players, but it’s worth noting that there are two higher difficulty levels for veteran players.

Phantom Blade Zero was one of the most exciting games I played at TGS 2024 (on par with Persona 5: The Phantom X). Not only does it feature exhilarating battles and awesome gameplay, but it’s also very quick and easy to adapt to. It’s also appealing in terms of graphics and visual design, though we’ve yet to discover how it fares in terms of narrative and gameplay freedom. S-Game’s title now finds itself a few notches higher on my most anticipated PS5 game list following this demo.


After graduating from a French business school, Thomas felt an irresistible force drawing him to study Japanese, which eventually led him to Japanese Profeciency Test level 1 in 2012. During the day, Thomas is a normal account manager. But at night he becomes Ryuzaki57, an extreme otaku gamer hungry for Japanese games (preferably with pretty girls in the main role). His knowledge now allows him to import games at Japanese release for unthinkable prices, and then tell everyone about them. You may also find him on French video games media. Feel free to contact on twitter at @Ryuz4ki57

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