If the embed has gone walkabout, the launch trailer is also here on YouTube.
Last week we left Soul, the framed assassin with a ruined heart and 66 days on the clock, sharpening his blades ahead of launch. Now the review embargo for S-GAME’s Phantom Blade Zero has lifted, and the critics have come back looking like people who’ve just watched Iron Monkey for the first time. The game is sitting on 88 on Metacritic on both PS5 and PC, and on 91 over at OpenCritic, which is the sort of number that makes a publisher’s marketing department fetch the good biscuits.
The top of the pile is generous indeed. PCGamesN gave it a full 10, calling it a new gold standard for the action RPG and noting that, beneath the swordplay, the five big areas are built like an intricately designed Metroidvania. TheGamer also handed over a perfect score and floated it as a Game of the Year contender. IGN went for a 9, declaring it “one of the best action games we’ve played in a long time”, with the combat still feeling fresh after some 50 hours. Push Square, GamesRadar and GAMINGbible also landed on 9s, and VGC gave it 4 out of 5 while observing that it rocks no boats and overturns no genres, but is a thumping good action game all the same.
Every pile of praise needs its grumpy uncle at the wedding, and this time it’s Eurogamer, which gave it 6 out of 10 and raised balance and quality issues. Elsewhere the recurring complaints are stuttering, frame-rate drops, a wayward camera, side quests that won’t surprise anyone who owns a Sekiro save file, and a story that takes its time getting its boots on. Steam Deck owners should look away now, as one test found it struggling to hold 30 frames per second even at the lowest settings. A kungfupunk epic at the speed of a 1970s Shaw Brothers projector reel is not quite what anyone ordered.
For context, the 88 puts it ahead of this year’s other blade-wavers, with Onimusha: Way of the Sword on 85 and Nioh 3 on 86. That is quite the result for a game that spent its early trailers fending off the tiresome “is it a Soulslike?” question at every trade show from Los Angeles to Tokyo. The consensus seems to be that it is closer to Ninja Gaiden with a dash of Hong Kong wire-work than to anything FromSoftware has put its name to, and that the bosses are the real headline act.
Phantom Blade Zero unlocks on PS5 and PC (Steam and the Epic Games Store) at 7pm Pacific on 28 October, which here in Britain means 2am on Thursday 29 October. The standard edition is $59.99, and the physical PS5 editions won’t turn up until 2027. Sixty-six days to live, a Metacritic score most studios would sell a kidney for, and Donnie Yen in the cast. Soul may be dying, but S-GAME looks very healthy indeed.
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