Stray Blade Review (PC)

good
key review info
  • Game: Stray Blade
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: Yes  
  • Reviewed on:
Stray Blade key art

Stray Blade draws inspiration from many games, but the most prevalent, as I’ve said in my preview of the game, is Dark Souls. The action-adventure title developed by Point Blank Games is trying to make the soulslike formula more accessible to players and much less frustrating. However, unlike Dark Souls games, Stray Blade adopts a metroidvania approach, so some things are randomly generated.

The entire world of Stray Blade has its own history, and I did enjoy some of the lore that you can discover throughout the world. It’s pretty clear that developers have invested quite a lot in worldbuilding, but the main story feels rather generic. On the bright side, the banter between the main protagonists is funny more often than not.

Stray Blade is set in a fantasy world previously ruled by gods. Acrea is split in regions that you’ll have to explore to discover tidbits about the civilization that inhabited the world before you inadvertently landed in. There are secrets as well that reward players, so I’d encourage everyone to explore every map thoroughly before moving forward.

The game has been designed in such a way that you can return to some of the regions that you previously explored to reach areas that you haven’t been able. As you progress through the game, secrets will be marked on the map, so you know where to go.

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It’s a concept that’s been done before, so there’s absolutely no innovation here. It draws inspiration from the metroidvania genre and encourages exploration if you’re not afraid to fight everything on the map.

But let’s address the elephant in the room. Stray Blade is all about combat. Even though there’s a story to follow, you’ll probably not pay attention to it and completely focus on combat. And you better do that because the game requires your entire focus when fighting enemies.

Despite being simple to understand, combat mechanics aren’t that easy to master. The first thing worth mentioning is that Stray Blade wants you to play a certain way. Despite the fact that it has several weapons that allow you to play differently, you will still have to stay in front of the enemy and trade blows. I tried attacking from other angles or bait attacks, but these strategies simply didn’t work too well.

Instead, you have to dodge and parry the enemy, while sneaking in some of your attacks to try and remove some of their poise. All enemy attacks are telegraphed and marked with either red or blue colors, so you can’t miss them. The red attacks can only be dodged, while the blue attacks can only be parried.

Obviously, you need to follow the enemy’s attack movement and tap parry right before the attack connects in order to be successful. Same goes for dodging attacks, although here the closer to the moment the attack is about to hit, the more energy you get in return after a successful dodge. Once again, you have to watch the enemy’s attack movement and not dodge or parry as soon as the attack is highlighted blue or red.

It’s a simple system that works pretty much in every encounter and the parry/dodge times are generous enough to allow everyone to enjoy the combat aspect. The only problem is that the camera is very awkward and most of the time this will be your biggest enemy of them all.

Another issue that I’ve had to overcome is how the locking mechanic works. Stray Blade has been designed in such a way that you have to be locked on to the enemy to be able to hit, parry or dodge. Unfortunately, switching targets is very wonky, so when in the rare occasions that I fought groups of 2-3 enemies, the lock failed to move on the enemy that I wanted to attack almost always. Even after removing the lock and trying to use it again, the game would lock on to the last enemy that I hit even if it was farther away.

Apart from that, combat is pretty fluid and animations are pretty cool, especially the finishing moves. Weapons are quite varied and play very differently, so there’s something for everyone. I will say though that you’ll be stuck with the sword from the beginning of the game for quite a long time.

To switch to a new weapon, you need to find its blueprint and then craft it at one of the forges found throughout the various levels. This applies to any of the armor blueprints you find. I would have loved to discover these items while exploring, so I’m a bit disappointed that they have been gated behind a pretty basic crafting system.

As far as character progression goes, this is just as simple as the crafting system. Although it might look intimidating at first glance, you’ll soon discover that you can only put points into abilities that increase your health, energy and damage. The game also features a mastery system where the more you use a weapon the more experience you get with it.

The reward for using the same weapon for a longer time is that you can put runes in it that have pretty useful effects. At the maximum level, you can add 3 runes at the same time. Although the effects are very beneficial, the runes don’t last more than a few uses, so you have to continually craft them or use them only in harder fights.

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The Good

  • Tight, fluid combat
  • Nice soundtrack and art style
  • Great worldbuilding

The Bad

  • Awkward camera, wonky lock on mechanic
  • Basic crafting and progression systems
  • Weapons and armors are gated behind crafting system

Conclusion

Although my journey throughout the world of Acrea has been enjoyable, I think that some of the design choices drag the gameplay experience down rather than enriching it. The basic crafting system feels like it’s been added to gate the loot (armors and weapons), while the character progression for both protagonists is quite linear and uninteresting.

Despite its generic story, the worldbuilding is great and so is the soundtrack. The art style is pretty good as well. One thing that I’d recommend to fans of the action-adventure genre is to avoid playing Stray Blade like a soulslike game because they’ll have a frustrating experience. Stray Blade is a thing of its own and can be enjoyed without being associated with the Dark Souls series.

Review key was provided by the publisher.

story 7
gameplay 6
concept 7
graphics 8
audio 8
multiplayer 0
final rating 7
Editor's review
good
 

Stray Blade screenshots (26 Images)

Stray Blade key art
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