Stray Blade is an action-adventure role-playing game developed by Point Blank Games and published by 505 Games. The game was released on April 20, 2023, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S platforms and was produced using Unreal Engine 4 - which by the way is very well handled by the devs and we will get to that later.



The first impression

At first, we are faced with some cinematics that develops the lore and contextualizes what is going on. The game has a lot of cutscenes with dialog - and some rather empty and superficial conversations -, but since everything is dubbed (in English), it keeps us hooked on the conversations. Farren, the main character is quite entertaining, produces a lot of nice dialogue, and I feel it helps keep things entertaining. However, the dubbing is also not the best I've ever seen and the voice acting is a bit lacking - many times the emotions don't relate well to the scene -.

Although I find the story/plot a bit generic and that it reproduces most of the things we already have in other games, it is enjoyable and there is nothing that will take your mind off the gameplay, especially since it is a combat-focused game! Moreover,
the characters are well developed and make you good company during play.



A Breathtaking Audiovisual Experience

At the beginning of the text I talked about how well the Unreal Engine 4 is used and this is where I come back to: the developers have made great use of the tool and produced a very beautiful world. The game art in my opinion is the strongest point! Stray Blade gives us beautiful visuals and a beautiful world design! The environment is very well detailed and rich in color so that the vast majority of the environments and scenery are pleasant to look at - it's almost like eye comfort -.

The creation of the characters has a great visual identity and their uniqueness collaborates to maintain the dynamics of the lore; they bring more life to the plot. The opponents also have a very nice presentation - I would say they even have that RPG swag, which makes you want to have the same items or looks -.



For real, the world is impressive...

The only negative point that I would point in the visuals of this game would be the animations, which are kind of inconsistent. I will explain better, the combat animations are very beautiful and well done, and really pulls you into the fight, especially those that you perform and eliminate the enemies, however, the animations of movement of the game are very stiff and remind me of games decades ago. In the end, these are details that do not hinder the gameplay at all, but, in my opinion, the difference of beauty that the universe and the graphics have when compared to the movement animations is quite contrasting - I confess that there is a specific animation, climbing vines, that made me have a good laugh -.

As for the game's audio, I felt everything was spot on: the soundtracks are epic and tune you in with the mythical vibe of the game, while the combat sound effects are well crafted, all in a way that fits the universe and adds to make the experience more enjoyable.

Great Points That Overshadow Each Other

The combat and gameplay of this game are a sea of emotions - there are things that I really like and find very creative and there are others that discourage me. Starting with the combat gameplay, one point that must be complimented is how visually pleasing and beautiful it is when a combo comes together and the finish comes off without a mistake. It is really rewarding to finish off the enemies relentlessly.



The problem comes soon after, after all, the combat is entirely focused on parrying and dodging. The game has a system - which by the way, is very creative and fun - in which blue attacks you are forced to give parry, because the dodge is not effective, and red attacks you must dodge, and if you miss it, you take the hit - which is not even a little low -, and still take stagger, as if it were a quick stun.

Thus, your combat becomes limited and you cannot choose how you want to play - maybe dodging most attacks and only parrying those you are more confident of the timing? -. This kind of choice is not possible, because each of your opponent's attacks has a certain color that you must react to. In the end, it makes the combat more difficult and the aforementioned beauty ends up not existing because the dynamics of the eliminations and the fluidity of the duels are stopped by the player's own mistakes or by his own limitation of choice.

In the end, I feel that the game has some great hits, but perhaps they don't talk to each other so well and end up overshadowing each other. Still, these are things that don't make your experience bad or anything like that, they just don't allow themselves to reach their full potential.



Still, in combat gameplay, it's a negative point regarding the controls, in that the camera centering mode where you focus on an enemy is only really bad when playing with keyboard and mouse, because you can't rotate the camera when you are focused on the opponent, plus switching from one opponent to another is extremely inconvenient. Even more, it is almost impossible to fight without focusing on each enemy, as parrying is extremely difficult to hit when the camera is free. That said, my experience with the keyboard and mouse was pretty bad, so I ended up playing the controller and, in the end, it was great!

Details that matter

An extremely important point to touch on is the level design since the game is also an adventure game. Despite having plenty of rewards and content to explore on the map beyond the given objectives, I found the map construction very confusing - I got lost a few times in the first 30 minutes - even though I had a compass to assist. The locations always have detours and shortcuts, which in the end leaves you confused about where to go.



Another issue that has good potential but is not fully developed is the talent tree, which, although it is quite large, is also very limited. For, in fact, they are just talents that you gain as you master the weapons you use and that only gives you the buff with that weapon. No new skills or combos, just passive skills. In the end, it's not really a talent tree, but a mastery tab.

Finally, another point that should be mentioned, is the amount of bugs and glitches that occur, especially with enemies. It is not extremely recurrent, but in my first gameplay of about two hours straight, I managed to witness at least 3 problems that I remember well. Sometimes opponents disappear and are absorbed by a wall. Other times, the artificial intelligence bugs and your opponents stop the action in the middle of combat or run around in circles.



Thanks to 505 games for making the game available, material produced on PC via Steam.